Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman on the Jeff Marek Show on the latest on Carolina Hurricanes RFA forward Martin Necas, who is in the trade rumor mill.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Marek: “While you were boring people on NHL Network radio with Scotty and Bruce, I was on with Halford and Braugh as I mentioned. And one of the names we were talking about is Martin Necas and that’s the name that, listen goes back to the proposed original deal when Elias Pettersson was going through his contract saga with the, with the Vancouver Canucks.
And since then, like other teams names have emerged as well. Is there a latest with Martin Necas?
Personally, I do wonder about the Boston Bruins. Like I wonder a lot of things with the Bruins. I wonder about Ullmark and where he’s gonna end up and I do wonder about Martin Necas playing with, or on the same team as David Pastrnak. Is there a latest with Martin Necas?”
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Friedman: “I just think that, look, I think there’s a ton of team calling the Hurricanes. I think, I believe that they are gauging what the market is.
And they’re trying to, and like, the one thing someone said to me, one of the teams said to me, is that the Hurricanes seem to have a plan to what they want to do and what they want for him. And, but they’re like, it sounds like they’re more targeting teams than teams that are calling them that, and Carolina is saying, we’re not sure there’s a match or we don’t know that you have what you want, we want.
Like Carolina seems pretty comfortable about doing this at their own pace. And the other thing too is just because they don’t have a GM as we do this call, doesn’t mean they can’t make this deal. As we’ve discussed on the pod, whoever gets hired for this position is going to be a facilitator and an information gatherer. They are not going to have the say.
So if this deal happens, if they have a deal that they like, before, if they have a deal that they like before the new GM is hired, they’re not going to be afraid of doing it.
And you know, the price is high. That’s what I’ve been told. And they’re being very particular about who they seem to really want to enter into any advanced conversations with. I think that’s, that’s it. Like some of the teams that have been reported, and I think these are all teams that have interest.”
Marek: “Yeah.”
Friedman: “I’m just not sure that they have what Carolina wants. I’m not sure Vancouver has what Carolina wants. I’m not sure Montreal has what Carolina wants. I, I think Carolina is being particular about what they want. And if you’re not, if you’re kind of not in that group, I think they’re being very careful about it.”
Marek: “So safe to say then …”
Friedman: “Like I look, I look at Boston, and I’m saying, ‘Like what does Boston have that Carolina would want?'”
Marek: “See the thing, well, I mean, one of the obvious ones is Linus Ullmark. Who has one more year left on term …”
Friedman: “That is true.”
Marek: “Maybe the contingency there, to waive, to waive the no trade and to extend.”
Friedman: “And they talked about Ullmark this year as a deadline, those two teams.”
Marek: “Yes, so that’s the one name that I wonder about there.”
Friedman: “That’s a good one.”
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Marek: “Like the thing about Carolina that I want to get to with Necas here, is safe to say, like they still consider themselves even though it was a tough end of the season. And we’ll see what happens with their back end. They have a lot of expiring contracts.
This is still a team that sees themselves as competitive in the East. As a team that’s like, we’re not rebuilding. We’re not taking anything down here. Like we’re still swinging at this thing. We’re still coming back out to try to win the Metropolitan Division next year and get in the Stanley Cup Final. So I would have to think that anything they’re looking for, for Necas appears on the ice next year in a significant way.
Like, one of the things, I would have normally wondered about a team like the Buffalo Sabres. Like eventually Buffalo has to turn a lot of the prospect and draft capital into something here. They have a lot of it but I don’t think any of that works for the Carolina Hurricanes.
Like to your point they can’t, they can’t wait for something to actualize if that’s what they’re gonna get for Martin Necas. So you move on. Like they want players now that they can put into the lineup, true or false?”
Friedman: “I don’t necessarily disagree. However, I, I also think that you know, Carolina really has a blank slate. They have a, there’s a lot of different things they can do. So if they feel that they can add what they need elsewhere. Look at how many roster spots they have?”
Marek: “Look at the back end.”
Friedman: “Yeah. So if they have other ways of accomplishing what they think they need to do, I think they have flexibility to do a futures Necas deal if they wanted to, because they have flexibility to do other things.”