Friedman on Avalanche's contract battles, MacKinnon's payroll impact, O'Reilly's father

Elliotte Friedman was on Calgary’s Sportsnet 960 on Monday morning.

(Following a lengthy discussion on Ryan O’Reilly) On how much of the issues in Colorado with negotiating contracts have been the Avs trying to keep the internal pay structure low, versus an agent going as hard as he can go defending his player:

"I think – Colorado always used to have these kinds of issues. They had them before, under the previous regime, and there was a lot of talk they were going to be over with now when Joe Sakic and Patrick Roy took over. But look at what happened last year with Paul Stastny. They let him go too.

“I think a lot of what it is with the Avalanche is that they know they’re going to have to deal with Nathan MacKinnon. And even though he’s having a really rough year this year, they kind of realized that he’s going to have to be their highest-paid guy, and they want to keep everybody below him.

“I think that’s one of the issues we’re looking at here. But there’s no question with the Avalanche it always seems to be a battle to get contracts done. There are some exceptions. Landeskog’s got done relatively easy, which was a bit of a different situation for them. But Duchene had to battle before he got his long-term deal. Stastny obviously walked. It’s never easy.

“Now I will say there the Avalanche have pointed the finger at O’Reilly’s dad a couple of times. They’ve said they feel he has been an influence and not a positive one. Those are always tough to answer. When you’re talking about a player and his father, that obviously is very personal. But I know the Avalanche have felt that this is a two-way street.

“The only thing I can tell you is I know Vancouver had the other brother in the American Hockey League, Cal. He plays for them in Utica. I know the Canucks feel they’ve had no issues there. But Ryan’s situation is a bit different than Cal’s is.

“The Avalanche will tell you that this one’s a two-way street.”

Source: Sportsnet 960/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey

Nichols on Hockey

Nichols on Hockey

Worth Reading

Nichols on Hockey

Nichols on Hockey