NHL Rumors: On the Remaining RFAs, and the Canada 2018 World Junior Investigation
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The DFO Rundown: Frank Seravalli and Jason Gregor on the DFO Rundown podcast on some of the remaining RFAs, a UFA, and the NHLs investigation of the 2018 Canadian World Junior team.

Gregor: “Shane Pinto had 20 goals last year for Ottawa.”

Seravalli: “Yeah. He’s a good player.”

Gregor: “Very good player.”

Seravalli: “And he can’t even get an offer sheet.

Gregor: “No. And that’s, I’ve said this all along, It’s the one time where teams need to say, this isn’t personal, and the players can’t take it personal. Guess what, in the future you get all the power. You have all the power. Well, not all but a significant more piece of the pie in the power pie.

So if this is the one time, you gotta to grin and bear it and say ‘hey, you know what, Ryan McLeod last year, he had no arb rights, he signed what, two days before the season started at basically the most he could get which was $794,000. Now he got $2.1 mill.’

Seravalli: “Calen Addison. You know, he needs a new deal. Jamie Drysdale. There’s some pretty significant players.”

Gregor: “What about a guy like Maxime Comtois? Two years ago the Ducks were loving this guy, right. He’d had in the shortened season he had 16 goals. They’re really high on him and then you know they didn’t qualify him because of arbitration. He’s still a free agent.

Like, I think there’s some valued deals Frank for young guys who weren’t qualified that are going to sign $950,000, a million dollar contracts. There’s a list of those guys and I think, Maxime Comtois, if I was a team looking for a big forward who can skate. He’s got some skill. You know, for million bucks, $900,000, I think that could be a very good value contract.”

Seravalli: “How many guys from that team Canada 2018 team are not signed solely because no one knows where the punishment is going to land?

No saying any of them are guilty or have done anything inappropriate, or anything like that but just the connection to the team certainly hasn’t helped.

Cal Foote, he hasn’t signed. There was like four or five guys from that team that were not qualified.”

Gregor: “Well, some of them just didn’t play very well. That’s part of it but …”

Seravalli: “Part of it for sure but …”

Gregor: “There have been some players who’ve had their name drugged through the mud who I know one hundred percent without question have zero involvement in it. And you know what, I hope those players go after the people that accused them of something that heinous and they never done anything. I really do.”

Seravalli: “There are also some players who said they had nothing to do with it that did, or made public statements or had their agent make statements that did.”

Gregor: “No, no, that’s total fair. Yeah, yeah, that’s fair. But the ones who didn’t say anything, really, like I think the majority of the team except like two or three players didn’t make a statement at the time, right?

And then you had some, like you read online, there’s been people throwing out names, like Brett Howden for instance.”

Seravalli: “Be very careful.”

Gregor: “Brett Howden’s has been thrown through the mud. It’s disgusting. And when it comes out and he’s not involved, man if I was Howden, I would contemplate going after some of those people.”

Seravalli: “Well, it’s kind of fascinating that there hasn’t been anything, no report, no punishment yet. And I’ll be real curious to see what happens, even if there is punishment.

Does the NHL have the grounds to do this? That’s a legit question.

Gregor: “It definitely opens up a…”

Seravalli: “It’s an investigation that was not done within the court of law, at least to what we know.”

Gregor: “Yeah, so it will be fascinating to see how it plays out just like the offseason.”