Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on the 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – What is Anyone Going to Do?
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Friedman: “And you know, Jeff, like I think there’s just an overall feeling around the Flames right now that, we’ve got to think about some big decisions here.
Like, you know, one of the things that’s happened a couple of weeks ago, I reported that you know, (Noah) Hanafin the, the talks were getting closer and then I talked on the pod last Monday, a week ago today, how people would be surprised that it wouldn’t happen.
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Well, I can tell you coming into this weekend, now we’re starting to get a little bit of a ‘hang on here a second’ feeling. And those were pretty far along. I just think that everybody right now is taking a deep breath and a long look at what the start of this season could mean for the Calgary Flames.”
Marek: “Well, what did we talk about one podcast ago, two podcasts ago, they all run together at this point. How many, how many of these Calgary Flames players, who are on expiring contracts, so you can throw Tanev into that, Chris Tanev into that equation as well. Nikita Zadorov. Lindholm’s the biggie, right? We’re all waiting on Lindholm., to what’s his decision going to be is? What’s the Mikael Backlund contract, going act as a magnet for a lot of these other guys. And what did we talk about? Is this now a wait-and-see group of unrestricted free agents?
Friedman: “I thought it would be Hanafin signs and then wait-and-see. Now I’m not even sure about that. Like again, like, it still could happen. You know, I just had some people say to me around this, I just think that the way this season has started, I just think there’s a little bit of uncertainty there now.”
Marek: “I always hate asking about mood when you’re not there on a consistent day-in and day-out basis. So maybe Kelly Hrudy is better to answer this question, but in a couple of days you’ve been to Edmonton, and I’ll ask you about the Oilers in a second, but been around the Calgary Flames, what’s the mood even though it’s only been a couple of days few around?
Friedman: “Well, I think that the thing is that, on Saturday, everybody was in a great mood. It was excellent. I think people really wanted to enjoy the weekend. You know a lot of families were there. obviously.
The one thing I think about this, especially when you’re losing, I think everybody really enjoyed the outdoor skate on Saturday and I think they enjoyed skating with their families on Saturday.
What this game is supposed to do is break up the drudgery of the season. Now normally you don’t see this game come this early, but I think in a lot of ways, you know, we taped our last podcast Thursday night, as both of these teams were getting booed off the ice by their home fans. That’s how bad it was. That’s how negative the vibes were. And suddenly you come in here on Saturday, and you get an outdoor skate. You get to skate with your family. That should be a tension breaker. That shouldn’t be something that makes you feel, ‘Ah now I feel I feel good about myself.’
Well, you know, here we are now, and Edmonton feels really good about themselves after that game. McDavid was back. It was great to see, immediately added another level of, just enjoyment for everybody who was at the game. The Oilers looked much, much better.
You know the Flames, again, like they scored a couple, like the guy I really feel for is (Jakob) Markstrom. That’s the guy I really feel for because he is battling. He is holding up his end of the bargain. But you know around him, it’s just not there.
And you know Ryan Huska was asked about his big line after the game, that (Jonathan) Huberdeau – (Nazem) Kadri – Matthew Coronato line. Basically, he said we didn’t get much from it.
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And I just think this Calgary team, you know, they’re second last in the West. Coming up to November 1st. I think you have a chance to refresh yourself a bit here. It’s not easy. You don’t want to move on from good players. But if it’s not working, it’s not working. And you know, the way this is going might make the decisions for Calgary instead of Calgary making the decisions for itself.