[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by New Era

No, it's not. This is on "Iggy." He was the one that submitted the list and made a good faith promise to accept to any of those teams. The Flames struck their best deal and Iginla changed the rules mid-stream. King's quote said as much. Believe me, that is the last time the team trusts a player to live by his word. Iginla put the team in a bad position because he wouldn't live up to his word. Would the Flames have been better off with one deal or another? We can't say. We can say one thing for certain, Iginla put the team in a bad position. That's on him.

Originally Posted by New Era

@sun

There was a level of trust between the team and the player. There was a long standing relationship there between the team, management, and ownership. It was believed Iginla could be taken at his word, because a man is only as good as his word. It turns out Iginla's word wasn't worth ####.

I can't believe anyone is trying to defend Iginla in this instance. I don't know about you, but when I tell someone that I will do something, and give them my word, that means something to me and the people that know me. When you fail to follow through on those promises it makes you untrustworthy. That's the problem for me. Iginla took advantage of his relationship with Edwards and King and put one over on his friends on his way out the door from the party. ###### move from a player we thought was a standup guy.

This is exactly what I'm talking about...you have no idea if Iginla "gave his word" that he'd accept a trade to any of those teams...I'm quite certain he never said anything like "Jay, I promise you that I will accept a trade to either Pittsburgh or Boston (or LA or Chi)".

The key to this whole issue is how the first request for Iginla to waive his NMC actually occurred. Was he asked for a list of teams he'd be traded to, or a list of teams he would consider being traded to? We don't know how motivated Iginla was to be traded (or if would prefer maintaining his family life and figuring it out in the summer). It was the lockout shortened season; although Calgary was never in close contention, it was a shorter window than usual for a player to 'come to terms' with the fact that his team wasn't making the playoffs.

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

That is my take as well. Chiarelli said after the botched deal that when a player submits their list, it is understood that the player will go to any of those teams on the list. It's not usual that they get a last say after the list is submitted. But he also said that is it also in writing and the Flames didn't get it in writing, therefore Iginla did have the legal right still veto any move.

Feaster said after the fact that he made a mistake by trusting the player to abide by a practice that was considered standard but didn't bother with an official written waiver.

Feaster was dumb for not going by the book, but Iginla was a little bit of a jerk too IMO. I am sure Iginla would have signed a waiver to the teams on the list if Feaster put one in front of him, so really Feaster bears the most blame.

As per above, this was Iginla's first time being traded in the NHL (don't think the Dallas trade is really relevant here) - it's not on him to "know how these things normally go". That's Feaster and his agent. Again, we have no idea how the initial discussions played out. Feaster's actions certainly seem to indicate his understanding of the situation (again, do we even know if he was involved directly in the conversations, or were King/Edwards involved? Was it direct with Iggy, or through his agent?), but I'm not comfortable giving Feaster the benefit of the doubt considering his history of bungling transactions. I can easily see how any direct conversation with Iginla was more likely with King (who knows if Feaster or Meehan were in the room/on the call), and further discussions took place between Feaster and Meehan. It's easy to see how a miscommunication could have happened.

There are three possible scenarios here: 1) Iginla 'gave his word' and renegged, 2) There was simply some confusion between the parties on how exactly the process was going to work, 3) Iggy always had the veto power, and Feaster's mouth wrote a cheque he couldn't cash yet.

I'd lean towards number 2, and again, I think the onus is on the team/GM to ensure everything is clear. FWIW I don't think this was ever that big of a deal/worthy of 'blame', but if I were to assess blame it would be about 75 team / 25 Iggy.

Originally Posted by Yamer

I have it from a very reliable source close to the situation at the time, so I'm pretty confident this is how it played out.

And you're right, this isn't all on Iggy...but he's as culpable as anyone else here.

Fair enough, I don't think I really dispute your account, but it seems all of the info we have is essentially from the time Feaster told Chiarelli he'd won the sweepstakes onward. Do you have any insight to how the initial discussions with Iggy to waive his NMC played out and progressed?