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There has been quite a bit of discussion regarding Jacob Trouba’s trade request among the NHL Insiders this week, and Bob McKenzie dropped an interesting nugget as part of a much larger discussion on this topic while on Toronto’s TSN 1050 Tuesday evening.

“A lot of people said to me, ‘Why, if they were going to trade Trouba, and they knew that Trouba wanted out dating back to last May… why wouldn’t Edmonton have traded Taylor Hall for Trouba,’” recounted McKenzie. “And I think there’s two answers to that question.

“The first answer is Winnipeg doesn’t want Taylor Hall. Winnipeg’s got Nik Ehlers. They’ve got Patrik Laine. And they’ve got Kyle Connor. Now, Kyle Connor may not be ready for full-time NHL duty, and Ehlers is only a second-year pro, and Laine hasn’t played a game in the NHL yet. But long term, they are set on the left side. So they don’t need a Taylor Hall, who’s had five years in the league, or whatever it is, and is making $6 million a year. That’s an area of strength for them, and that’s misallocation of cap dollars for the Winnipeg Jets. So they didn’t want to make that deal.

McKenzie, on Trouba/Winnipeg angle: "I had an NHL GM say to me today, 'What I wonder is does he want to play in Canada.'" #NHLJets 1050 — Chris Nichols (@NicholsOnHockey) September 27, 2016

“And I’m not sure Edmonton – and you saw (that) McLellan coached Trouba in the World Cup, and he only got in the lineup because of Ekblad being injured. So I’m not saying Edmonton doesn’t like Trouba, but I don’t think they’re jostling and getting everybody out of the way, saying, ‘We’ve got to have this guy.’ I don’t believe that for a minute.

“So that’s that.”

Source: TSN 1050/ Transcript: Nichols

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