Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on the 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – The Battle of Ontario is Back, Baby episode on if the Columbus Blue Jackets would move Boone Jenner and what the Buffalo Sabres might be looking to do.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Marek: “Maybe call this the wildcard factor and all this and you mentioned Boone Jenner. And I had a conversation with someone last week, and I brought up Boone Jenner’s name, because I figured that this team would be interested in Boone Jenner.
And this person said to me, you know, one of the things that he wonders about Boone Jenner is, does the owner really like him? Because there’s always players where the owners …”
Friedman: “Does that matter? Does the owner have any power?”
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Marek: “Well, maybe it’s you know what, it’s the, it’s the golden rule, he or she who has the gold makes the rules.”
Friedman: “Craig Button uses that line a lot. It’s a good line.”
Marek: “It’s a fantastic line. So, in that scenario, this person said to me, you know, there’s a belief that ownership loves Boone Jenner and you know, don’t just, don’t just treat this particular situation like it’s any other potential trade. When the ownership gets involved.”
Friedman: “What’s not like really.”
Marek: “Oh, I listen, I’m with you. 100%. And I think of, you know, other owners and I’ll think of, you know, someone like Terry Pegula, who’s always really likes Zemgus Girgensons. He’s really like the player, really liked the person.
And you talked about the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday as well. And you talked about you know, them wanting help now. They are not in the send us kids. They are in the we have our kids, now we need to compliment them.”
Friedman: “You know Jeff, I don’t disagree with you. That’s why kindergarten has teachers. You don’t let these kids go off into the wild, right?”
Marek: “That a good (laughing) why kindergarten has teachers.”
Friedman: “I just thought of that. I think it’s pretty good. Again …”
Marek: “Tickle my chin that was good.”
Friedman: “Again, like you brought in Buffalo with the ends, you know, they’re, they’re talking about we need help now. And we have mentioned about how they’re taking look at some of their kids and I don’t think, maybe some of the ones that haven’t made the NHL yet, and I don’t think (Jiri) Kulich is one of them. I, I had some people who specifically told me that, that they were, they were asking about Kulich and they’re like, ‘No.'”
And he and you know, like, I completely agree with you. You gotta have veterans around some of these guys. Like there are people who say to m,e while you look at Chicago, they want three Stanley Cups and the kids were all the drivers. And I said yeah, they were and those, a lot of those kids are going to the Hall of Fame. You know, Keith was a little bit older but I think that team is more the exception than the rule. We we get caught up in exceptions a lot as opposed to the rule. And you have to have good veterans.”
By the way, you know, the other thing I heard I actually on the, on the weekend was, I think some teams had asked Buffalo about (Alec) Tuch. And I think Buffalo just said, you know, we’re not we’re not doing that.”
The (Casey) Mittelstadt one I think is really interesting. You know, I’m big, as you know, I’m big Andrew Peters and Craig Rivet fans.”
Marek: “Yep.”
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Friedman: “And then they have a Mittelstadt out there and I think the Sabres privately have pushed back on the idea that they are actively shopping him. But I think everybody can see here it’s pay him or move on. Like that’s, if you ask people around the league you know Buffalo’s at that point. Are you committing, especially as we said on Friday with everybody else getting paid, you basically have to make a choice. And it’s gonna be a big arb(itration) number too. Big arb number.”
Marek: “Yes it will. Yes it will.”