Quote:
Originally Posted by Red Menace
My understanding (and I could certainly be wrong) was that Burke had a deal in place with a single team and waited right up to the end before they backed out...then he had no time left to properly shop Cammi to the rest of the league (and many teams had already traded for similar UFAs by that point.
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I think you're mixing up two different stories.
Burke had a deal in place with a specific team, but it was conditional upon the other team completing a separate deal with a third team. When the other team was unable to complete their other deal, they no longer needed to make the deal with the Flames.
Speculation at the time was that it was a deal that would have seen Heatley come to Calgary from Minnesota so that Minnesota would have had the cap space to acquire Vanek from the Islanders. The Wild would have sent something additional to the Flames (likely a pick or prospect) for taking Heatley's contract. When Vanek went to Montreal, the Wild didn't need to clear the cap space, so they called off the Heatley deal. The deal would have been entirely about freeing up cap space for Minnesota. Calgary wouldn't have been sending much of value the other way.
Trading Cammalleri didn't happen because there were too many rental wingers on the market last year and Cammalleri was struggling in the weeks leading up to the deadline, so he wasn't at the top of any team's list. A few teams had kicked the tires on Cammalleri, but all were waiting to see if they could land one of the bigger fish. The other players went so late (and Kesler didn't go at all) that there was no time to get a deal done for Cammalleri.