Rickard Rakell strongly linked to three teams and two of them are Canadian

The Pittsburgh Penguins are willing to listen on their veteran winger, and David Pagnotta has tied the Edmonton Oilers and Dallas Stars to the conversation.

Rakell carries an eight-team no-trade list, which shapes where any deal can even start.

He is coming off 24 goals and 48 points in 60 games, with seven of those goals on the power play.

That production at a bargain rate is why he keeps surfacing on trade boards.

Here is the wrinkle. An eight-team block still leaves two dozen destinations open, so the list is far less of a wall than it sounds.

The real gatekeeper is money. Rakell counts $5 million against the cap for two more seasons, and that number is exactly where the loudest suitor runs into trouble.

Edmonton entered the summer with almost no cap space and a sheet already stretched by Stan Bowman's earlier commitments.

Fitting a $5 million winger means sending real salary and a young asset back, not simply adding a scorer next to Connor McDavid.

Dallas sits in a similar bind, perennially tight against the ceiling under Jim Nill. Both teams want Rakell; neither has an easy path to paying for him.

Elliotte Friedman floated a quieter option, naming the Montreal Canadiens as a fit for one of Pittsburgh's wingers, Bryan Rust or Rakell.

Montreal carries roughly $14 million in space and a general manager in Kent Hughes openly shopping for a top-six forward.

Rakell's two-year term fits a team pushing its window without touching its long-term core.

Kyle Dubas will still set a steep price, and Rakell holds a say in the outcome. But if this comes down to who can actually absorb the contract, the quiet fit looks like the real one.

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