From TSN’s Darren Dreger:
The Wings need to create some cap space and sources say Jordin Tootoo is in play.
Detroit would like to call up Gustav Nyquist from the AHL, but don’t have the cap room to make it happen.
Tootoo makes $1.9 mill. this season and is valued by some teams because of his grit.
Tootoo is also under contract next season at that $1.9 million cap hit. The 30-year-old may be gritty, but he won’t be the easiest player to move. In four games in 2013-14, he has no points while averaging just 6:32 of ice time per game. He’ll reportedly be in the lineup tonight when the Wings host San Jose.
Oh, and Dreger also reports that Toronto defenseman John-Michael Liles -- currently semi-buried in the AHL -- is available (obviously) and that the Maple Leafs are willing to “retain a significant portion of Liles’s salary for the remainder of his contract” (which is the interesting part).
Liles’ cap hit is $3.875 million, of which only $925,000 is saved by having him play in the minors. Under the CBA, teams can retain up to 50 percent of a player’s salary and cap hit in a trade. So basically, if the Leafs are really desperate, a team could get Liles through 2015-16 for a cap hit of just under $2 million.