Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on the 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – An Almost Perfect Night for Jagr episode on Florida Panthers and Vegas Golden Knights and their pending UFAs.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
“You know last year’s Stanley Cup Finalists, you take a look at Vegas and you take a look at Florida. Both those teams have big time UFA’s. Like Vegas has (Jonathan) Marchessault they have (William) Carrier. They have Chandler Stephenson. Like those are important players on that team.
And Florida’s obviously got (Sam) Reinhart and they’ve got (Brandon) Montour and they’ve got (Gustav) Forsling.
And, like I think both those teams have tried to sign those players. You know, Vegas I’ve heard that, you know the the Golden Knights are very careful with term, like a lot of teams are with players who get older.
You know, Florida I think Bill Zito you know he’s been an agent before. He knows all the tricks of the trade. He’s a grinder. He’s trying to create a situation where, we’re like the Lightning, people take less to play for us. Things like that.
And so, to this point, as we record this pod, nothing’s done there. To me both those teams, unless something drops on their lap that’s better than what they’ve got, I just think you go for it with those guys and sorted out in June if you have to. You know, you just say, ‘All right, we’re going for it. We’ll, we’ll deal with things as they happen after the season with some of the, some of these UFA’s.’
Like you know, (Kelly) McCrimmon and (Bill) Zito, they’re both really tough negotiators. They’ve rewarded people who they feel deserve to be rewarded. It’s not like they’re unreasonable. But you know, they’re tough negotiators and I think the Golden Knights are careful about term and I think the Panthers like I said, I think Zito is just a former agent knows all the tricks grinder, grinder, grinder.
And, you know, I wonder how much business these guys get done before the deadline or they just say you know what, we’re going for it and we’ll deal with it and if I was in both their shoes, that’s what I would do.