Jake DeBrusk retail scenarios, Evander Kane landing sites, and Patrick Roy’s Montreal Fit – The Athletic

The trade talk quickly fell silent after the big Jack Eichel deal in early November, which the NHL takes for granted. Traditionally, there has been little first-half trade in the NHL with a salary cap as teams a) figure out who they are and what they might need, and b) try to figure out how to pay for new talent if they decide that they have some organizational need to meet sometime before the playoffs, provided they play well enough to be a playoff team.

Sometimes the reinforcement comes from within, and that’s probably what you’ll see at both the Colorado Avalanche and Tampa Bay Lightning, top preseason picks of every conference, none of which exactly yelled out the gate. Colorado’s 8-3 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday highlighted their reliance on two goalkeepers who fall into the loose “vulnerable” category. Darcy Kuemper was unavailable due to an unknown injury – this forced the Avalanche to jump into the emergency goalkeeper pool until the start of the second period when Justus Annunen arrived to support Jonas Johansson.

But Johansson, who bounced back in the 4-1 win over Montreal the next evening, was beaten by Toronto’s top scorers.