NHL Network: The panel talks about the goalie trade market leading up to the March 8th NHL trade deadline.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Jamie Hersch: “I just think about the goalie market out there and a potential Markstrom or somebody like, is there a market out there for a big goalie?
New Jersey comes to mind as a team that may or may not be looking. What do you think about that?”
Elliotte Friedman: “Well, I think this, I think that you know, Elvis (Merzlikins) is a tough contract and Columbus, but the better he plays, the more I wonder. I think it’s more likely that’s offseason, but if he continues to play well, I think that’s a move Columbus is willing to make.
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Markstrom, the one thing Jamie they’ve told me in general is, Markstrom doesn’t like his name out there. So I think they, they’ve made it very clear that if, if for anything to happen with Markstrom, you have to blow them away with an offer.”
Hersch: “Okay.”
Friedman: “They’re not just going to him with nothing like it’s gotta be.”
The other guy is Jake Allen. I do think that Montreal has set a price on Jake Allen. They haven’t moved from it. But I do wonder if some other teams can’t get a person they like, I wonder if someone steps up and pays Montreal’s price for Jake Allen.”
Devon Dubnyk: “Well, and an intriguing one to me is Marc-Andre Fleury.”
Friedman: “Yes, yes.”
Dubnyk: “Obviously, you know, one of the best to ever do it but won Stanley Cups veteran guy, but I mean, I think it really comes down to whether he wants to go somewhere or not.”
Friedman: “It’s his call.”
Dubnyk: “He’s, he’s already won. Of course he wants to win. So but, it’s so, it’s going to be up to him if he decides he wants to go try to win another Stanley Cup or we all understand we get older we get kids and family and stuff, sometimes that’s, that’s not what you want to do.”
Friedman: “But let me ask you a question from Fleury. Like I think one of the teams is interested is Colorado.”
Dubnyk: “Yep.”
Friedman: “They’ve got a starter who’s an All-Star…”
Dubnyk: “and they absolutely should be. Yeah.”
Friedman: “And I think Edmonton would look at it too and they’ve got a starter too.”
Dubnyk: “Yep.”
Friedman: “Would you want to move at that point if you were going to be a backup?”
Dubnyk: “I don’t know. And there’s like, there’s no way to answer that because I don’t know him well enough to answer that.
I think that that’s the situation that he would be going into anywhere. But those are teams that and that’s no offense to (Ivan) Prosvetov or to, or to Calvin Pickard, who’s done a great …”
Friedman: “Yeah, he’s done a really good job.”
Dubnyk: “… in Edmonton. But if you’re now Edmonton that’s on this crazy win streak and you’re looking okay, now we are looking to win a Stanley Cup this year. Again, it’s no offense to Pickard but if something happens to (Stuart) Skinner, is that your guy that you that you want to roll the dice with? Probably not.
And not even that but you know, Skinner struggled a little, a little bit last year you bring in a guy like Fleury and even if there’s a little bit of struggle there, you now have a second weapon …”
Friedman: “Yep”
Dubnyk: “… that you can go with rather than just insurance marker. So I don’t, that’s, that’s definitely intriguing and Colorado’s the same right? I mean, that’s, that’s why they brought me in there and I never had to go but it was like an insurance policy. Because (Pavel) Francouz was out for the year and they want us to just in case something happened to (Philipp) Grubauer. Same thing, (Alexandar) Georgiev, that’s going to be the situation for Fleury.
But really it’s going to come down to whether or not that’s what he wants to do and you don’t and you don’t know one way or the other because he’s already won …”
Friedman: “He can do what he wants
Dubnyk: “… everything you can win. So …
Mike Rupp: “I know it’s gloom out today. A little bit of sun in and out. Not great weather, but I want to see the Flower across the street. (they were in Toronto for the All-Star game). How about that? In Toronto.”
Friedman: “Here? (Toronto)”
Rupp: “Yeah.”
Friedman: “They tried last year.”
Rupp: “They tried last year.”
Friedman: “Dorry. Two years ago. He was in Chicago. Yeah, they tried. They down that deal cause they didn’t want to put (Matthew) Knies in it.
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Rupp: “That on intrigues me. I mean, he intrigues me everywhere.
Dubnyk: “That’d be another fun one to
Hersch: “Imagine. Oh my gosh. This place would be bonkers. It’d be so fun.”