Just a day after signing defenseman Steve Wagner to a one year deal, Pittsburgh Penguins GM Ray Shero is not close to locking up any of his four (Gonchar, McKee, Leopold, Eaton) pending unrestricted free agent defensemen.
Shero has begun to engage in preliminary discussions with the agents of all four players, including Bob Murray, the agent for defenseman Ben Lovejoy.
Lovejoy, 26, is scheduled to become a restricted free agent and the Penguins have established some parameters with Lovejoy's camp. The two sides have held discussions over the course of the past couple weeks.
Talks are believed to center around a one year deal and a longer deal believed to be two years, according to a league source.
Lovejoy is mulling his options on whether to take a one year deal for the second year in a row or work out a longer term deal.
Lovejoy is scheduled to become a free agent on July 1, 2011. A complication in talks is believed to be the fact that Lovejoy is seeking a one-way contract to gain some security on earning a spot in the top-7.
More Notes:
Word out of Steve Wagner's camp is that Wager was given the indication that he will battle for the 6-through-9 spots in the Penguins defensive rotation. Wagner would have been an unrestricted free agent on July 1.
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