Laine gives evasive answer when asked about a potential offer sheet from the Habs.

If I am the Winnipeg Jets I may be starting to sweat a little bit.

On Sunday the Carolina Hurricanes officially announced that they would be matching the offer sheet signed by restricted free agent forward Sebastian Aho. The Hurricanes star forward had signed a very front loaded offer sheet with the Montreal Canadiens but the Hurricanes made it clear from the very moment the offer sheet was signed that they would be matching it. Of course that on its own has nothing to do with the Winnipeg Jets, but the next step for the Montreal Canadiens just might. 

Earlier this week The Fourth Period's David Pagnotta revealed that both the aforementioned Canadiens and the New York Islanders remained in the hunt for some of the NHL's top restricted free agents. Specifically Pagnotta stated that both teams had interest in Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner, but added that the Canadiens had switched their focus onto Patrik Laine of the Winnipeg Jets.

"Multiple teams have considered pursuing Marner, including the NY Islanders & Montreal," wrote Pagnotta. "Hearing Islanders are serious about pursuit, while Canadiens may be focused on Laine. Whether Isles, or another team, move forward with an offer sheet remains to be seen."

Pagnotta was a guest on TSN radio following those comments and was asked to elaborate on what he had said.

"All week there was certainly a lot of dialogue and discussion from the Canadiens camp kinda of exploring all of their options," said Pagnotta as per TSN. When they knew things were gonna go south with respect to Sebsatian Aho, everybody kinda shifted gears and started to look... and explore a lot of different options and Patrik Laine is certainly one of them." 

"My understanding is he is a guy the Canadiens have a lot of interest in, whether they ultimately go the offer sheet root on another player is tough to say and almost impossible to gauge right now."

There have been reports of discontent between Laine and the Jets, especially coming off such a down year for the talented sniper, and with Laine remaining unsigned you have to wonder how likely it is that Bergevin might attempt a second offer sheet after his first failure. What is interesting here is that it sounds like, again according to Pagnotta, that the Jets and Canadiens may have already held discussions about this possibility, much in the way the Habs did with the Hurricanes prior to the Aho offer sheet.

"My understanding is that they have at least had some kind of dialogue about that," said Pagnotta.

The Canadiens now have their cap space and picks back from the limbo that was the Sebastian Aho offer sheet, and you have to wonder if an offer sheet to Patrik Laine might not be too far behind.

One Finnish outlet sought to ask Laine about just that and his answer regarding the rumors was very interesting indeed. 

"Might be just rumours but you never know..." said Laine.