Quick rumor this morning. The Mitch Marner sweepstakes is going very strong behind the scenes right now with many teams, including the LA Kings and the Tampa Bay Lightning. The New Jersey Devils, Buffalo Sabres, and others who are currently either working on a plan or drawing together over the next few days to discuss a plan to try and get Mitch Marner into their uniform next season…
However, I’m told from a very good source at the NHL that the Montréal Canadiens should currently be considered the team to beat when it comes to Marner I know the sound of thatfeels like dogs and cats living together. Mitch, a lifelong Leafs fan and tenured Leafs himself, to be considering such a move to the eternal rival
But the reality is Martin St. Louis believes he can really work his magic with Mitch.
Beware of false prophets…
As many of you know, I’ve been doing the rumor game in hockey for over 20 years now, and there are certain things that I’m seeing recently that are either kind of rookie mistakes by reporters or just confusion..
It takes a really long time to gain the trust of people in hockey. I’ve spent almost 3 decades getting to the point where people will tell me things. But even then, I recognize when I’m getting played by trusted sources. There’s a reason information leaks out; real information from real GMs being leaked to a reporter is often the way these guys send messages to each other. Whenever you hear about a team looking to make a trade but being offered too little for a player, that’s a direct message to the entire NHL. It may or may not be true, but it’s trying to set the price.
One thing I’ve learned to do, and I was taught by writers who mentored me, is to wear your motivation glasses when talking to someone about a juicy rumor. What is that person‘s motivation to tell you? Even a good source won’t give you something that involves their team just for the hell of it. It’s incredibly rare. You’re more likely to get information from a third-party who is talking to one of the teams and heard their plans … but even those plans could be a way to distract from the real issue… You need to know a person’s motivation when you read a rumor. Especially something current. It’s easy to get rumors of things that did not happen and those are sometimes true and sometimes not true, but even THOSE Gms have motivations for being released like “What if we had made that trade? Good thing we stood pat.”
In the end, it’s very important to remember that the rumor game is a game. This is why I put the E system together to try to show you more or less motivation going on.
In about two weeks expect a lot of chaos… there are some major things going on with players they’re playing with these two teams that can’t be discussed in public, but I’m talking major.
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