• When the idea to put McDavid and Draisaitl together was hatched
• How much will Jesper Wallstedt get on an extension?
• Teams interested in Flyers’ Tyson Foerster

Count the Los Angeles Kings among teams who have recently kicked the tires on Connor Hellebuyck.

While the depth of these trade talks is difficult to qualify, the belief is Kings GM Ken Holland at the very least has ascertained an understanding on the price required to pry the three-time Vezina Trophy winner out of the prairies. And yes, the Kings have received affirmation that Hellebuyck apparently would accept a trade to LA.

What the Kings are now internally debating is direction: If 0-3-2 quickly becomes 1-8-2 and sinks their season, it will be difficult for Los Angeles to include a 2027 or 2028 first-round pick as part of the package – even with proper lottery protection. 

Because it isn’t just about Landon DuPont ping-pong ball insurance, their conversation also must include a potential pivot for one of the oldest rosters in the NHL.

There are a few explanations for the Kings’ rough start. They’ve faced heavy competition. Their combined special teams are worst in the league – and it will take a while to statistically dig out of a 1-for-5 start on the penalty kill courtesy of Colorado on opening night. They’ve battled injury, missing significant pieces in Kevin Fiala and Mats Zuccarello, who are still weeks away. 

No doubt, goaltending has been part of the equation. Canadian Olympian Darcy Kuemper and Anton Forsberg have combined for an .848 save percentage in the first two weeks. The Kings need wins and they need them soon.

Two things are happening at once. While the Kings are wrestling with their future, the Jets are weighing a potential three-ring circus if Hellebuyck says he’d like to return. Winnipeg has mechanisms available in the CBA to keep Hellebuyck away from the team if that call comes in. They can spell him for conditioning, they can subsequently suspend him from game action for violating team rules, but contractually he has a right to show up and earn.

Maybe Hellebuyck is exactly what the Kings need – an elite backstop with five years remaining on his deal, enough to be the connective backbone between a potential playoff team now and the youth movement pending.

For more than a decade in Edmonton, it’s been a Quixotic quest across five coaching staffs to have Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl drive separate lines.

But one of the ideas that McDavid and Draisaitl discussed with Mike Babcock while the players interviewed the coach last June was the notion of them playing together. It works historically well on the power play, why not at even strength?

Turns out, it works well anywhere. McDavid and Draisaitl have combined for 28 points in six games, four more than any other duo in the league.

Babcock mentioned how that has relieved the burden of trying to find two separate forward lines 20-plus minutes per night. It’s also provided an opportunity for a young player like Owen Michaels to become the latest in a long line of Babcock depth forward favourites. Yes, an actual line Babcock used this season: “Thank god for Owen Michaels.”

It should be even easier to find trust throughout the lineup when these players return in (projected) order from injury: Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Colton Dach and Matt Savoie.

The last time the Edmonton Oilers opened a season without a regulation loss through six games was 1983. We all know what happened in the spring of 1984.

Paying the Wall of St. Paul

If it’s possible for Bill Guerin to park the Quinn Hughes conversation for a second, the contract extension due to goaltender Jesper Wallstedt might be equally juicy in terms of impact on the Wild’s roster construction.

Wallstedt, who turns 24 next month, is going to be expensive. Igor Shesterkin holds the NHL record for largest second contract among goaltenders in the salary cap era.

Food for thought: Shesterkin signed a four-year, $22.666 million deal in 2021, which paid him an AAV of $5.666 million. 

At the time, Shesterkin had 43 NHL starts under his belt with a .921 save percentage. Right now, Wallstedt has 39 NHL starts with a .918 save percentage since becoming a full-time NHLer. He holds a .933 save percentage this season and leads the league in goals saved above average and minutes played while Filip Gustavsson is out.

AFP Analytics projects Wallstedt’s next contract at five years by $8 million, which would unsurprisingly blow Shesterkin’s five-year-old record out of the water. But that price for Wallstedt, while it would put him in the AAV range of Jeremy Swayman, Ilya Sorokin and Hellebuyck, it also feels a little light given the new salary cap environment.

Let’s say for argument’s sake, though, that Wallstedt lands at $8 million. The wrinkle for the Wild is that Gustavsson is only in the first year of a five-year deal that pays him $6.8 million per. Can Minnesota afford $14.8 million in goaltending if Hughes re-signs at $20 million?

• While vultures circle the Philadelphia Flyers amid their franchise-worst start, rival teams have been wondering: Is there any way we could get our hands on Tyson Foerster? He seems to be on a list of untouchables. Really impressive player.

• Fiala’s recovery has been a rollercoaster. He felt so good following surgery from that gruesome injury in Milan that he was skating in May and actually asked the Kings for permission to play in the World Championship on home soil in Switzerland. He struggled all summer and then required a cleanout surgery in September to remove screws that were inserted to strengthen the fracture. Fiala is expected to begin skating again this weekend with noted skills coach Andreas Larsson in Los Angeles. The plan is for him to rejoin the Kings for practice when they return home at the end of the month.

• Interesting that for most of the teams on Dylan Larkin’s list, he would be the No. 2 centre, not the driver. Florida has Aleksander Barkov. Colorado has Nathan MacKinnon. Vegas has Jack Eichel. Dallas has Roope Hintz. Maybe that’s also why a trade hasn’t been consummated.

• Speaking of Larkin, can we agree that he’d also be behind Nick Suzuki on the depth chart in Montreal? It’s bizarre to me that is a lightning rod for conversation – given that Suzuki scored 101 points last year and won the Selke Trophy.

• With McDavid on pace for 238 points, can we at least spend five seconds dreaming about what it would be like for the NHL to have another 200-point season? Only Wayne Gretzky has done it, last in 1985-86. The closest since then? Mario Lemieux with 199 points (85 goals) in 1988-89.