Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on the 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – U-Tah Tah Arizona episode on the soon-to-be Utah franchise will have the money, draft capital, and prospects to spend this offseason in free agency and through trades.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Friedman: “Because I’ll tell you one thing. The word has been out on the Coyotes that they’re gonna spend money this summer. And people are like, spend money this summer, they’re the Coyotes. Well, now everybody knows what they’re talking about.
You know Ryan Smith is not going to bring a team to Salt Lake City, although they’re going to call the team Utah. He’s not gonna bring the team to Utah that’s gonna be underfunded and playing with one hand tied behind it’s back.
He’s got a team that’s growing. He’s got a team that’s got a lot of good young players and picks and prospects and he’s gonna sell them on, you know what, everything you went through for the last few years, you’re not going to be going through that anymore.
You’re going to be taken care of, and he wants the opportunity to sell those players on it face-to-face because he believes that he can convince them that it’s gonna be a lot better. Now, I don’t know that how that’s gonna go. Like I said, it’s a very emotional time for the players right now. But he wants the ability to make that pitch.”
Marek: “I’ll tell you what, the offseason did just get that much more interesting.”
Friedma: “I absolutely believe that they will be players in free agency or for trades. Look at their cap situation, Jeff.”
Marek: “Oh, yeah. Oh, I know. I know. Like, listen, I think we’re all starting to wonder about, okay, Steven Stamkos is an unrestricted free agent. Sam Reinhart is an unrestricted free agent. Jake Guentzel is an unrestricted free agent. Brady Skjei is an unrestricted free agent and there’s more and more and more, and there’s a new team with cap space and aggressive owner.”
Friedman: “So you’re staying next year’s power play is (Jonathan) Marchessault, Stamkos, Reinhart, and Brady Skjei?”
Marek: “Pretty good eh? All of a sudden Welcome to Utah guys. Honestly, as I can see him being very aggressive.”
Friedman: “Yeah, like I said, the word has been out for some time now that Arizona has been indicating it’s going to be aggressive. And, and now everybody starts to see why. That is one thing that I had a couple of managers say to me, there’s, there’s one more team than you think. Because in the past you say okay, in that not only necessarily free agents Jeff, but they’re gonna have the capital to make trades.”
Marek: “Yep.”
Friedman: “They’ve got a lot of picks. They got a lot of prospects. They got a lot of flexibility.”
Marek: “A lot of picks.”
Friedman: “They’re gonna be able, they’re gonna be able to do things. And you know, that’s, that’s one of the things that someone said to me was, you know, in the past couple of years, you’re looking at free agents, ‘I don’t have to compete with those guys. They’re not at our level.’ Well, now they’re like, ‘Uh-oh. this guy gets this team, that’s gonna be one more person that we’re all going to be competing against this summer.’ He’s not coming in here to let it go the way it’s been going.”
