Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on the 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – Is Lindy Ruff on the Hot Seat? episode on the Colorado Avalanche.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Marek: “The idea of what’s next for Colorado. You know earlier in this podcast you brought up Nathan MacKinnon and listen, he goes out and scores four goals. On Thursday night they beat the Ottawa Senators 6-4. Mikko Rantanen has the other two as well.
And I think we’re all waiting here now, for the next shoe to drop in Colorado. They have to be looking. (Elias) Lindholm is one of the more obvious names that’s out there. What do you think MacFarlane, Sakic have up their sleeve here?
Friedman: “Well, I think one of the things that they have to deal with is cap. They don’t have a lot of it. One of the challenges for them will be doing anything quickly. Like they, and they’ve built up the points right, they’ve banked the points, they don’t have to rush.
But I think that the teams we’ve talked to them know that they can’t necessarily race into anything because they don’t have the cap room to do it. But it there’s definitely a feeling that when teams are ready to deal. Make sure Colorado knows because they want to know when they absolutely have to do something.
Like I think they’re in on (Elias) Lindholm. You know, he’s a perfect fit for what they need. You know, I talked about it the other, the other podcast but, like he fits what they, what they could really use. I just think that, I mean, it’s almost like an NBA team this year like you look at like the beef of someone’s relatives saying something that pisses off a player, like that’s right out of the NBA. That is there.
I tried to find out who (Devon) Toews was talking about the other day, but there was some real omerta there. It was like you’re not finding out, like we’re not telling you who that is. So but clearly the message was received. But that’s all, it was also very NBA. Like it’s it’s pretty interesting how, it may be the, the Avalanche saw the Nuggets win the NBA championship last year and they have to take some of that personnel into their game.
The other thing it says to me about them is they’re not satisfied. They are absolutely, they won a Stanley Cup two years ago and you know, last year you have your hangover and everything and you lose (Gabriel) Landeskog and it’s hard to win and I think everybody recognizes what a big loss Landeskog is for them. Yet there’s, they’re not buying any more excuses this year, Jeff. Like the years of the excuse, they had their one year of excuses, you know, that’s, that’s over. And not winning this year is not acceptable.
And I do think they’re gonna try to do some things. You take a look they’ve got three players forwards in the top seven of ice time among forwards. The Maple Leafs the only other team and his three in the top 20 and (William) Nylanders 20th.
So I think you, I mean, you can’t do that all year. Even a guy like (Nathan) McKinnon will burn out. And in the postseason, especially if you’re going to run into Vegas, what is the thing that Vegas beats you with the most? It’s depth.
So I think they know they’re going to have to do something and they will do something. But a lot of what I’ve seen this year is the pride of a team that is, is letting everybody know that they don’t want to be gas in the wind. They want to be more than a one-hit wonder.