Tampa Bay GM Steve Yzerman comments on the Drouin situation.

See what the Hall of Famer had to say.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 8 years ago
Tampa Bay GM Steve Yzerman comments on the Drouin situation.

Tampa Bay Lightning general manager Steve Yzerman held a press conference Thursday morning to address the Jonathan Drouin situation.

According to Yzerman, he was taken by surprise to learn Drouin's decision not to report to the Syracuse Crunch's game.

“It’s obviously not the position we envisioned.”

Steve Yzerman addressed Drouin's agent, Allan Walsh, comments that Yzerman told him and his client that a trade was really close, but rather that he informed Walsh and Drouin that he was working "actively and aggressively" to comply to Drouin's request. Yzerman was clear at the beginning of the Drouin saga that he wanted to get the best value possible for the former third overall pick in the 2013 NHL entry draft.

Today, Yzerman even hint at the fact that he was willing to work things out with Drouin and Walsh and keep the winger in Tampa's organization.

According to TVA Sports' Renaud Lavoie and Sportsnet's Nick Kypreos that many teams were interested in Jonathan Drouin's services:

“Even if he’s not the most popular player in the league, there’s at least seven to 12 teams that want him. People are saying, teams are not going to want him because he’s a holdout and that’s a big red flag. Well, that’s not the reality. The reality is there’s a lot of teams interested in having him.”

"I have good information that the St. Louis Blues were close. Now, I know there are more teams involved. One of those teams is the Hurricanes, who are playing tonight in Toronto.”

According to multiple sources, Steve Yzerman has no timeline to trade Jonathan Drouin, but the youngster's value has been greatly diminished in the past few weeks. Since Yzerman took over the job as general manager, he has been in the centre of multiple controversies: the Vincent Lecavalier buy-out, the martin St-Louis Olympic fiasco, the Steven Stamkos contract extension talks and now the Jonathan Drouin situation.

For Yzerman's sake, Drouin should be traded before the trade deadline.

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