Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on the 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – Colonel Sanderson episode on the Winnipeg Jets, Connor Hellebuyck and Mark Scheifele.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Marek: “I think a lot of us expected this was going to be the summer of Craig Conroy and Kevin Cheveldayoff. This was going to be the big summer where the Calgary Flames did a lot of business, they did some with Tyler Toffoli, Yegor Sharangovich comes in.
But we thought there were going to be, once again, big things coming from the Winnipeg Jets.
We don’t need to go over the Pierre-Luc Dubois situation, so there was something from Winnipeg. We expected more. (Mark) Scheifele, maybe Connor Hellebuyck.
Is there any fire, smoke, anything with these two Canadian teams?”
Friedman: “The one thing I heard interesting about Hellebuyck is, I’ve heard that there’s gonna be a conversation between Hellebuyck and the Jets whenever he gets there.
And the one thing somebody told me is, as the summer has progressed, there seems to be some thought that it’s not impossible that Hellebuyck could stay there. And I don’t want people to get carried away, too late probably. I don’t want people to go on absurd social media runs with the, which we all know is going to happen anyway,
Marek: “You can not do that, you can’t put that out.”
Friedman: “It’s like there’s a great line, there’s a college basketball coach, his name was Abe Lemons. He said, never tell people not to think about something because they’ll think about it. And the people were like, ‘what do you mean?” He says, ‘don’t think about a brown cow. What are you all thinking about it now? You’re all thinking about a brown cow.’
Marek: “Yeah, of course.”
Friedman: “Anyway. I don’t want to say anything with any finality there but I do think there’s going to be a conversation there about, okay now it’s been a few months and everybody’s had a summer to think about things. Where are we and what is everybody thinking?
And I’ve just been told that the word on Hellebuyck is, he has an open mind and he’s prepared to just listen to what they’re think. I will tell you this. I had a player and he was a Jet. He’s not a Jet anymore.
Marek: “Dustin Byfuglien?”
Friedman: “I like when you play my guessing game against me.
I’m going to assure you the answer is not Dustin Byfuglien. I don’t know the last time that guy returned a phone call.
And what this player told me is, he said. He’s an interesting guy. He says, ‘look, I recognize that teams can’t tell you everything and there are things that teams feel and say about players that they’ve got to keep to themselves.
But he said if there was one thing he would change about the Jets, it’s for their key players or their players who are coming to the ends of their contracts, he wishes that the Jets gave them more information about what they were thinking. The Jets are really quiet about things.
Now some teams, they go to their star players and they say, or their cornerstone players and leadership group and say look, we’re thinking about doing this. They don’t give them a lot of information but there are times they will go there and give them information.
What this player said to me, the Jets are really quiet about that stuff. And he thinks that when it comes to players like Hellebuyck and Scheifele and some of the other players there, they really feel that they don’t get a lot of information about what the organization is thinking or what the plans are to make things better.
And it doesn’t mean the Jets are a bad organization. I want to be really careful about that, it’s just that they’re really secretive and the players have indicated they wish they let them in on a little bit more.
So I’ve heard that Hellebuyck has not closed the door on the Jets. Now, you still have to have a negotiation. He still has to be willing to be happy with what they’re are at some point. But I just had a couple guys say to me, don’t assume anything yet here.
Scheifele, I don’t know. I’m not as sure about that one. Again, the one thing I would just say about Scheifele is, I think the Jets know internally that centers are hard to find. They thought and they hoped that Scheifele and Dubois would be their center duo for a long time. Dubois’ gone.
And I think this is a very fair question for the organization to ask, I have heard that they’ve kind of indicated, if they go from Dubois and Scheifele to no Dubois and Scheifele, they better make sure that they’re making a trade they get a replacement.
So I think that’s a very fair thing for them to think of.”