Interest Heating Up on Calgary Flames Defenseman Rasmus Andersson
Elliotte Friedman on the Monday edition of the 32 Thoughts Podcast on Sportsnet was asked by Kyle Bukauskas about the Calgary Flames and the latest on defenseman Rasmus Andersson.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
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Kyle Bukauskas: “That gets us to Calgary and another defenseman in question, and Rasmus Andersson. So that conversation has been there at times this year Elliotte, but probably hasn’t been as loud as it could have been, in part because Andersson’s played pretty well this year, and the team started to win a lot more in December. So that calms things down here.
But the end of the day, this is a player whose contract is up this year. I go back to the Euro Tour when we were over in Milan for a few days in August, and Mikael Backlund had the quote, the captain saying, well, he’s going to be traded. We all know that, as if they were bracing themselves for what’s going to be happening with one of their longest tenured players, anything new on the Andersson and Calgary front?”
Elliotte Friedman: “The only thing I would just say that I’ve heard new, and I kind of heard this a little bit on Sunday, is that it does seem like Calgary is getting a little bit more aggressive in trying to do something. I think there it sounds like there’s a desire for them to do it before the Olympics, and teams know that.
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Now, there’s been stops and starts with this before, so I’m always careful. But there are times it seems more active than other times, and one of those times is now. Like, if you take a look at Andersson’s game log, he is playing a ton of minutes, and to his credit, he’s played extremely well this year.
Like, there’s been a number of times I’ve watched him, and I’ve been very impressed, but Kyle, you go back, and you look, he played 25 minutes in the win over Pittsburgh. He played 24 in the loss to Boston. He played 26 at home against Nashville. He had another 26-minute game right back after Christmas and in the big win over Edmonton.
Like he’s playing a lot, like there are no nights off for this guy. Like I’m just looking, I think the lowest amount of minutes I’ve seen the guy play anywhere on my screen here is 22:40. I see a 22:28, but that’s an overtime win in LA. But this is a guy playing a lot of minutes, and he’s going to play big minutes for Sweden at the Olympics.
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But like I said, I heard that there’s been some increased activity around him, and I think teams know the Flames are in a window where they would like to act potentially before the Olympic Games. It’s interesting. There was a report on social on the weekend that there was something with Detroit. I don’t know.
The one thing about that is that we talked about with Quinn Hughes. Like Hughes wanted to go to the Red Wings. They were one of the teams that he was very interested in. But Steve Yzerman wasn’t doing that without an extension. So I would have to think that Detroit would have to know what Andersson would sign for before they would do that.
So and Yzerman is such a vault, it’s difficult to get a handle on what he’s actually up to. I don’t know. I didn’t get the sense that anything was that close. I just heard that the noise was starting to pick up. And I do think there are teams that would be interested in extending Andersson, just, I don’t get the sense anybody has permission yet to talk to him about it, but the noise is there.
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The noise is definitely picked up. And, obviously there’s been a lot of interest in Andersson in the past. The Kings have it, and I still think Vegas is looking for another defenseman. Big win, big weekend for them. They beat St. Louis. They beat San Jose, as we mentioned. But I still think the Kings are looking for another defenseman. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they were circling around Andersson, too.”
NHLRumors.com Note: The Calgary Flames are getting to the point of selling, but when is the question. It could be soon. But the question is, what will teams be willing to give up to get him? Despite the distraction, Andersson has played well. Nothing is off the table, but while the Flames may want to get this done early, others may want to see what happens to him at the Olympics.
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