Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman on The Jeff Marek Show on the Montreal Canadiens.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
“When it comes to Montreal, I think that the Canadiens are looking for a defenseman who can move the puck. I don’t know how big a move this is going to be. It might just be for something a little bit smaller, but, cause I think you’ve hit on the right thing that they can’t tamper with their first-rounders. First of all, it could be a very high pick and secondly, it’s in Montreal next year, but I do think they’re looking for a bit of a puck mover on the back end there.”
Marek brings up that Friedman wrote in 32 Thoughts this week that teams may be interested in Canadiens pending UFA defenseman Ben Chiarot and what would teams be willing to pay to acquire him. Marek brings up if you could get a second-round pick for him. Friedman:
“I think you’re going to be able to do better for him. I think so.”
Marek wonders if they could get a first-round pick for him. Friedman:
“Oh for sure I think there is. I think you could. I think you absolutely could. Ben Chiarot’s a good player. Plus he’s going to have Bieksa talking him up on every show until he gets traded – Bieksa ‘you got to trade for Ben Chiarot.’ Like that is going to be Bieksa for the next three months, right.
Look, he’s playoff tested. He’s not like a high-maintenance guy. You know you’re going to be able to plug him in and he’ll do what you need him to do. There’s value in him. If you go back, when Montreal signed him, there were a lot of teams including Toronto for example, was really interested in him and they just couldn’t fit the price point, right.
So, there’s going to be, and plus Montreal could probably eat some of the money just to get through this year and make him more valuable.
All it takes is one team that says ‘we gotta have this player,’ or two teams saying ‘we both really want this player.’
I think you absolutely can do that. For example, one of the teams I look at, you know you mentioned to me this morning that you were going to ask me about this, so I kind of did a cursory look around the league, and I was kind of like, you know the team that really sticks out to me that should probably be feeling really good about itself and thinking about what it could do, is a team like Edmonton.”
Marek says he and Friedman have talked about the Oilers before needing some left on their left side. He seems like a Western Canadian type of player.
