Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on the 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – Previewing the Western Conference on John Klingberg and the Edmonton Oilers.
Friedman: “The other thing to is, here’s my prediction, this is just my prediction, Klingberg finishes the year in Edmonton. I could be wrong. That’s my prediction.”
Marek: “Interesting. He’s on a one-year deal at $7 million and is a very valuable trade chip for Verbeek. I don’t think that would surprise anybody.”
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Friedman on what he sees with Edmonton this year: “I think the Oilers want to win the Stanley Cup. And, they’re jammed up cap wise right now. I didn’t think they thought Puljujarvi would be back this year. He is. It’s jammed up their cap situation a bit, in terms of what they thought they’d be dealing with.
Like Janmark, if someone would have claimed him, that would have really helped them. Obviously, nobody claimed him. So it didn’t help them.
But they’re trying to the Stanley Cup this year, and that’s what they’re going to be out to do. I talked about Klingberg. I think that’s going to be a guy they are in on later, if they determine they need it.
I think they’re going to be all in it to win it this year, and I’m really excited to see their season.
I think they have the right attitude in terms of, hey, they went to the second round in 2017. Everybody thought they were well on their way and they didn’t get back for years. I think they all remember that. It’s kind of how they define themselves. I think they’re a better team. I think they are a deeper team and if it’s true that McDavid’s going to be a goal scorer this year, he’s going to be unstoppable, even more than he already is.”
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“And of course there’s Campbell. The one thing about Campbell that is really interesting is, it ended really badly between him and Toronto, and not just because of the contract talks.
We have gone indepth on the contract talks. How the two sides were miles apart. But I heard there were things that were said that both sides weren’t happy with.
And so, Campbell who has a reputation as being a genual nice guy, I think he’s angry about how things left, and sometimes a little bit of anger is a good thing.
Marek: “It can be fuel, especially for a goaltender in a spot where he can legitimately say, ‘we might win the Stanley Cup this year.’