Guess one sign that summer is over is that Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman are back in the studio chatting about all things NHL including the latest on the Winnipeg Jets. To start the podcast today the duo discuss Winnipeg’s situation with Connor Hellebuyck and Mark Scheifele.
Here is what Friedman had to say when Marek asked if there was any fire/smoke surrounding the top netminder and top centre of Winnipeg:
“The one thing I’ve heard interesting about Hellebuyck is, I’ve heard that there’s going to be a conversation between Hellebuyck and the Jets whenever he gets there. And the one thing somebody told me is as the summer is progressed there seems to be some thought that it’s not impossible Hellebuyck could stay there. And I don’t want people to get carried away, too late probably. I don’t want people to go on absurd social media runs with this which we all know is going to happen anyway….”
He continued after a spiel about a brown cow
“Anyway, I don’t want to say anything with any finality there, but I do think there’s going to be a conversation there about ‘OK now it’s been a few months, everybody’s had a summer to think about things you know where our we and what is everybody thinking?’ And I’ve just been told that the word on Hellebuyck is he has an open mind and he’s prepared to just listen to what they’re thinking. I will tell you this I had a player, he was a Jet, he’s not a jet anymore…”
Marek jumped in with a guess of Dustin Byfuglien with Friedman quickly indicating it was not big number 33
“And what this player told me, he said, and he’s an interesting guy, he says look I recognize that teams can’t tell you everything and there are things teams think and feel about players that they’ve got to keep themselves, but he said if there was one thing he would change about the Jets it’s for their key players, or their players who are coming to the ends of their contracts, he wishes that the Jets gave them more information about what they were thinking. The Jets are really quiet about things. Now some teams they go to their star players or their cornerstone players/their leadership group and say ‘look we’re thinking about doing this’. They don’t give them a lot of information but there are times they will go there and give them information. What this player said to me is the Jets are really quiet about that stuff. And he think that when it comes to players like Hellebuyck and Scheifele and some of the other players there they really feel that they don’t get a lot of information about what the organization is thinking or what the plans are to make things better. And it doesn’t mean the Jets are a bad organization I want to be really careful about that, it’s just that they are really secretive and the players have indicated they wish they let them in on a little bit more. So I’ve heard that Hellebuyck has not closed the door on the Jets. Now you still have to have a negotiation, he still has to be to be willing to be happy with what their plans are at some point but I just had a couple guys say to me ‘don’t assume anything yet here’.”
He then moved on to number 55:
“Scheifele I don’t know. I’m not as sure about that one. Again the one thing I would just say about Scheifele is I think the Jets know internally that centres are hard to find. They thought and they hoped that Scheifele and Dubois would be their centre duo for a long time. Dubois is gone and I think this is a very fair question for the organization to ask. I have heard that they have kind of indicated if they go from Dubois and Scheifele to no Dubois and Scheifele, they better make sure if they’re making that trade they get a replacement so I think that’s a very fair thing for them to think of.”
Listen here (starts around the 3 minute mark):
