The center trade market is getting interesting
Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman on Saturday Headlines on the center trade market. Robert Thomas could be moved by the deadline, with the Utah Mammoth interested. Vincent Trocheck may not want to go far West. Ryan O’Reilly wants to stay and Flames are waiting for offers on Nazem Kadri.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Ron McLean”Okay, the trades. Centers of attention.”
Friedman: “Yeah, so a lot of what is being discussed right now, in terms of what’s kind of hot today are the centers. And you know, first of all, Robert Thomas rejoined the Blues today. He could play for them again tomorrow. And best to his family, he was on a leave for a bit this week.
But you know, Ron, when his name first came up, you report it, but you kind of don’t believe it. Like, there’s no way Robert Thomas is getting traded. I actually believe it could happen. I think there’s a decent chance that Robert Thomas could be traded by the deadline on Friday.
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I believe one of the teams that’s in this is Utah. Bill Armstrong, the GM of Utah, drafted Robert Thomas in St Louis, and that’s a connection there. But I think it actually could potentially happen. And I have to say, I’m a bit surprised about that. I think it’s geared up around him a bit now.
Also, Vincent Trocheck, he’s another center a lot of people are looking at. I said a couple of weeks ago that Trocheck prefers to stay East. I think there’s been a couple of far West teams that have gotten in on him and have been told that it won’t be happening.
So, you know, I still think, you know, everyone talks about Minnesota. They’re not that far west, so maybe. But his preference is East, and I think a couple of far West teams have been told he’s not going out there.
And what that means is then we start to go to Ryan O’Reilly. And I’ve been told that Ryan O’Reilly has no desire to leave the Nashville Predators in the middle of a playoff race. They’re right there, and they’re winning in Dallas tonight. But it’s kind of like dating Ron, the more somebody tells you no, the more attractive they get. And I think teams are continuing to try to see if there’s any way they could tempt Nashville to do it. Although he does have, they’ve been he’s been told he’ll be given control over where he could go.
And basically that takes me to Nazem Kadri, and I think the Flames have been waiting and waiting for a good offer to come. And I think because there’s all these centers here, and we should mention that Thomas has control over this. He says yes or no.
But I just think that now Thomas is kind of in play. Trocheck, people think is going to get dealt. O’Reilly, they’re not sure. And that brings us to Kadri. And I, I just think the center market is really heating up, particularly because they’re surprised that Thomas actually could get dealt.”
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Ron McLean: “32 Thoughts: The podcast, you did mention LA would think about a Trocheck because (Artemi) Panarin didn’t sign just to get into a rebuild.”
Friedman: “I don’t think it’s going to be LA.”
McLean: “Okay. What about Seattle?”
Friedman: “I don’t know. I’ll be honest. I think they’re trying, but I don’t know.”
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