St. Louis Blues general manager Doug Armstrong is joining the list of those who expect discontented sniper Vladimir Tarasenko to be with the team when the puck first drops in October.

"There's a good likelihood that he'll be there," Armstrong said, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Jim Thomas. "Vladi and I have talked about that. He understands."

Armstong said he recognizes Tarasenko's desire to be traded, but the NHL's current pandemic-altered landscape didn't give St. Louis an appropriate opportunity to give the longtime Blues winger what he wanted.

"It’s a difficult industry right now. It's a flat cap. Vladi hasn’t played a lot of hockey in the last couple years. He knows he’s gonna have to go out there and play very well," Armstrong said.

Shoulder injuries have mired Tarasenko's career in recent years - he's only appeared in 34 regular-season games over the past two campaigns, and he put up 14 points in 24 contests in 2020-21. The 29-year-old was reportedly unhappy with the way St. Louis handled two of his three shoulder surgeries, and the saga made him lose trust with the club.

Fortunately for both the Blues and the Russian forward, the doctor who performed Tarasenko's most recent surgery said his shoulder should be 100% for this season.

"I guess my (hope) is that he’ll be playing so good that he won’t want to be traded," Armstrong said. "And we won’t want to trade him.

"We just have to have a good season. He has to have a good season. He wants to play for a number of years, and to do that, he's gotta make himself marketable. And to do that, we have to be a good team for him, too."

St. Louis head coach Craig Berube echoed that point earlier this month, saying he expects Tarasenko to play some "good hockey" with the Blues.

Tarasenko, who the Blues drafted 16th overall in 2010, has 442 points in 531 games and has scored over 30 goals in a campaign five times in his career.

Training camp begins in late September.

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The Edmonton Oilers re-signed restricted free-agent forward Kailer Yamamoto to a one-year contract worth $1.175 million, the team announced Saturday.

Yamamoto showed great promise in 2019-20, racking up 26 points in 27 games. However, he took a step backward this past season, tallying just eight goals and 13 assists in 52 contests.

The 5-foot-8 winger projects to skate in Edmonton's top-six forward group, likely alongside Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.

The Oilers selected Yamamoto 22nd overall in the 2017 draft.

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Zdeno Chara may be looking to finish his storied career where it all started: on Long Island.

The New York Islanders and the 44-year-old defenseman agreed to a one-year contract, the team announced Saturday.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

More to come.

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San Jose Sharks forward Tomas Hertl isn't focused on an extension as he enters the final year of his contract.

"We'll see when I get there for camp and stuff, we'll see if we get some talks. If not, I'm not worried," Hertl said, according to NHL.com's Tracey Myers. "I'm just going to play the best hockey and not think about it because if you're overthinking or (thinking) this is my contract year, I have to score goals because it'll help.

"For me, it doesn't matter because I think I've proven I can be a good player, I've shown I can be a leader, and I just want to do that and not think about my next deal."

The 27-year-old is entering his ninth campaign with the Sharks after re-signing with the club for four years and $22.5-million in 2018. Last season, he scored 19 goals and added 24 assists in 50 contests.

Hertl's name has surfaced in trade rumors throughout the offseason, but he's not letting his uncertain future with the franchise distract him from contributing this upcoming campaign.

"I'm not thinking about what will happen next season, will the Sharks extend me or if they don't want me there. I'm just going to play my best hockey and help my teammates," Hertl said.

"We have a lot of young guys, so I want to help them and just show them how 'Jumbo' Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski showed me how to be in the league, how to be a leader, how to play in the NHL."

Hertl has battled a couple of big injuries throughout his career - most recently tearing both his ACL and MCL in February 2020. In 503 career games, he's scored 151 goals and dished 172 assists.

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No one's signed a deal yet, but the communication lines between Vancouver Canucks general manager Jim Benning and restricted free agents Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes are entirely open.

According to Benning, he's in touch with the pair's agent at least every other day.

"We have a good relationship," Benning told Sportsnet's Iain MacIntyre. "There's no angry sides. We're just trying to work through it to figure out how to make everybody happy."

"We're just trying to figure out how to get to some common ground from their perspective and our perspective, he added. "They're important players in the future of our team and our group, but these are complicated deals."

Complicated or not, Benning is hopeful there's enough time to get the contracts done before training camp, which starts next week.

"I'd like to try to figure it out because I feel like they're still young players, they're still developing and I think training camp is important for them," Benning elaborated.

The Canucks are looking at bridge deals for the two stars in order to get something signed, although the sides have discussed both short- and long-term contracts. MacIntyre reports.

Pettersson told a Swedish media outlet in August that while he wasn't worried about getting a new deal done with Vancouver, he does want to play for a winning team. Last season was difficult for the Canucks and the 22-year-old, who was limited to just 26 games due to injury.

Hughes, meanwhile, has been quiet on the contract negotiation front.

Whether or not Pettersson and Hughes are in the Canucks' lineup, the puck drops on Vancouver's season on Oct. 13.

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Sebastian Aho finds the Carolina Hurricanes' minuscule signing bonus on Jesperi Kotkaniemi's offer sheet comical.

"To be honest, it's pretty funny to see a $20 signing bonus," Aho told ESPN's Greg Wyshynski on Thursday. "All jokes aside, we got a pretty good player."

Giving Kotkaniemi a measly $20 was almost certainly a jab at the Montreal Canadiens for offer sheeting Carolina's star center in 2019 - Aho wears No. 20. The Canadiens didn't match the one-year, $6.1 million offer sheet, which relinquished Kotkaniemi to the Hurricanes in exchange for two draft picks.

Carolina's social media team had a frenzy with the ordeal, poking fun at Montreal in several ways. Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon defended the move earlier this month, saying it wasn't done out of revenge.

Aho continued to say the move was good for the game of hockey as the news created a buzz throughout the league, and there may now be a bit of a rivalry between the two clubs when they meet this campaign.

"It got people talking. I think it's going to be a good thing. It's going to be fun playing them next year," the 24-year-old said. "It's part of the business. The social media is so huge these days. You don't have to play a game, and you already have a buzz."

Montreal selected Kotkaniemi with the third overall pick in the 2018 NHL Draft. The 21-year-old played three seasons with the Canadiens, scoring 22 goals and adding 40 assists in 171 games.

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