from Elliotte Freidman of Sportsnet,

- A few GMs/executives saw the same thing in the first week. As one said, “A lot of teams are really thin on the blue line.” You could probably name 10 clubs with a strong defence corps, but how many of them are confident enough to subtract from that group in a trade? There’s a squeeze. That’s where Vegas comes in, but right now it’s an old-fashioned staring contest between George McPhee and his peers. As one GM said, “The guys we want are the guys he wants to keep.”

- Tampa Bay beat Washington on Monday with a four-forward overtime power play — Nikita Kucherov, Ondrej Palat, Brayden Point and Steven Stamkos. Good luck defending that.

- The NHL and NHLPA’s next face-to-face meeting about the international calendar is Thursday in Toronto. There is some question about whether or not everyone wants to go back to China, because it didn’t make money. (The promoter takes the risk, not the league or union.) I can’t believe this is even an issue. You’re going to go once and give up, four years from the Olympics? I’d like to see them go to France and Germany, too, since the world championships were just there.

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