Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – Six Degrees of Chris Chelios episode on the Vancouver Canucks and Elias Pettersson.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Marek: “Vancouver Canucks. Elias Patterson. I really I really do like how you tried to give this one a soft landing and tried to try to calm people down before ya talked about it but na, it’s the Vancouver Canucks and Elias Pettersson?”
Friedman: “Look, I really do believe that we talked about on Friday pod which is that I don’t know if there’s actually been like an actual offer here. And again, I’m not interested in discrediting anyone else. I can’t find any proof that there was an actual offer. But I do believe that he knows that they’re gonna throw a ton of money at him and they’ve discussed it conceptually.
I just think that every day this goes where Pettersson doesn’t commit, other teams are not doing their jobs if they don’t call and say what’s going on here. Like that’s, that’s part of what this is. And I do believe that other teams have called and said, what’s going on here, and the Canucks have said, Look, we’re trying to sign him.
But I just think again, I think that’s just the best way to put it. The fact that there’s no clarity leads to, we should call and find out what’s going on here. And that’s what I think is happening.
The other thing I think that is important here is like that Vancouver team had a hell of a win the other day, like a really impressive. That was a big win against Boston and J.T. Miller in particular, was fantastic. I think, I think that, that is a team led by (Jim) Rutherford and (Rick) Tocchet that can handle this.
I don’t think they’re thrilled that (a) he’s not signed and (b) this as news. But I think they’re both really experienced. Like Jim Rutherford has seen everything and Rick Tocchet has seen everything, and I think they are really capable of handling the noise as well as anybody could.
You know, I’ve said this to you before, Rutherford always wanted to be a GM in a Canadian market. And I think he loves this. I do, I think he really enjoys it. I think he enjoys the passion. I think he enjoys that he’s somewhere where it really matters. And I think you can handle this and I think that we’ll get them through whatever happens here. But teams are calling them and saying what’s going on. And where’s this going?”