So, RFAs: James Neal, Kris Versteeg and Nikolai Kulemin are all up for grabs this summer, though they’d all require pay hikes, especially the first two if their respective bids for the scoring titles keep up all season. Much greener pastures here, but Neal and Versteeg will likely stay where they are. The Pens would sooner dump their older scorers to pay Neal more than lose him. He’s young, he scores every other game. He’s key for them. Likewise Versteeg for the Panthers, and Lord knows they can afford a bigger contract that any competitor could. Kulemin’s a thought, though. He’s a pretty productive guy, and a big one, too. He’d fit the Bruins mold fairly well. But would Burke be willing to give him up for a fair price? Who knows.

I guess the conclusion here is that there aren’t exactly a plethora of top-six right-wingers around – doubly so when you discount smaller guys like Stempniak. Still, when push comes to shove, Horton’s a big cap hit and the rest of the top six wingers are going to need bigger paycheques – and deserve them more than he does. They can’t keep all four, and right now he’s the least useful one of them.

Carter is a totally different kind of player and had a different role in Philadelphia. He is paid to put the puck in the net. Krejci is paid to set up his linemates. His numbers have been hurt by the poor play of Horton. Horton is just struggling converting his chances.

I had thought they would deal Krejci because he plays center and figured that Seguin and Bergeron would be the #1 and #2 centers. But it looks as if the team is happy in the long term keeping Seguin at wing. At $5M, they aren’t moving Krejci down to the third line. Interesting.

(Well, I don’t mean he should be a turtle like Lemieux… eh, you know what I mean.)

Being a 5 million dollar man will definitely get people talking around here, and put even more pressure on Krejci to perform night in and night out. As mentioned, if he’s the clutch performer when it counts most, that’s good enough for me.