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Originally Posted by opendoor
It still meant the same thing it was just worded slightly less clearly (though upon reading it for the first time my interpretation was the same as the league's). There was a reason the MOU explicitly said that acquiring an RFA via trade and then signing him would also exempt that player from rule 13.23 and that's because they were drawing a clear distinction between signing a player you already have the rights to and signing one that you don't. To me that clearly implies that signing another team's RFA does not preclude 13.23 from applying and that was the league's position.
But really, my point was more that what you're either/or scenario isn't really accurate:
Neither of these scenarios needed to occur, since at the time of the contract taking effect the player is not on the signing team's RFA list which means he's not exempt. O'Reilly would've never been on Calgary's RFA list because they wouldn't have owned his rights until his contract came into effect and thus the rule would've applied to him. And none of that changed between the MOU and the final draft of the CBA.
I agree there's a chance Feaster might've been able talk his way out of it, but that's far from certain. And given the facts and the apparent admission by the front office staff of a blunder, I think it's pretty clear what happened and it wasn't Feaster coming up with an ingenious plan to use somewhat vague language to create a loophole in the waiver rule.
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This is the whole point. At the time of the ROR signing the wording of the MOU made him Flames property at the time of the signing, which is what is quoted, or stated from the article. Simple words like "or/was/is" in a contract are what describes what happens. The NHL lawyers changed the wording before the final deal was signed, but if it had gone to arbitration based on the MOU wording the Flames would have been correct. When Daly spoke to TSN he was also correct based on the "intended" meaning of the MOU, but he later admitted that he needed to check. Moot point though as the Avs matched so nobody will ever know.