Welcome to our daily rumours article brought to you by NHL Lines site Betway
Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – Doing the Wright Thing – on the San Jose Sharks and defenseman Erik Karlsson.
Marek: “Before we move on, anything you want to add here about Erik Karlsson?”
Friedman: “He’s not been approached at this time about waiving his move clause. That’s number one.
I think the interesting thing here is that, by putting it out there, like Mike Grier did at the GM meetings, I think what he’s done is, he’s created a conversation among a number of potential teams about what they’re willing to do.
If you’ve been following this, you know that Karlsson has four years left on his contract after this season at $11.5 million per year. And one of the conversations I think San Jose is trying to figure out is, is there anybody out there who’s willing to take the whole deal?
I think we all kind of assume that’s unlikely. If the answer is no, what are you willing to do? And I think that’s what he’s trying to figure out.
Karlsson ultimately has control over this process but what the Sharks need to know is, what are we dealing with in terms of what we’re going to need to retain and I think that’s what the early part of this process is all about.
What are other teams willing to do? Not in terms of players or prospects or anything like that, simply in terms of the money. That’s the first part I believe of this deal. ”