This morning on Oilers Now, Bob Stauffer had Georges Laraque on his show, and right off the bat, Bob got into the topic of upgrading the Edmonton Oilers goaltending with the former NHL enforcer. This is how the conversation went,
BS: Do you think a player like Marc-Andre Fleury potentially would look at Edmonton down the road?
GL: First of all, I can say that Marc-Andre Fleury would be an upgrade to both goalies that are in Edmonton. That’s a start and he would for sure waive his no-trade clause to go play in Edmonton because you know that playing there gives him a chance to win. It’s not just that, I know him, he’s a competitor, he’s one of the hardest working goalies I’ve ever seen.
The way Vegas is treating him is not fair at all. They have not talked to him, no communication ever since they signed Lehner. They didn’t even communicate with him to tell him that he’d start the season with Lehner because Lehner got injured. He found all that out in the media. The team didn’t even call him.
So, how much do you think he’d love to go play on a team like Edmonton, that plays Vegas a lot, to be able to prove them wrong. That’s how athletes are made. That’s how athletes are bred. The best think you want to do is show them they made the wrong decision by choosing Lehner instead of him. So playing them would give him that opportunity.
Laraque, later on, said that he’s crossing his fingers that when Robin Lehner comes back and Vegas needs to shed salary that they deal him to Edmonton.
In the past, there’s been a feeling that the Golden Knights wouldn’t trade within its division but yesterday the team’s owner let it be known that there will be a Canadian division next season. Hence why they traded defenseman Nate Schmidt to Vancouver. So I wouldn’t immediately dismiss the Oilers and Golden Knights doing business in the future. Even if it’s not a trade for Fleury but someone else.
What do you think about Georges’ comments here? Do you think that Fleury is an upgrade over Koskinen and Smith? What do you think this kind of trade would look like?
