"I thought we owed it to this group," Blake said. "Coming in here, we haven't seen them with Jeff Carter. We haven't seen [Tanner] Pearson and [Tyler] Toffoli with Jeff Carter [in the past four months]. We haven't seen Lewis with Jeff Carter in this lineup yet. We're going to get that here shortly when Trevor comes back. I think it will give us a real sense. I think we're in a position here to compete for a playoff spot, and that's going to be up to these players now."
Blake said he wasn't close on any deals.