What is going on with Andrei Kuzmenko and what are the Vancouver Canucks going to do with him?
Donnie & Dhali: Elliotte Friedman talking with Rick Dhaliwal and Don Taylor about the Vancouver Canucks and what is going on with Andrei Kuzmenko and what can they do with him.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Dhaliwal: “Alright, Elliotte, we got a guy named (Andrei) Kuzmenko here. You talked about this, morning on the 32 thoughts as well. Healthy scratch, fifth time. Where’s this going to end up? Where do you see this going?
Friedman: “Well, I think the big problem here, Rick, is that, you know, when they had those meetings in Dallas in the in a couple of times, they had a big meeting in Dallas right before Christmas.
Dhaliwal: “Yep.”
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Friedman: “And everybody said, great, great meeting, great meeting. Everybody understands how everybody feels here. Nobody expected we’d be in this spot 10 days later and I think that’s the problem.
The problem is not that (Rick) Tocchet’s benched him, I think the problem is that they benched him, they met about it, everybody said we’re all on the same page here, we know what has to be done. And still, it has not been done to the coach’s satisfaction.
So it’s clear that Tocchet is, whose pressed the right buttons almost everywhere on this roster, is not happy with what he’s getting here. And it’s always a concern, like, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told, if you have a meeting and it, you realize it doesn’t work that quickly when you thought it did, you’ve got a real problem.
So now I think it becomes what do the Canucks in the player want to do about this? And do the Canucks feel this can work? Or do the Canucks feel we have to move on? And also, what does the player feel to? Does the players say, ‘I’m just not gonna make it work with this coach.’
So I’m sure all of these conversations are going on right now. You know, as for a trade, everybody in the league can see what’s going on here. They’ve been contacted by teams. It’s not a secret. This isn’t the nuclear codes or anything like that. The, people know what the Canucks are thinking people know what the Canucks want, if they want to move Kuzmenko. To me, the only thing that’s new about this is, I think that there were people who believe coming out of that meeting in Dallas that this was still going to work. Now the big question is, Do people still think that this is going to work?”
Dhaliwal: “Isn’t it gonna be tough though, Elliotte? $5.5 million he makes, the player with no confidence. That’s not easy to move.
Friedman: “Here’s what I, here’s what I say about this. Number one, you in Vancouver have proven you’ve got a team that is able to make things happen. So I would say in a lot of cases, yes, this is very hard to do anything with. But the one thing that the (Jin) Rutherford, (Patrik) Allvin regime has proven here is they can get things done.
So I would assume, I wouldn’t assume that as much, and I’ve learned when it comes to the Canucks, don’t assume that they can’t do things. Because in a league where most teams say you can’t do business, the Canucks have made it very clear, they can do business.
So that’s number one, you have to be aware of that. Number two and you know, I think it just all depends on what the Canucks want to do here. You know, with (Anthony) Beauvillier, they found a team that was willing to take the entire salary, and they said, it doesn’t really matter what the return is, we’ll take a late-round pick because we want to move the salary.
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So, now this is harder because Kuzmenko’s got another year, but this is a talented guy. Like teams are going to look at this guy and say there’s a player here. Don’t forget when he was coming over from Russia, there were a lot of teams interested. That doesn’t change the year. It makes it harder, there’s no question about that. It’s going to be a challenge. However, I don’t think it’s the connection proven that it’s not impossible.