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Dan’s Daily: Laine Trade Rumors, Thornton Leaves Sharks

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Pittsburgh Penguins trade talk Joe Thornton

The NHL trade talk hasn’t entirely quieted, especially around big-time scoring winger Patrik Laine. Jumbo Joe Thornton likely won’t finish his career in San Jose as he surprisingly signed with Toronto, the Ottawa Senators splashed more cash on a big-name free agent, there is a legit question if Zdeno Chara will be back in Boston, and we compare the new Pittsburgh Penguins lines to their closest rivals atop the Metro Division.

For me, this was a fun story to write. The meat-and-potatoes of the offseason has concluded, and teams are pretty close to complete. How do the Pittsburgh Penguins compare to the Washington Capitals and Philadelphia Flyers, the two teams they battled for the top of the Metro Division last season? We’ve got good news and bad news (Pittsburgh Hockey Now)

Could Zdeno Chara leave Boston?? (Boston Hockey Now)

Boston Hockey Now added a home run hitter — Joe Haggerty, who was previously the lead Bruins reporter with NBC Sports Boston. On Day 1, a source tipped off Joe that the Bruins are indeed poking around other defensemen to replace Chara, including…wait for it…Karl Alzner (BHN)

Rumors of Patrik Laine on the NHL trade market won’t die. The 22-year-old winger who can fill the net like a young Teemu Selanne or Brett Hull wants out. Winnipeg has needs. Pierre LeBrun got the full story (TSN)

Could Vegas be the team that makes room for Laine? (Vegas Hockey Now)

Jum-NOOOOO!  Jumbo Joe Thornton signed an NHL contract, seemingly out of the blue (every pun intended), with the Toronto Maple Leafs and thus bolted “his” team, the San Jose Sharks (San Jose Hockey Now)

And it looks like Erik Karlsson and the boys are already plotting Thornton’s return to SJ (San Jose Hockey Now)

This is not good news for the Pittsburgh Penguins — The Columbus Blue Jackets have tons of cap space, they’ve added help this offseason and they may go for more (The Athletic)

**AWESOME ALERT: Will the Colorado Avalanche bust out the old Quebec Nordiques sweaters as a third jersey? Nathan MacKinnon may have let the cat out of the bag (Colorado Hockey Now)

Andy Greene and Matt Martin are likely to return to the New York Islanders, that bunch of the Little Engine(s) that could (NYI Hockey Now)

The Ottawa Senators were a scrappy, but bad team in 2019-20. This offseason, they’ve done more to improve than any team in the NHL. They acquired Matt Murray, and now scorer Evgenii Dadanov (Sportsnet)