The daily Jonathan Drouin rumor mill has produced an interesting twist on Saturday, revealed during Sportsnet’s Saturday Headlines segment with Damien Cox and Elliotte Friedman.
Friedman noted that the St. Louis Blues are in on Drouin and that Robby Fabbri’s name is one that’s in the mix.
His name came up during the segment, but Damien Cox later expanded on it, saying that Kevin Shattenkirk “may also be in play.” Shattenkirk may not be on Yzerman’s wish list, with Friedman noting that Yzerman is asking for a “young player whose contract he can control for a while.”
Shattenkirk was reported by ESPN’s Craig Custance to be in play for the trade market, but he hadn’t been linked to a potential Drouin move. Friedman notes that if St. Louis had acquired Ryan Johansen that it’s believed that Kevin Shattenkirk would have been the chip going in the other direction.
During the segment on Sportsnet, Cox also noted that though the Nashville Predators did acquire Johansen, they’ve made the call on Drouin.
That would mix well with a report from Syracuse.com listing Nashville, New Jersey, Florida, Toronto, Anaheim, Ottawa, Buffalo and Chicago as teams having sent scouts to Saturday’s Syracuse Crunch game to watch Drouin play. More teams were scouting Friday’s game and a report from Darren Dreger indicated that the number of teams making at least preliminary calls on Drouin is in the double digits.
It was Drouin’s second game with the Crunch — his third since coming back from injury. Syracuse won 4-2, but Drouin failed to tally. He recorded two shots on the night. That’s a different story than on Friday when Drouin scored two goals in the first period and put up a team-leading five shots.
