NHL Rumors: The Latest on RFAs Jeremy Swayman and Cole Perfetti

Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas on 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – The Cycle of (NHL) Life episode on the latest on Boston Bruins RFA goaltender Jeremy Swayman and Winnipeg Jets RFA forward Cole Perfetti.

** NHLRumors.com transcription

Bukauskas: “As I was mentioning earlier, Swayman, Perfetti, the RFA contract negotiations. Is there anything Elliotte, you would like to add to those files?

Friedman: “Honestly, Kyle, I don’t think the weekend was big in news on either of those cases. I didn’t get the sense much movement on Swayman. So still a philosophical difference on an eight-year deal. And I don’t get the sense there’s a lot of willingness right now, as of the weekend, to do a shorter term on both sides.

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As for Perfetti, I didn’t get the sense much had changed on the weekend. I mean, we’ll see. I don’t think Perfetti is quite as dug in as Swayman is. And we’ll see what happens early in the week. You know, the Jets were on the road, they went to Edmonton. So I kind of wonder if that slows everything down a bit. We’ll see early in the week.

You know, the one thing about Perfetti is, I always wonder about these kinds of things. When does everybody worry like? We talked about how polite this one was, how Perfetti went the media tour, how he participated in the charity fishing event.

Like, the one thing I always worry for everybody involved here, when does it turn like? When does the frustration boil over? And how does everybody try to prevent that from happening, or work to prevent that from being a problem?

You know what, Kyle the one thing too about Perfetti is it seems as if with every contract that’s getting signed, everyone feels there’s like a new comparable, right? And, you know, I’ve talked about Pinto. Jacob Stollery, who’s debuting writing on the chats for us at Sportsnet, he talked about some lower comparables that he thought were more fair, then the Guenther contract comes up, and he’s only played 78 games. And people like, oh, no, what does this mean?

The one thing that’s all kind of reminds me is everybody can pick their comparable that they like. And I’ve kind of stuck with Pinto, even though I know the Jets don’t like it because their numbers are so similar. But it comes down to a place where everyone’s got to be comfortable, right? The team, the player, the agent.

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And you know, we’re not, we’re not there yet. But the one thing I just worry about, in this case, like swimming, we’ve seen some of the anger boil over. I just think, if you’re Winnipeg and Perfetti, you’re like, ‘Okay, how can we prevent that from happening? Especially with a young player, you know older players, they tend to say, it’s business. I’m used to that now, younger players. The first time you go through it, it’s always harder, so the Jets have that to deal with.