On the Tampa Bay Lightning and Jonathan Drouin …
- Mike Johnston of Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman on the Tampa Bay Lightning and Jonathan Drouin.
“It’s so tough to tell,” Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman told Edmonton’s 630 CHED Friday. “I think would love to do it. I think they want to get the distraction over with, but I think some of the teams that were heavily into the market – St. Louis has kind of backed off a little bit, Anaheim has really backed off.”
The Canadiens may be just one of the Atlantic Division teams are is interested in Drouin.
“I think a team that could be quietly in on this is Detroit. But again, it’s trading him inside the division, right? I think Tampa will ask a higher premium from teams .
“I think what Yzerman is doing is trying to play teams off each other, but I think part of the problem too is some of these teams are looking at it and saying, ‘Drouin is a great player, but are we going to be better with him now, or better with him in two years?’ It’s a very difficult target to understand because Tampa is so quiet, but I do think they want to end this as quickly as they possibly can.”
Renaud Lavoie on TSN 590 on Drouin.
“People are saying teams are not going to want him because he’s a holdout and that’s a big red flag,” TVA Sports’ NHL insider Renaud Lavoie told Jeff Blair on Sportsnet 590 The Fan Thursday. “Well, that’s not the reality. The reality is there’s a lot of teams interested in having him.”
- Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun: A league source said that asking price for Jonathan Drouin from the Senators would be two top prospects, including 2015 first round pick Thomas Chabot. It’s safe to say the Senators have no interest in those types of talks, and that Lightning GM Steve Yzerman has no interest in trading him to an Eastern Conference team. There were reports last week that Yzerman was interested in Cody Ceci.
