Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – Big Daddy Kane on Chicago Blackhawks pending UFA forward Patrick Kane.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Marek: “Five goals in his last two games. Do we fire up the rumor mill once again with Patrick Kane talk?
Friedman: “We don’t need to fire up the rumor mill. Patrick Kane fired up the rumor mill. What were we talking about last week? We need a signature Kane performance. It had been a dreary week.
One of the things I’m convinced about now is, there was a little bit of controversy because Kane and the Blackhawks played in Montreal on the Tuesday. There was no morning skate in Toronto on the Wednesday, but he did not talk to the media after the game in Toronto on Wednesday night, much to the disappointment of the local reporters.
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I definitely think after he made some honest and blunt comments the week before, which I support. He was told, dial down the temperature. Let the situation play out. Don’t pour any more gasoline on this fire.
However, on Sunday night he didn’t just pour gasoline on the fire, name every flammable material you can think of, cyclohexane, whatever, and he poured it on the fire. But in a good way. We needed to see Patrick Kane at his best. He scored two goals against Ottawa. He scored three as you said on Sunday night. But it wasn’t that he just scored Jeff, look at those goals.
Marek: “The third one, the snooker shot. That was awesome.”
Friedman: “You know it’s funny. I said on the air those aren’t goal scorer goals and after I said, I was like, well that’s dumb. We think about goal scorer goals, guy comes down the wing rips, like a wrist shot or a snapshot or a rare slapper past someone and the goalie has no chance.
These were the thinking persons’ goal scorer goals. This was using the defenseman as a screen on the first one. Faking and forcing (Ilya) Samsonov to open up between his legs on the second one. And as you said, the bank shot on the third one. It was genius. He manipulated the game to his advantage. It was vintage Kane in so many ways.
And what did we hear on the weekend Jeff as we were doing all of our research for the Saturday’s segment? Teams were pulling back. They weren’t sure. They thought the price was too high. We aren’t talking about a first round here I don’t think. Teams weren’t sure.
Well now everybody’s going to be jumping back into the pool and there’s going to be interest. We’ll see where this goes during the week.
Marek: “Again, I have to stress, this is up to Patrick Kane. There will be a lot of teams that jump back into the pool, but as we talked about, what was it the last podcast of last week, the homework assignment that I got from someone was, it’s your job to figure out where Patrick Kane’s heart is.
As long as the performance is there and teams covet him. How could you not after seeing what we’ve been seeing the last couple of days? The job is, figure out where Patrick Kane’s heart is. Where is it?
Friedman: “I think it’s some combination of Vegas, Dallas, Edmonton. And we’ll see if anyone else shows up here.
Like the one thing, is that when it comes to Edmonton, I think they have interest. I do think it intrigues the Oilers. He’s got a resource there in Duncan Keith. He can always call Duncan Keith and say, ‘Hey Duncan, what’s it going to be like to spend two months or longer, hopefully, longer for the Oilers sake, in Edmonton.’ And he can ask him about that.
I think this game actually opened up more questions than answers, and that’s the great thing about it because, Jeff, I honestly got that impression, and you can tell me if you think I’m wrong based on what you are hearing, that on Saturday we were moving out of the Kane conversation. That everybody was looking to move on, and now we’re right back smack dab in the middle of it.
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Marek: “The one team that I talked to was, nope, too expensive. Nope, too expensive. But having said that, teams will say this now in the middle of February, but then just lurk.
You’ve been at this longer than I have. You know the GMs that lurk and you know the ones that shut doors. I think there are probably teams out there that initially said, ‘nope, too rich for us, we’re not in,’ but are still lurking around. I can see a lot of teams still lurking around Patrick Kane.
Friedman: “And I think they’re going to be doing a lot more than lurking. And we’re getting to a point here anyway where Kane has to make a decision. You can tell. He’s pissed off. He’s pissed off at everything. He’s pissed off at the comments made about the hip. He’s pissed off the Rangers didn’t trade for him. He’s just mad.
You know what really stood out, was the celebrations. Those were emotional, honest celebrations. I think I mentioned on the podcast the other day, that there was one person I was texting who knows Kane really well, and he’s been saying, ‘look, he’s going to go somewhere and make a difference because he’s determined to make a difference. And after the third goal on Sunday night, he texted me and said, ‘told ya.’
So, we’ll see what happens here.’
