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Elliotte Friedman was on Calgary’s Sportsnet 960 on Friday morning.

As part of a larger discussion surrounding the Pittsburgh Penguins ownership situation:

“When you get knocked out of the playoffs and the day after your president comes out and says, ‘Look, we’re no t firing Mike Johnston, we’re not firing Jim Rutherford, we’re not trading Evgeni Malkin, and we’re not trading Sidney Crosby.’

Now I can understand you coming out and saying the first two, but why would you need to say the next two. Why do you have to tell everybody we’re not trading Malkin or Crosby. And that’s when the sale rumors went wild. Because are the Pittsburgh Penguins a more valuable team to buy with Crosby and Malkin in the lineup or out of the lineup. And I think the answer is b. So that’s when everybody started to say, ‘Okay, something is going on here.’

“And look – they’re not trading Crosby. But I will tell you this – there have been rumors about Malkin’s happiness. About whether or not he wants to stay. I think that was directed exactly at them. I have no idea if the Penguins are going to trade Malkin. I would suspect no until a sale gets done. But I can tell you this – there are people around the league who have been saying they’ve been hearing rumors Malkin is not happy and would welcome a change of scenery.

“So you never know if that’s just a frustration thing and they just say, ‘We’re going to deal with it and handle it internally.’ Or if it would ever happen. But it’s not happening right now while the team is on the market.”

Source: Sportsnet 960/ Transcript: Nichols