The Toronto Globe and Mail spotted Scott Niedermayer’s agent, Kevin Epp, talking to Bob Murray, the Ducks’ VP of hockey ops, in the lobby of an Ottawa hotel this morning. (Oh, to have been a fly on the wall of an Ottawa hotel lobby this morning…) Here’s what both parties had to say (with links to the original here and here for the Associated Press version, with Murray quoted.) From Epp:“I think everybody would like to know. Being in limbo is never a good situation for the team, or for Scott.” “I think this year Scott understands the importance of letting the team know so they can move forward before the draft if they need to make a move one way or another.” “It’s hard to say that he’s leaning one way or another. I think he feels 100 percent committed to the team but he also enjoyed his time off. I think he’s in the crossroads again like he was last year.”
“There’s unfinished business. They didn’t finish the way he would have liked. I think there’s some more incentive to come back. But we’ll see.” From Bob Murray: “Everything we do hinges around Scott Niedermayer. He has to make his decision because we have to move on. We can’t do what we did last year because it didn’t work. It was a long year and it was no fun foranybody.” Murray added he didn’t have even a gut feeling on what Niedermayer might decide, except to say the player is “torn” over what todo. “We need him back, but you have to respect that, if he doesn’t feel he wants to play again,” Murray said, “he’ll do what he has todo.
