Bob McKenzie on Kevin Allen and Jimmy Hascup’s “NHL Top Shelf” podcast
McKenzie on the Anaheim Ducks..
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Ducks GM Bob Murray has been trying to make a trade. So often these teams that get off to a bad start in the first month of the season, you’re going to get an anchor and not a lifejacket, in terms of people’s offers. I think it’s admirable that he didn’t take the easy way out and gonged the coach. I think Boudreau is a good coach, and I think that the easy thing for Bob Murray to say would have been “throw my hands up, I can’t make a trade, the team is not winning, we’re not scoring, so let’s make our move” . Bob Murray is on record saying he doesn’t really want to make a rash move, and firing the coach in his mind is as a rash move. I think you almost have to take it game-by-game, day-by-day.
McKenzie on the Columbus Blue Jackets…
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I don’t think there’s any question that, yeah, they would like to make a move to bolster their defence.
McKenzie on Anze Kopitar and Steven Stamkos…
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Of the two , I would think that Kopitar is more likely than Stamkos, and that’s not to say that Stamkos is necessarily unlikely. I think the dynamic in Los Angeles is a little different, and the longer it drags on, the more you start to wonder. When Toews and Kane got $10.5 million dollars, that kind of set the bar. My guess, Kopitar is looking for $10 million. I don’t doubt that Dean Lombardi and the Kings want to try and save every penny they can to try and appeal to Anze Kopitar and say ‘if you play for $9 million, we can take that million and ensure that we don’t have to get rid of Tyler Toffoli somewhere down the line.’
McKenzie on Eric Staal will be an attractive rental come the trade deadline…
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Eric Staal hasn’t decided yet what his situation is, and neither has the Carolina Hurricanes. The Hurricanes have to decide what their budget is going to be and what can we reasonably expect to pay Eric Staal, Cam Ward, and are these guys going to be apart of what we’re doing for the next number of years? Or are we better to go in a different direction and use them as a mean to get better? Eric Staal doesn’t have to be a rental if he doesn’t want to be a rental. He has a full no-move clause, full no-trade clause. If Eric Staal wants to move on and test drive a team between the trade deadline and the end of the season, then he can tell the Carolina Hurricanes that, and if they’re so inclined to that I guess they can make that move.
McKenzie on the trade market…
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I would think once we get closer to the U.S. Thanksgiving, which is always the traditional time where teams really take stock where they’re at and what they need, we will probably see more trades as the month unfolds. As we get deeper into it, teams realize after four weeks that what you see it what you mostly get.