Seems like a BS reason and like a story that comes up after the Flames trade for Freddie. The Boston media is notorious for making up a ton of stuff about how bad guys were after they leave Boston. A lot of it seemed to come from John Henry and the Red Sox but with Seguin and Hamilton and with how scummy the Boston media is in general perhaps they were just as big culprits as the Sox.
As for the rumour. Calgary got Freddie for a 7th rounder so basically nothing. He has had 3 decent years in the AHL and 17 games in the NHL last year. This year he has 3 goals in 4 games so he seems at worst to be a valuable AHL player who has some potential to maybe turn into a NHLer. I think if you take a look at the average 7th rounder he has already surpassed what a vast majority of them would ever do.
Now considering the brother angle since Freddie is almost 100% assured to spend the year in Stockton what does Dougie gain by having his brother in the organization? He won't see him at all since they live in different cities and play on different teams. It doesn't seem like Freddie was in danger of not getting a contract and this is a way to help keep his career going.
In the end there appears to be very little substance or reason for this to be true and would seem to be a very flimsy reason to trade a guy that you offered 5.25 million a year to.
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