Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas on 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – Sid’s Coming Back episode, on Toronto Maple Leafs Max Pacioretty and Nick Robertson.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Bakauskas: “All right, the Toronto Maple Leafs, couple of transactions, signings week. Nick Robertson, they signed him for one year. Jani Hakanpaa comes in on defense on a one-year deal.
And Elliotte, if I’m not mistaken. I mean, you had linked those two from kind of the outset of free agency. This week, it becomes official Max Pacioretty signs a PTO. So he, along with Steven Lorenz, come into camp looking for a full-time gig.
It was a busy few days of business for Toronto, and now they’re going to have a busy roster to kick off training camp.
Friedman: “Yeah, and sometimes, like those handshake deals, stay quiet until they’re done. But Alan Walsh is the agent for Pacioretty, he basically came out and said, there’s a contract here.”
Bakauskas: “Very odd rant.”
Friedman: “So we’re, yeah, there’s no secrets there. That one’s, you know, what’s funny about that is, so I took my wife and son to see Pink this summer at the Rogers Center, and we walked into Pacioretty on the street.”
Bakauskas: “No way.”
Friedman: “I just, I said Hi to him. I said, I said, What are you doing here? And he kind of gave me like a ‘Oh, I’m here visiting some friends.’ And I really didn’t think much of it because I was with my family. You know, I that one just smacked me right in the face, and I totally missed it. Like, totally missed it, that they obviously he was here, you know, skating and working out for the lease at that time.
The one thing I really think about Treliving is, I think he’s prepared to have some competition here. I don’t think him and (Craig) Berube are afraid of, you know, hey, if you get a great offer, you make your move, right? But I don’t think they’re afraid of letting some players who would look at this and think, ‘Am I on the bubble here?’ Be a little bit uncomfortable. I don’t think they are afraid of that.
I think they want the competition. I think they want to see who it drives. And it wouldn’t surprise me, you don’t have to have your roster set until the day before the season begins. So it wouldn’t shock me if the Leafs, let this play out a little bit. And I think that is their plan. Again, you could get a good offer. You say, we got to take this. I think they’re interested in making their camp a little more competitive, and so we’ll see where that goes.”
Bukauskas: “Were you at all surprised that despite the trade request earlier in the summer that Nick Robertson signs back in Toronto for one year?”
Friedman: “I just think the options were limited. I think the, as we said last week, it didn’t benefit him to sit out. And I’m talking about this as a guy who’s really stubborn, like I am, a really annoyingly stubborn human being.
So I get where Robinson is coming from, but sometimes you just have to take the knee and conceive defeat. You bend the knee, like they said on Game of Thrones, Kyle, you bend the knee.
And this was Robinson’s time where it was it was better for him that he just said, alright, I’m coming and I’ll do this. So I think he did the right thing. I don’t think it was very easy to convince him, but I think that he did the right thing.
And again, there’s, there’s going to be some opportunity here. And the thing that benefits the Maple Leafs, and it also benefits him, is that if he plays well, everyone wins. He wins as it sets himself up into a good place. The team wins because Robertson is playing great. So there’s, there’s a huge benefit for everyone involved here to make this work.
I also think Kyle, you know, sometimes teams get pushed around by players when they have the leverage. So when a team thinks it has the leverage, sometimes they like to push back. and I think that definitely happened with Robertson.”