TSN: Pierre LeBrun on the Jay Onrait show talking about the Scouting Combine this week in Buffalo and how some news could start trickling out afterwards.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Onrait: “You wrote last week about the potential unrestricted free agents this offseason. Some of the big names, Jake Guentzel we’ve talked about him all year long.
Such interesting names out of Vancouver Pierre, you know (Elias) Lindholm, Tyler Myers, Nikita Zadorov. Tyler Bertuzzi, Max Domi in Toronto.
We know that Scouting Combine is coming up next week in Buffalo. I know you’re going to be there. Do you feel like there will potentially be some news developing at that combine considering so many GMs and so many agents will be present?
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LeBrun: “Yeah, certainly what I can tell you, Jay is that, in the conversations we’ve had here this week, that there are a number of agents who are lining up meetings with front office people to say okay, let’s pick up that conversation in Buffalo, on this UFA and that UFA.
And often what will come out from that Scouting Combine is either, a deal starts to finally take place to have a guy re-sign and stay in place where he’s been playing and avoid going to market or you start to get clarity the other way if you’re the team. You come out, out scouting combine after meeting face-to-face with the agent, you’re like, ‘Oh darn, we’re not signing this guy.’
And it’s a bit of a, bit of a terrifying moment for teams sometimes because they thought they had lots of time to sign him before July 1 and it’s like, there’s nothing like a face-to-face meeting.
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And so this is an underrated time of the year. It doesn’t mean that everything will come out and everything’s made public. But believe me when I look back at a lot of offseason decisions, a lot of them stem from these face-to-face meetings in Buffalo. So it will be intriguing next week.