If you’re one of many who wants the Colorado Avalanche to re-sign Jonathan Drouin, the words of his agent on Friday have to make you feel pretty good about the odds of a deal getting done.
On his podcast Agent Provocateur, Allan Walsh, the agent for Jonathan Drouin, spoke highly of the Avalanche organization when asked about where his client’s head is at and how he feels after a career year in Denver.
“I would say what Colorado allowed him to do, to be there, and to have the familiarity of his old linemate and very close friend from Junior, it allowed him to rekindle his passion to play the game,” Walsh said.
Walsh discussed Drouin’s well documented history with anxiety and mentions that when he speaks to Drouin now, it’s obvious that he’s in a tremendous place in his personal life. That’s fantastic to hear, and was very apparent in the locker room, as the 29 year old winger was always in the mood to talk to anyone from the media.
Walsh continued to rave about the entire front office and coaching staff of Colorado.
“Enough credit has not gone to the Avalanche as an organization,” the agent said. “From the management giving him the opportunity, the coaching staff, Jonathan cannot think more highly of that coaching staff, to the guys in the room that accepted him and brought him in and he feels, he’s like ‘Allan, I feel like I’ve played here for the last five years.’”
Earlier this week, it was reported that Walsh and Avalanche GM Chris MacFarland were going to meet this week to discuss a potential contract extension. That meeting has already occurred.
“I don’t want to talk specifically. I did meet with Chris MacFarland in Buffalo (at the combine),” Walsh said. “Had a great meeting with him. Both sides have been pretty public also about how we want to make a deal, they want to make a deal. When both sides want to make a deal, deals happen.”
Both sides want to make a deal, and have just a little over three weeks to make it happen. Drouin, who was Colorado’s Masterton Nominee this year, is set to hit the open market on July 1 and will be a coveted player if that does happen. After seeing how well he played with Nathan MacKinnon, you can bet other teams with top of the line centers were taking note. There’s quite a few top centers out there that could use a good linemate, and if Colorado can’t find the cap space to get a Drouin deal done, he’ll have plenty of suitors.
Walsh also spoke a little bit about how difficult it is to play in a city like Montreal or Toronto compared to a city like Denver, where there just isn’t as much media and you can step away from the rink and be a little bit more anonymous. The Drouin talk starts at around the 44:30 mark and can be heard here.