Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman on the Jeff Marek Show on the Ottawa Senators defenseman Jakob Chychrun and if he’d be a fit for the St. Louis Blues.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Marek: “Okay, back to the the Ottawa Senators and even just going back to the Steve Staios press conference where he talked about being, you know, disappointed that Jacob Chychrun’s name is out there and being discussed as a potential candidate to be moved.
You know, I went back to the, to the notes from, from before Chychrun was traded. You can recall what the Chychrun watch was like around the NHL. It was like a year and a half. From your initial report to when he when he finally got moved.
And there were things like LA and St. Louis and the Islanders, the Rangers, the Boston Bruins and the Columbus Blue Jackets. Not sure if I’m leaving any off, if you have any to add to that list, but I am curious if Chychrun is still potentially in play here? And again I’m not 100% on that.
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But if he is in play, you know, we’re gonna watch the St. Louis Blues night. I was making the point off the top of the show that listen, St. Louis is right in there. We’ve seen Doug Armstrong surprise us before even if his team was in a playoff picture, he’ll punt if he doesn’t see all of the mixes right, or if he doesn’t already have the team to do something.
But you know if St. Louis is able to get there and trade deadline rolls around, you know, could you wonder about you know them re rekindling their interest in someone like Jakob Chychrun? Others still some likely candidates going back to the first Chychrun watch that you think would still be interested, Elliotte?
Friedman: “How many times do you want (Steve) Staios to yell at me this week? You know. Well, you know what? Like, like I think that Chychrun thing honestly is about, is about the cap as much as anything else. You know, I think Ottawa, look, you can see where this is going. You, Chychrun’s a year away from another contract. And you know, there’s only so much money you can pay everyone.
So I really think that, that is what this converse, people can read the tea leaves, and they can see that, hey, he’s gonna want to raise. So what are we dealing with here? And that’s why I think this conversation is coming out.
In all, I look at it this way with St. Louis, Doug Armstrong had a lot, it is eerie how that, like I don’t, I will always be surprised. I don’t think the Blues are winning the Stanley Cup this year, but it is eerie how similar this is the 2019 in the sense that they look done. He had a lot of players on the market and he like, he like, that year and he sent out was like a famous Christmas list note on the GMs chat, like Christmas sale on some of his players.
And this year, earlier in the year he had a lot out there. He had a lot out there. And he obviously didn’t do much. And so what do we have now? We have a team that’s off the mat. A team that’s making a run at it. But, and you’re right, I think Armstrong fearless. He’ll do what he thinks is right. But the bottom line is that I think right now he probably lets them play a bit because what it does is it puts a shine on some of their players.
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And if they fall back out or he doesn’t or he gets a good offer. Maybe people think differently about some of the players than they did before. We’ll see. We’ll see. I mean also don’t forget he’s got a lot of guys with protection there. Like Torey Krug, he already turned down one trade to Philly. Colton Parayko has protection. Like a lot of these guys have protection.
