Multiple players refuse to play for Canadian teams, insiders reveal why
There was a time when most players wanted to play in Canadian markets. Places like Toronto and Montreal were hotbeds for free agents, but then the COVID-19 pandemic struck and changed that. Now Canadian teams are facing another unique challenge that they've never had to face before.
This week on the Jeff Marek Podcast, Elliotte Friedman shared the following information:
Friedman repeats on TJMS that it is harder for some Canadian teams to acquire players cause many who have NTC or partial NTC don't want to be moved to Canadian clubs, Friedman mentions Ottawa has come across this, it's an extra hurdle to deal with.
The issue still appears to be that players have reservations and fears of more restrictions being put in place in the Canadian markets. When we reached out to a Twitter user who has previously broken multiple Senators deals he shared the following:
Players hear comments about mandates in Canada and aren't comfortable committing to potentially not seeing their families. We saw it with Jeff Petry and Zach Bogosian, neither wanted to be in a Canadian market for those reasons. It's a common problem at this point.
The user who asked to not be named has previously broken the Matt Murray, Matt Duchene, Mark Stone and Alex DeBrincat deals days before any insider.
Now the Canadians teams will be forced to continue operate at a disadvantage as players look to play in locations they don't need to worry about lockdowns and mandates.
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