Trade market: an important revelation from Elliotte Friedman concerning Hughes and the Canadiens

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MarcO
November 17, 2022 (7:45 PM)

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There was a time when most players wanted to play for Canadian markets. Places like Toronto and Montreal were hotbeds for free agents, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit and changed that. Now, Canadian teams are facing another unique challenge that they have never faced before.

This week on Jeff Marek's podcast, Elliotte Friedman shared the following information:

"Friedman repeats on TJMS that it's harder for some Canadian teams to acquire players because a lot of those with NTC or partial NTC don't want to be traded to Canadian clubs, Friedman mentions that Ottawa has run into this problem, it's an additional hurdle for Canadian clubs to deal with."

This issue has even recently affected the Ottawa Senators organization. According to what Elliotte Friedman reports, Pierre Dorion would have completed a transaction with another formation of the league but the player targeted by the Sens did not want to go play in Ottawa.

Recent rumors mentioned that the Sens could be interested in their former defenseman and captain Erik Karlsson. Is he the player who vetoed the deal? We will certainly know soon!

Hopefully, the fresh wind orchestrated by the Jeff Gorton/Kent Hughes duo will help prevent this issue from arising with the CH. The idea of playing under Martin St-Louis, who has a fairly offensive style, could also help the situation.

In a way, Canadian teams are victims of their own game. The GMs of these teams have all given a no-movement clause to one of their players at one time or another. We are now seeing the bad side of it.

Let's hope it doesn't hurt Kent Hughes too much on the trade market, but it's definitely not good news. At least, it's not reassuring.