Dave Pagnotta of The Fourth Period joined Gord Stellick and Scott Laughlin on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio Morning Skate and was asked where things stand with Simon Edvinsson and Alexander Nikishin regarding trade movement or both players signing new deals with their clubs.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
Gord Stellick: “So, another not-great weekend for the Detroit Red Wings. They battled hard Saturday against Montreal, but they lost Friday to Seattle. So here we’re looking at Simon Edvinsson on one side as the clock keeps ticking. He’s not in the lineup.
And then the other side, Alexander Nikishin. Like, I just wonder what kind of market out there, because he’s in a situation where Carolina just keeps winning, so they can be patient. But I know they’re going to cost you something, but there are quality young players out there, whether they get traded or signed with their existing teams.”
Dave Pagnotta: “Yeah, and it still sounds like on both fronts that both guys prefer still the trade option, and Eric Tulsky in Carolina and Shawn Horcoff in Detroit are manning the lines and still evaluating what their options are.
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Detroit has still maintained to teams that they want to get, excuse me, Simon Edvinsson signed, but over the course of the week, and as last week progressed, they were engaged a little bit more in conversations with teams, and in terms of trade discussions and generating more information, collecting more information in the event they go down that road.
If they go the trade route, they want to see if they can maximize return, and if negotiations continue to hit a wall here with respect to obviously not getting something done, then okay, well, what are our options, and how can we, how can we come out on top of this one?
Now, I think Detroit’s still struggling with the internal battle of the immediate help versus futures in terms of primary pieces in a package, whether it’s Edvinsson or (Dylan) Larkin. Larkin’s performance, so far in his first couple of games with the Wings since being injured, is starting to look good. And the better he performs, maybe there’s a sense of urgency for a team trying to acquire him that says, ‘Hey, we may want to get on this guy quick before the competition gets into the mix, and suddenly the price changes a tiny bit, or starts to inflate because of how well he’s performing.’ So they’ve got to evaluate that.
They’re obviously doing the Edvinsson thing, and they have to again internalize what they want to do here. And if they want to speed up this process, it might result in a more futures-driven package, which may not be the end of the world for this team. You maximize your return however you can. You worry about it a little bit later, but that’s something they’re evaluating there.
And the same thing in Carolina, trying to max a return here. Now, a lot of it’s been tied to, and a lot of speculation maintains that they’re still interested in Connor Hellebuyck and what they get from Nikishin might be packaged up to get him. But I think they want to try to simplify things for the time being.
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Both teams have two great assets here on that back end. Young assets on that blue line that can generate a great return. They may have to just tunnel vision this into what’s best for their team, like a Carolina, for example, and then worry about potentially going after some other big stars later on in the season.”
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