Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on the 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – Decentralizing the NHL Draft (Friday’s episde), on Patrick Kane.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Marek: “Let’s start with Patrick Kane. Let’s lead strong. Not in the league right now. We know he’s going to make a return at some point. What are you hearing about Patrick Kane?”
Friedman: “Well, I wanted to start with this because I wanted to give you some credit. Which is not easy for me to do because we know you play a very minor role on this podcast. But someone was listening to the podcast the other day and gave me a call and said that they are buying your theory on Patrick Kane and Dallas.
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And, we know, there’s been a talk about Buffalo. There’s been some talk about the Rangers. I’ve been pushing Florida because I do think right from July 1 Florida was aggressive and letting it be known they wanted Kane to go there.
But I had someone, and this is a relatively smart individual..”
Marek: “Patrick Kane, Patrick Kane himself.”
Friedman: “It’s not Patrick Kane himself. It’s a good guess though.”
Marek: “It’s Jim Nill. It’s Jim Nill, GM of the Dallas Stars.”
Friedman: “Do you think Jim Nill would waste his time talking to me? Not a chance.
But he said he thinks that Dallas is. Put it this way, he said if he was putting down money, he would put money on the Stars.
The only thing. The only thing this person said to me about Dallas that he doesn’t like for Kane, is that Dallas does not have great travel. Which is true.
Marek: “That is true. That is true.”
Friedman: “Unfortunately they’re in the middle of nowhere there when it comes to the rest of their opponents. However, it’s a great place to play. It’s a really good team.
And Dallas is one of those teams that they can play, they can play fast. They can play east-west. They can play all sorts of different ways and he thinks it’s a fit for Kane in that way.
So, just something to remember.
Marek: “You know, that’s interesting to because you’re right that the travel is not great for the Dallas Stars. As a matter of fact, it’s real tough, bordering on brutal, bordering on some of the worst in the NHL. And if you’ll recall too, the Dallas Stars in a lot of ways were kind of pioneers when it came to the two-goalie system, right?
Like they were one of the teams that was, that were deliberately dressing two goalies and splitting the workload and mainly it was because of the travel. That they just, remember it was Kari Lehtonen and Antti Niemi. And it wasn’t a 50-50 split but it was pretty close to it and the reason was, they felt that starting netminders for Dallas were getting burned out by playing some many games on top of all that awful travel. So in a lot of ways, Dallas was ahead of the curve, the two goalie curve in the NHL, the 1A and 1B. And that was all about travel.
And if anyone missed it, my thinking on this is one, Jim Nill and the Dallas Stars are in and around a lot of different players at different times. I think they were in on Patrick Kane last season as well before he went to the New York Rangers. And I just look down the right side after Joe Pavelski and see a ton of spots where Patrick Kane can fit.
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And also, I still remember Patrick Kane playing with the London Knights of the OHL and he looks good in green. But again Elliotte as you’ve heard me say before, everybody looks good in green. We’ll see where this one goes.”
