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NHL Rumours: Montreal Canadiens, Colorado Avalanche, San Jose Sharks

NHL Rumours

It’s time to start the work week with another batch of NHL rumours for your Valentine’s Day. Some teams are going to be sellers while others are dreaming big at the March 21 trade deadline. General managers are going to have to make some tough choices in the next month of so. Today’s NHL rumours focus on the Montreal Canadiens, Colorado Avalanche and San Jose Sharks.

All NHL rumours come from the original source and are subject to change.

NHL Rumours

Montreal Canadiens

Rumour: Sportsnet’s Eric Engels talked to Ken Reed about what the Habs could get at the trade deadline for certain players like Josh Anderson.

Analysis: Anderson is some that the Canadiens really like despite some of his struggles. Engels added that teams will have to pay a steep price if they want to get the services of the right wing.

Montreal is pretty much in yard sale mood as they try to retool their lineup. Jeff Gorton has been part of a successful tear down and rebuild of the New York Rangers. There are some good prospects on Montreal like Cole Caufield and Sean Farrell, who is having a solid start to the Olympics. The Habs also have tradeable assets like Ben Chiarot that could be spun into picks and prosepcts.

New York’s rebuild was helped by their solid prospect pipeline and some ping pong ball luck. Maybe Montreal will have the balls fall the Wright way and that will help them out big time.

Colorado Avalanche

Rumour: TSN’s Chris Johnston reports that the Avs have showed levels of interest in Claude Giroux and Marc-Andre Fleury.

Analysis: Colorado wants to make a big splash in their pursuit of the Stanley Cup. The Avs definitely won’t be able to get both players due to salary cap constraints. However, adding either one of them would be a huge boon to their title hopes.

Colorado may still be unsure if Darcy Kuemper is the guy to shoulder the load for a deep post-season run. Kuemper is 22-5-2 with a .916 save percentage and 2.54 goals-against-average. However, he’s not been part of many playoff runs in his previous stints with the Minnesota Wild and Arizona Coyotes. The Avalanche are in win-now mode and anything short of a championship will be a failure.

Giroux would be a good addition to the locker room and a veteran force on the team. He’s coming off winning the All-Star Game MVP award and showed his skills with talented players. He’d be a great addition with Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Nazem Kadri. The Ottawa native wouldn’t be counted on to be the man, but can give Colorado some much-needed depth. He’d immediately shore up the centre depth for the Avalanche, but can play wing as well.

San Jose Sharks

Rumour: TSN’s Pierre LeBrun said Sharks’ management is doing the full-court press in re-signing Tomas Hertl.

Analysis: Hertl is going to be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season and lots of teams will have interest in him. The Sharks are stuck in this place between rebuilding and contending. They still have players like Erik Karlsson and Logan Couture. However, San Jose is seven points in back of the second Wild Card spot in the Western Conference.

The Sharks are going to do all they can to nail down the Czech forward, but does he want to be part of a rebuild? Hertl would fetch a nice return if the Sharks can’t get him to sign a new contract. The centre is a young and dynamic playmaker that can also put home the goals.

San Jose will have to string some wins together if they want to convince the 28-year-old to sign. Some victories may just convince Hertl to stay in the Bay Area.

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