Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on the 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – Persuading Pettersson episode on the Nashville Predators getting back in a playoff position. There is still one player they could move despite that, and names you used to hear may not be available.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Friedman: “… They’ve gone on a tear. They’re in the playoffs. They, you know, like, so it’s like being a parent, Jeff. If you’re going to punish someone, you have to reward them. Like that is the thing I thought about absolutely is, the Predators said, kkay, we’re not going to do that. But now when the players have responded, and even better than you would have hoped that they would have responded.
NHL Rumors: Montreal Canadiens, and the Nashville Predators
You have to be able to say, ‘Hey, guys, like you did this for us. Now we’ve got to do something for you.’ And this is what you, how you have to pay them back. This is you have to say, Look, guys, you’ve earned this and we’re going to do this.
Now. I think the one guy who’s a little bit different and I listened to some of Trotz comments, is, is Tommy Novak. If they can’t get a deal done, Trotz, kind of, because, because I think there’s there’s quite a bit of interest in Novak. He’s a really talented guy, and he doesn’t make a ton of money. He’s making $800k and I kind of have heard that maybe some non-playoff teams might be interested in him too. Simply because you can, that’s a guy you can have for next year.
- Friedman Saturday night said that the Predators and Novak are progressing on an extension
Like Novak’s not going to be an eight, nine, $10 million free agent. He’s probably going to be somewhere in the fours and everybody would like that. He’s a skilled guy too. So I really do think that that’s the one guy that if they can’t sign, they might move based on what Trtoz said.
But I think a lot of it is, hey, if you’re going to, if you’re going to demand better from people, you have to reward them when they do it.
But because Nashville had a lot of guys out there. They had (Yakov) Trenin out there. They had (Alexandre) Carrier out there. They had (Dante) Fabbro out there. Novak, (Juuse) Saros, like they had a lot.
Like, like a week and a half ago people were like you have to start talking about the more. That’s the team that you have to watch and, and now like they may not do very much.
NHL Rumors: Washington Capitals, Edmonton Oilers, and the Nashville Predators
Those players you know, I, I gotta say that those players they deserve a lot of credit because, you know, I had people telling me after we reported that they’re gonna pack in their season and because they’re gonna, they’re so upset. and they have not done that. Like that, they have done the exact opposite. Like those guys are pros. Very impressive.”
Marek: “Good on them. Absolutely.”