from Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet,

The Jets host St. Louis on Tuesday night, entering the evening five points out of the playoffs.

And it will be their first game since a mammoth Tim Campbell story where he reported on the initial contract demands of Dustin Byfuglien, Andrew Ladd and Jacob Trouba. Campbell indicated Byfuglien asked for eight years and $55M; Ladd six years and $41M; Trouba “more than” $56M over eight.

How is everyone — including the fans — going to react to all of this being out in the open?

Look, the players aren’t stupid. They know what’s going on, who’s a free agent, who needs a new contract and who doesn’t. What they generally don’t know is who is asking for what. This is…unusual. You run the risk of players looking at each other and saying, “Really, he’s asking for that?”

And, they’ve got to answer questions about it right before a game they need. To me, this is someone in Winnipeg warning the Manitoba faithful that painful choices are coming. But which ones?

There’s less worry about Byfuglien and Ladd. They’re veterans, they’ve been traded before, they’ve seen just about everything.

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