Friedman on Staal, Sekera, and Canes' future

Elliotte Friedman was on Sportsnet 590 Friday morning.

On the state of the Carolina Hurricanes:

“I just think if you’re Carolina, you’re looking at this and saying, ‘Okay, we’re starting over.’

“And I think they kind of looked at it this year like let’s take one more run with this particular group and see what it’s got. And it doesn’t look like it’s got a lot for them, unfortunately.

“The one thing is they’ve got parts they can sell. Sekera, a defenseman, 44-point season last year. He’s going to be 29 years old. Teams are really watching him to see what they’ve got.

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“Obviously Eric Staal. There’s going to be a lot of questions about what he wants and what they might want to do with him. I know there’s a lot of interest. I know the Maple Leafs have talked about it with them. I think St. Louis has talked about it with them. ‘If Eric Staal is willing to go, what are we discussing here. What’s his value?’

“I think there’s a lot of teams that think that he’s still got a lot of mileage left. I think it simply comes down to how long are the Hurricanes going to wait before they want to do this? Is it something like – I heard before the season, someone said to me that the Hurricanes’ decision was, ‘We’d like to wait until December to see where we really are and then start making these decisions.’

“Do they move that schedule up? Do they simply look at it and say, ‘Okay, we can start doing it now,’ or do they wait another month to see where they really are. Because I think we know now, unfortunately.

“I feel really bad for Bill Peters. He turned down the Pittsburgh job for this, and now he’s looking at it and saying, ‘Boy, this is a bigger job than I thought.’”

Source: Sportsnet 590/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey