Lehner Deal Likely Sets Market Price For Cam Talbot

It’s Draft Day, and there is an insane amount of trade chatter going on. A great deal of that trade chatter is circulating around the most mysterious and frustrating of positions: goaltender.

With this morning’s trade of Ottawa goalie Robin Lehner, the market appears to have been set – and the price is sky-high. The Senators sent Robin Lehner and David Legwand (and his $3 million cap hit this year) to the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for Buffalo’s 21st overall pick in this year’s draft.

Great deal for Ottawa, and Buffalo must have really liked Lehner. The deal has already sent ripples out.

Lehner being off the market probably drives up the asking prices for the remaining three goalies, though it does shrink the pool that could drive the price up.

The Canucks are also said to be taking calls on Jakub Markstrom, while the Flames involvement in goaltender talks likely means that Jonas Hiller is in play to some degree (or that the Flames have zero confidence in young Joni Ortio….or both). Yesterday, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman speculated on Sportsnet 960 The Fan that the San Jose Sharks may look at Hiller as a back-up plan if they can’t land Devan Dubnyk on the free agent market.

So another trade, or Dubnyk re-signing with Minnesota, could set off a rapid – and expensive, based on the Lehner deal – chain reaction of deals.

The new Oilers GM is already trying to poo-poo the idea that his team will trade their non-McDavid first round pick for a netminder.

Larry Brooks of the New York Post reported this morning that the Rangers had received offers in the vicinity of “multiple second-rounders and a high second-rounder plus a prospect.” The Flames have multiple second rounders, but probably don’t want to trade many prospects.