Friedman: Oilers' Perron on trade block "longer than I realized"

Elliotte Friedman was on Edmonton’s 630 CHED on Friday afternoon.

On a potential David Perron trade with Columbus or elsewhere:

“Anisimov would be an interesting one. I did hear that Columbus was not eager to give him up because even if you have two centres – I mean, Dubinsky’s got a big-time injury history and you can never have enough centres in this league, there’s no question about that. I don’t think they’re that keen to give him up.

“When I wrote it a couple of days ago, I did think that there was a chance that Perron could get moved pretty quickly. I think that’s cooled a little bit now, and I think there’s a couple of reasons for it.

“No. 1, one of the things that I’ve kind of learned in the middle of all of this since running that is that I think Perron has been on the block longer than I realized. I think Edmonton has sort of been fishing on him a little bit. I think teams like L.A. were contacted. I think a few other teams were contacted. I think teams would have been interested in Perron, or might have a desire for Perron, they’ve known for a little bit of time that he’s available. So that’s No. 1.

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“No. 2, I think that while there is interest in him – if you’re going to make a trade with Edmonton, do you want to do it now, or do you want to wait to see what else becomes available? And my question is, if you think you want to make a deal with them... they want something they can look at and say, ‘This makes a difference for us.’

“I think other teams kind of look at it and say, ‘If we do that, do we want to make it in a deal for David Perron, or do we want to see who else becomes available?’

“I think the name a lot of people are talking about there is Eberle. If you’re looking for a winger... are teams saying, ‘I’ll wait to see when he becomes available, if he becomes available.’ I think that’s part of it too.”

Source: 630 CHED/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey