Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – Six Degrees of Chris Chelios episode … on the Philadelphia Flyers and what the injury to defenseman Jamie Drysdale might mean.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Marek: “At the same time, I think one of the thoughts we have once you get past I hope Jamie Drysdale is okay is, what does this mean now for Sean Walker? And what does this mean for Nick Seeler? With (Rasmus) Ristolainen out, now, you add Drysdale, if he’s out for any length of time. How much did Danny Briere’s world just get complicated here?”
Friedman: “If, look, I think this, the Philadelphia Flyers are still taking a big picture look at their organization. Assuming that’s the case, and I have no reason to believe that it isn’t the case. Then. I believe that doesn’t change anything at all.
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Because what Daniel Brieve should be thinking about is, what’s my line to re-sign these two guys, and what’s my line to trade these guys? And the answer is, should be unchanged based on Jamie Drysdale, his injury.
Unless the only way it changes, Jeff, is if the Flyers have decided they want to make the playoffs. Like I have a friend who’s a Devil’s fan and he said, ‘Look, if they trade these guys, and Drysdale is injured, then we still have a game in hand and they’ve got a tougher schedule. We could catch them.’
And I admire the optimism. That’s what a Devil’s fan should be thinking right now. But if you’re Philadelphia unless you’ve decided we’re making the playoffs, that shouldn’t change a thing. What you’re deciding was Seeler and Walker should have nothing to do with Drysdale’s injury.
What this gives you is, it gives you a chance to put another kid in the lineup and give them some chance to see what they can do. Or someone else has to take some more responsibility.
Now you wrote, and I stole it from you, that there’s teams we talked about earlier in the year that Walker and Seeler were being thought about as a duo. Do you have any theories on who might be considering this?”
Marek: “My initial thought was the Tampa Bay Lightning.”
Friedman: “Do you believe that to be accurate?”
Marek: “I don’t. I don’t, I don’t believe that it is Tampa. I don’t, I think a lot of us would have wondered about the Toronto Maple Leafs.”
Friedman: “Yeah.”
Marek: “We know that Brad Treliving but I don’t think that’s, that’s I don’t think that that’s accurate. The two that I wondered about were Toronto and Tampa. I don’t. I, I can’t say with 100% certainty that, that it’s those two.”
Friedman: “The reason I want to do about Toronto is that, you know, they tried to do it earlier in the year with Zadorov and Tanev. But there have been some players in Toronto that have really solidified their positions in the last couple of weeks.
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Initially people were like, oh Toronto’s 5-0, but they haven’t beaten anyone. Well, now they’ve pounded Vegas and they beat Colorado, the last two Stanley Cup champions. I know Vegas is missing people. It was still an impressive win. And it’s hard to overlook that. But I did think about Toronto too.”
