Washington forward Mathieu Perreault has responded to a story in La Presse, refuting the claim he asked for a trade out of the nation’s capital.
“All I want is a little bit more ice time and I talked to Adm Oates and George [McPhee] today about it,” Perreault told the Washington Times. “All I want is to play. I wanna be here. I don’t wanna go anywhere.
“If you guys read the article in French it doesn’t say that I asked for a trade. Never.”
On Wednesday, Marc Antoine Godin of La Pressse penned a piece based off an interview with Perreault, in which the Caps forward voiced his displeasure about his role and ice time thus far (he only played 3:52 in the season opener against Tampa, then just 4:58 in Tuesday’s loss to Winnipeg.)
A translation from Caps’ blog Russian Machine Never Breaks later emerged, in which Perreault was quoted as saying “trade me if I am not part of your plans.”
On Thursday, Perreault told the Times he never asked for a trade, but did admit to being frustrated about his role in Washington.
“I’m obviously not too happy. No one would be happy to be playing that much minutes,” he explained. “The headline says Perreault asks for a trade or something, but I never said I wanted to get traded. All I want is a little more minutes, that’s all.”
Perreault said he met with Oates and McPhee to discuss his role and classified it as a “good talk.”
The 25-year-old winger is coming off a career year in 2011-12, posting 16G-14A-30PTS in 64 games while averaging over 12 minutes per contest.
In July, the Caps gave Perreault a two-year, $2 million contract extension.
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