It’s rumour and transaction season, really the most wonderful time of the year!

Though I’d probably trade the giddy din of hockey’s silly season for another 3 hours of a Los Angeles Kings v. Chicago Blackhawks playoff game, short of that, the buyout period, draft, and free agency is just the best.

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So far the best rumours from a comedy perspective are coming out of Ottawa, thanks to the Ottawa Sun‘s Bruce Garrioch and his reports about the actions of Western Canadian teams. First Garrioch reported that the Flames had offered a package of Mikael Backlund, Jiri Hudler, “probably” Dennis Wideman, and a top-100 draft pick for Jason Spezza. In that same piece Garrioch also reported that the Vancouver Canucks and the St. Louis Blues were talking about a potential Ryan Kesler trade, which would imply that Kesler’s “list of six teams he’s willing to be traded to” was perhaps growing.

A few days later new Flames general manager Brad Treliving chimed in and described the Garrioch report as “fantasy land” and proved himself an excellent quote for a rookie general manager. Then Garrioch reported that Kesler’s trade list includes only the Chicago Blackhawks and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

It has been suggested that the Canucks and Kesler’s camp have agreed to keep a lid on discussions between the two sides and it’s perhaps notable that the only information about the status of that deal is coming from the other side of the country. So, yeah, I’d take the “shortened trade list” report with a grain of salt, but if it’s true, that would put the Canucks in a serious bind.

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The big problem with both Chicago and Pittsburgh as potential Canucks trading partners – as I see it – is that both clubs have a surplus of talent on the back-end to trade from, but have few of the type of young, fringe NHL forwards with upside that the Canucks are likely targeting.

From Vancouver’s perspective, teams like the Tampa Bay Lightning, Anaheim Ducks and Colorado Avalanche – all of whom were reportedly on Kesler’s trade deadline list, but only Anaheim was ever really serious about the possibility back in March – have much better assets to recoup in a Kesler deal. But Kesler has the full no-trade, so if this deal does go down, it’s likely to be a tricky one.

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Speaking of tricky potential deals, it sure seems like Joe Thornton’s situation in San Jose is getting messy in a hurry. Have you ever seen a superstar player treated like this?

I can think of one: Roberto Luongo. In the wake of repeated playoff failures, Luongo was alienated in Vancouver (despite his having a lifetime contract and total control of his future in terms of trades). When the dust settled, it really didn’t work out very well for the club. Emotional decisions rarely do.

If the Sharks really are intent on dealing Thornton, and from the sounds of it they sure seem to be, that’s going to be a very difficult trade to make.

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I’m guessing that when we see the sort of relatively paltry returns that Kesler and Thornton net on the trade market, we’ll retrospectively be in awe of what Steve Yzerman accomplished getting a couple of first round picks and Ryan Callahan from the New York Rangers for Martin St. Louis. St. Louis had only one destination in mind and Yzerman still got a good haul.

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Now that his contract has been bought out by the Rangers, could Brad Richards be headed back to Tampa Bay?

I don’t really see the fit frankly, beyond the obvious marketing angle. The Lightning already have four quality centreman signed for next season (Steven Stamkos, Tyler Johnson, Valtteri Filppulla, Nate Thompson). Tampa also has former London Knights center Vlad Nemestnikov, who crushed it with the Syracuse Crunch this past year and seems like he’s getting very close to making the league on a full-time basis.

Where I think Richards could make a lot of sense? How about Chicago. Obviously the Blackhawks have that dire need for a second-line centre, but though Richards is an upgrade on Michal Handzus surely, I’m not sure he has the two-way punch to his game anymore to fill that critical a role (even on a line where a winger like Patrick Kane is driving the bus). How about centering a Derick Brassard-type sheltered third-line scoring group though (with Jonathan Toews and Andrew Shaw playing center in the top-six, and Marcus Krueger playing the defensively specialist)? I think that would be an ideal slot for Richards and he’d have a lot of talent to play, with a collection of Kris Versteeg, Jeremy Morin, Ben Smith and maybe even Patrick Sharp to flank him along the walls.

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The Lightning have decided not to extend Anders Lindback a qualifying offer before the June 30 deadline, which shouldn’t be a surprise. Lindback probably isn’t an NHL quality netminder at this point and certainly he’s not a good bet on a one-way, $2.2 million deal.

The Lightning have Kristers Gudlevskis and Andrei Vasilevski in the system, but I’d expect them to bring in a backup goaltender in free agency. Certainly you want a player like Vasilevski in particular to see a tonne of pucks in the AHL as he adjusts to the different pace, positioning and angles of the North American game.

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What is Ryan Callahan going to make in free-agency? When you consider what Ryan Clowe (5-years, over $4.8 million AAV) and David Clarkson (7-years, over $5.2 million AAV) received in free agency last season, during a summer in which the salary cap upper limit fell by roughly $6 million, it becomes clear that Callahan’s market value is in the realm of the exorbitant.

Is 5-years/$30 million within the realm of possibility for Callahan? I’d say it probably is.

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In my estimation, Peter Horachek did a phenomenal job with the Florida Panthers after taking over for Kevin Dineen and deserved a second season. Horachek was let go after Florida’s season ended though, the club reportedly low-balled Dan Bylsma, and on Saturday the Panthers hired Montreal Canadiens assisant Gerard Gallant.

It should probably be noted that hiring Bylsma would’ve been a clear signal of intent for an afterthought Panthers club making noises about spending to the salary cap upper limit this summer.

Gallant is a strong candidate though, an ex-Columbus Blue Jackets head coach who was the architect of the Simon Despres/Tomas Jurco/Jonathan Huberdeau Saint John Sea Dogs. That 2010-11 Sea Dogs team also had Nathan Bealieu and fantasy darling Eric Gelinas (if only Pete DeBoer would play him regularly, damnit). They really may have been the most fun CHL team of the past decade.

Anyway the Panthers have a lot of young talent with room to improve and will surely have steady goaltending next season with Roberto Luongo in net, so Gallant is walking into a pretty interesting situation. Considering how awful Florida’s goaltending has been over the past couple of years, just having that position reliabily filled for next season will be a dramatic change for the club. The sort of dramatic change that might make a first year head coach look pretty, pretty smart.

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A fantasy note on the Panthers: with better goaltending in Florida, expect a +/- bump from Panthers players who really struggled in that area fantasy-wise last season (looking at you, Dmitry Kulikov). Obviously the guys who fared better but were still in the minus (Brian Campbell in particular) could become real +/- assets playing in front of the NHL’s second most consistent regular season goalie.

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While the Panthers landed their man, and the Carolina Hurricanes did too, and the Vancouver Canucks are expected to announce that they got their guy shortly, the Pittsburgh Penguins remain without a head coach. Even worse, new Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford reportedly made offers to Bill Peters (who landed in Carolina) and Willie Desjardins (who seems about to land in Vancouver) only to have both coaches opt for jobs with other clubs. Other clubs with inferior rosters too!

There have been reports that the Penguins only offered Desjardins a two-year deal and told him he wouldn’t be authorized to select his own assistants. Presumably, if those reports are accurate, Peters was offered something similar. Can that really be the type of hard ball the Penguins are playing with prospective coaches?

The full story of this Penguins offseason will be fascinating in retrospect, but right now this just looks like a complete mess.

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One more question about the unsuccessful Penguins coaching search: “Did the way the Penguins treated Bylsma on his way out the door play into the thinking of Desjardins and Peters at all when they told Jim Rutherford ‘thanks, but no thanks'”?

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If you want to improve your club in a hurry – just like the Dallas Stars did! – acquiring young players with superstar upside who are labelled immature for whatever reason is a good way to do it.

This offseason’s prime example: clearly Evander Kane from Winnipeg. It would be stunning were Kane to be moved by the Jets this offseason, but it’s not outside of the realm of possibility oddly. Hard to see the Jets winning a trade like that. They shouldn’t trade Kane, actually.

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I wonder if a club could pry Brett Connolly out of Tampa Bay with the right offer this summer. Connelly’s prospect stock is low at the moment and obviously players like Ondrej Palat, Tyler Johnson, Namestnikov, Nikita Kucherov and soon Jonathan Drouin have passed him on the Lightning depth chart. For young guys as talented as he is, it’s possible to turn it around in the blink of an eye (see: Niederreiter, Nino and Johansen, Ryan).

Another guy worth looking at in this type of deal: New Jersey’s Adam Larsson. Larsson is so deep in DeBoer’s dog house, it seems, that he can’t even see Eric Gelinas. Although with Larsson, buyer beware, since his overall lack of food speed is – for me at least – a huge concern.

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Taking Ryan O’Reilly to team elected arbitration for the purposes to cutting back the value of his qualifying offer by 15% is so insane it has to be vindictive.

Yeah, yeah the Avalanche didn’t negotiate his contract with him, but who cares? O’Reilly and his agent sure don’t. Colorado is essentially willing to risk walking O’Reilly to unrestricted free agency over the possibility of a predatory offer sheet and less than $1 million dollars in potential salary for next season. It just doesn’t seem like worthwhile tack.

Basically the Avalanche have alienated a star player further, taken on a tonne of risk, and might not even win their case if this goes to arbitration (O’Reilly is coming off of a 60 point season and his comparables will be very strong). Is that worth maybe saving a negligible amount of money for one or two years? 

They really should be making nice with O’Reilly, selling him on his status as a key cog in Colorado, and looking to purchase a couple of his unrestricted years with a four- or five- year extension. I mean, he’s ridiculously good.

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With the way things are going, O’Reilly is likely to hit the unrestricted free agent market as a 25-year-old in the summer of 2016. He might make Bobby Holik money.

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Some talk about the free agent interview period causing a rash of early signings on July 1st. I don’t really buy this line of thinking, because I tend to think this just formalizes some of the types of conversations that teams and agents have had before the official opening of the market for years.

The players I think are most effected are the top end guys, really. If the free agent interview period had been a thing, would Richards have needed that second day to make up his mind back in 2011, or would Zach Parise and Ryan Suter have required that additional hectic week in July, 2012?

Thomas Drance is a news editor at theScore.