Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas on 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – Riding a Flat Line as Much as You Can episode, on Florida Panthers pending UFA forward Sam Bennett, and how other teams will be paying attention.
** NHLRumors.com transcriptions
Bukauskas: “Part of the Saturday Headlines this past week, you and Ron discussed Sam Bennett. Negotiations have begun with the Florida Panthers. Wasn’t much to report on Saturday. Anything further to the dossier there?”
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Friedman: “Couple things. I think there are a lot of teams watching this one. The way that this one kind of ended up on my lap was just in making, like we all knew that after they got (Carter) Verhaeghe done, eventually they were going to turn to Bennett and (Aaron) Ekblad. But the way this kind of ended up on my lap is, I think there are teams out there who are trying to determine what the likelihood of Sam Bennett hitting the market.
Like again, we talked about Nashville, and I still can’t believe what’s going on there, but we talked about Nashville and how they kind of need that second-line center and that’s one of the hardest positions in hockey to find. Like a top-two center or a stud D.
And you know, Sam Bennett, he’s the kind of guy. I’m not talking, I’m not saying that Nashville told me this. I don’t want anyone to think that. But, you know, he, that like, that’s the kind of player for him to be available. They don’t get available too often. And so I think teams are kind of looking at that and trying to gage, like, what are the chances he will sign?
And I think people know he wants to stay there. I think that a lot of people believe there is a deal to be made there. I think I think players understand now that the Panthers have positioned it as, if you want to play here, like, if you look at the Verhaeghe deal, they gave him the great bonus structure. They gave him a lot of no-trade protection, but he had to take a bit a lower of a number than he could have gotten on the market.
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So that’s the template, right? Like, we’ll give you some structure, we’ll give you some protection. You’re going to concede to us on the number. And the way a lot of people look at it is there’s no reason that that can’t happen between Sam Bennett and the Florida Panthers.
But we’ve got a GM here who’s a real grinder in Bill Zito. And we’ve got an agent here in Darren Ferris who’s a real grinder too. So you know they’re gonna, there’s gonna be some battle to get there.
But you know, I’ll say this, again, these are the opinions of other people who I think generally have more information than I do. They don’t see why this can’t happen, but, but if you remember Sam Reinhart last year, we were all saying the same thing, and it got done right at the deadline for it to be an eight-year deal.
So that’s, you always look at. the surest predictor of future behavior is past behavior. And that was a case where two sides really grinded away at a deal, and it took them until the absolute last second to get there. So we’ll see what happens with this one.
But if Bennett hits the market, there’ll be a lot of interest.”
Bukauskas: “Yeah, that was because the playoffs ended, like, three hours before free agency. That’s why.”
Friedman: “You know what you’re right about that Kyle, but still, like an agent and a team can always do it right.”
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Bukauskas: “I know,”
Friedman: “Like they, they, really battled for that one.”
Bukauskas: “And they got it done.”