Dreger: Trade offers were made for Johansen
/Darren Dreger was on TSN 1050 Tuesday afternoon.
On his best sense of why GMs don’t go after players like Ryan Johansen with an offer sheet:
“Well, No. 1: the belief is that if that player is a game-changer or a valued piece of an organization, that team is simply going to match whatever it is. So it’s almost a waste of time and process to go through it and throw out the offer sheet if you know that.
“There’s a lot of back and forth between general managers and yeah, I wouldn’t say that every time there has been an offer sheet that’s been put out there that the general manager who is putting out that offer sheet in play calls the general manager with the player who is the target and says, ‘Hey, by the way, I’m about to offer sheet your player’ but I know it has happened in the past because there has to be some level of decorum between these two guys and it usually comes after trade conversations, as an example, go nowhere.
“And hey, I can tell you that a handful of teams, if not more, made trade offers - I can’t be specific to anyone – but made trade offers on Ryan Johansen over the course of the summer and probably during the season leading up to the trade deadline and maybe over the NHL draft.
“So it’s not like this kind of back and forth, or this lack of negotiations, caught anyone by surprise. Other than, perhaps, the player and the general manager, Jarmo Kekalainen, in Columbus. A lot of teams paying close attention to this.
“So as continues to drag on, the offer sheet is a possibility. But guys, you’re talking about a quality, big center ice man. Hard to find. Really, really hard to find. Game-changing. Huge piece of the Columbus Blue Jackets. I just can’t imagine the Columbus Blue Jackets wouldn’t match whatever that is.”
Source: TSN 1050/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey