Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman on The Jeff Marek Show when asked what is catching his eye right now heading into the All-Star weekend.
“Vancouver I think is one. Jim Rutherford, he’s stuck to his word. He said ‘I’m not going to go crazy. I’m going to sit here, collect information, and then I’ll start thinking about acting.’
If I remember correctly, and all the Vancouver people will tell me if I’m wrong, he said ‘I’ll probably start looking at things at the end of January.’ Well, I look at the calendar right now, it’s the last day of January, and word is starting to get out that Rutherford’s starting to put his blocks in play here.
And, you know, it’s going to be interesting. I think he wants to create cap room and I think he’s looking at some of his forwards and seeing exactly what we’re going to do here. And obviously, number one on everybody’s list is J.T. Miller and if that’s the way he wants to go, there’s a lot of interest in Miller. I think he’ll have some opportunities to do some things there if he wants.
But, I don’t necessarily think it’s only him. I think he’s got a few of his other forwards out there that he’s at least testing the market in on. What’s his value? Where are we going with here? Obviously, I mentioned Garland the other night. Look, you’re out in Vancouver world, you’ve heard all the names.
I’m sure he’s checking in. What do you think of Boeser? What do you think of Pearson? What do you think of Dickinson? And that doesn’t mean that these guys are going everywhere but I think what he’s doing is now is figuring out that market.
And, the interesting one that I mentioned is Garland because they just got him and usually you don’t see that happen but I’ve just heard it’s not an impossibility and I think there are teams out there that like Garland. What they like about him is that he’s signed. If you were to trade for him, for argument’s sake, you have him for a while and that appeals to people as the number you can handle and he can play with good players.
I think that’s going to be one. Miller, look, he’s, notwithstanding what happened at the end of overtime, he’s the kind of guy you want down the stretch, in the playoffs. He’s a nasty piece of work and you like that at that time of year. Obvious.
I think the Garland one is going to be interesting.
And by the way, I should also say too, Schenn. I do think Schenn. I think there’s a lot of interest. I shouldn’t say a lot, I do think there’s definitely interest in Schenn.”
Marek:
“He’ll go to someone that’s in the conversation for a Stanley Cup.”
Marek on a final note on Vancouver.
“What does everybody do. Put together fantasy trades. The one thing that I think everybody should keep in mind is, whatever Vancouver is getting in return for any player, it will be players whose contracts are less than the player going out.”
Friedman adds.
“Well, the only thing I would say about that is Jeff, is that it might not be easy to do that. Just go PuckPedia or CapFriendly and look at the teams. A lot of teams are going to be in the market, they’re right at the cap and/or they are in LTIR.
So, I do think that is Vancouver’s goal and it may take some work, but they’re going to do it. But I think it’s going to be tricky. Just say for argument’s sake it’s Vancouver and the Rangers for J.T. Miller. If that’s Vancouver’s goal, and as you’ve said it is, are the Rangers going to be able to do that without dumping off salary? If Vancouver is saying we aren’t taking salary back or a lot of it, are the Rangers going to have to go somewhere else first or are they going to have to do a three-way?”
Marek:
“I think this is going to be the deadline of the three-way deal. I think there are teams here that are going to be needed to help facilitate some of the bigger trades. I think that is safe to say isn’t it?”
Friedman adds:
“I think you’re right. Teams like Ottawa, Jersey, Buffalo. The teams that have room, they’re going to have the opportunity to facilitate some moves here. The tough one about Arizona is Arizona, you can only keep three retained salary transactions on your roster. Arizona’s already got two, Kuemper and Ekman-Larsson. So Arizona only has one more spot to do that. So, some of the other teams might have to facilitate that. But the one thing that I totally, totally agree with you on is that Jim Rutherford is looking at his team and saying, ‘look, we need some flexibility and I’m going out to get some.’
** NHLRumors.com transcription