Dan’s Daily Links: Eichel Drops 15, Karlsson Saga, and Matt Cooke Awkward

We are now to the slow part of the silly season, but there is one remaining piece of business before general managers take off their ties Brian Burke style and fully turn their attention to contract negotiations and season planning. The Penguins have one player headed to arbitration, Jamie Oleksiak, and a couple players who could be signed to a new contract, including Derick Brassard.

In the meantime, PHN Extra analysis of the Penguins in the Eastern Conference context, now that the Toronto Maple Leafs have added John Tavares and the Tampa Bay Lightning are about to add Erik Karlsson–How do the Penguins compare? (PHN Extra. Subscription required).

If the Erik Karlsson trade were a hard news story, CNN would be in its third day of 24-hour coverage. At this point, the cable news networks would be interviewing juniors coaches and waterboys to find out more about Pierre Dorion and his trade negotiation skills. The Karlsson to Tampa Bay saga is now in Day 3. A third team, probably the New York Rangers is involved, but the New Jersey Devils are also reportedly poking around to see if they can benefit from facilitating the trade.

Yahoo Canada certainly has an opinion on who is losing the battle–Ottawa. (Yahoo Canada).

Here’s a good recap of the current Karlsson situation and price, using a conglomerate of experts, pundits, and reporters (Raw Charge).

Matt Cooke joined Sportsnet for the day to discuss arbitration. He went through it as a member of the Vancouver Canucks. It’s not a pretty proceess (Sportsnet)

Jack Eichel found a way to sell more Sabres jerseys, or do fans from Buffalo not wear jerseys, like, every day?: (NHL)

There were several signings yesterday. The Avalanche locked up Matt Nieto (Denver Post).

The Panthers inked defenseman Alex Petrovic–and NO news stories from Miami could be found on the first page of Google. None. CBSsports wrote a news story…less than 100 words. So, here’s the French coverage (La Presse).

Here is the latest on the forever heartbreaking Humboldt situation. The truck driver who hit the bus will be charged (CBC).