NHL Rumors: Could Ken Holland Still Join Don Waddell in Columbus?

Could a Reunion between Ken Holland and Don Waddell Be in the Works?

Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet joined Scott Laughlin and Gord Stellick on Sirius XM NHL Network Radio Morning Skate and when asked about Ken Holland leaving Edmonton to join Columbus and Don Waddell, Friedman did not rule it out.

** NHLRumors.com transcriptions

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Scott Laughlin: “Hey Friedge. We’re kicking this around a little bit. earlier. And I think everybody pretty much is in agreement that John Davidson made a pretty astute hire with Don Waddell, of course out of contract with Carolina, that that ship had sailed. So Don was looking for the next challenge and yesterday officially named as the Jackets new General Manager and President of Hockey Operations. So you’ve got that and all the while you start to hear speculation about the Ken Holland and Don Waddell, Detroit days.

And everybody thinks, say at the end of this all maybe Ken Holland doesn’t want to retire, you know, maybe he doesn’t want to just hang out and because maybe he wants to continue on. What do you think that there could be anything there if in fact, Ken leaves the Oilers and Jeff Jackson kind of takes over, would Ken Holland be interested in hooking up with Don Waddell in Columbus?”

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Elliotte Friedman: I have to say prior to Don Waddell as taking over, I was kind of like, well, that ends that with the idea of about Ken Holland and people who said, Not so fast, it’s still a possibility.

Now, it’s a tough one to deal with right now, Scott. They’re still going and like one of the things I really believe what’s going on out there, sorry Scotty, is that Edmonton, like let’s just say if they want to hire someone, they’re very careful in the sense that we don’t want it getting out while they’re in the playoffs.

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So I don’t think they really asked to talk to anybody. So I think that adds to the level of uncertainty that we’ve got here. I’ll say this. The best way to answer that question is when Waddell got hired, I kind of thought, okay, there’s no way it’s going to be a Waddell/Holland combo. A couple of people saying don’t be so sure.

ButI still, like it still seems weird to me. So I’m just gonna let it play out and once Edmonton is done here, I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of all this.