Friedman: Flames, Oilers lack centre trade targets
/Elliotte Friedman was on Sportsnet 960 Thursday afternoon.
On the Calgary Flames running into big centre injury problems:
“And one of the reasons Calgary extended a guy like Matt Stajan was because they wanted to make sure that as guys like Monahan got their experience, they would have somebody a bit older to take away some of the pressure from them. You don’t want to send that guy out to the biggest and best – the vultures of the Western Conference every single night.
“So I won’t be surprised if they go out to get – if they go out and say, ‘Okay Sean, you’re going to get a bit more experience now.’ I mean, you have to do that.
“But I know that right now Rob, from talking to people on other teams, if you need centre depth, it’s really hard to find.
“I think we talked the other day about Edmonton, about how they kind of looked around and they looked in the American Hockey League and the best option they thought – sorry, in the NHL - was Lander, their own guy. And they haven’t been very happy with him when he’s been at the NHL level.
“I think one guy who is available, although I think the Minnesota Wild have injuries and illness issues right now, is Kyle Brodziak. But I don’t think it would be easy. I think that the Wild and other teams realize that you can never have – like, there’s two positions you can never really have enough guys. And that’s centre and defence. So I think centres are very hard to find. I don’t know what the options are going to be for other teams. Like I said, I heard it wasn’t easy for Edmonton to try to get Brodziak, so unless Calgary has a line on somebody else that they can look at...
“And I wonder, the thing that would make some sense to me for Calgary, if Carolina was interested in doing it – is a guy like Jay McClement. But I don’t know a) if Carolina is willing to do it, and b) what the cost would be. I mean, Brian Burke and Jay McClement obviously have a bit of a history.”
Source: Sportsnet 960/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey