I am surprised at the amount of ill will towards Fox.
He would have been 4th or 5th on the Flames RHD depth chart if he signed this summer or last. It was almost guaranteed he would have to spend 1-2 years in the AHL if he signed with the Flames. Similar situation in Carolina. Calgary and Carolina arguably have some of the best organizational defensive depth in the entire NHL. I would choose to ride things out at Harvard as well if I was in his shoes.
The Flames had a perfect example of this in Kylington. He has shown he is an NHL caliber defenceman. He was stuck in the minors for the first two months of the year until Valimaki got injured. If Valimaki did not get injured, Kylington would have spent the entire year in the AHL and would have forfeited hundreds of thousands in salary in the process.
This is real money. I get paying your dues, earning your spot, etc…, but sometimes there is not space on the roster for deep teams. The Flames currently have 9 NHL caliber defenceman on the roster. Only 6 get to play.
This seems like a win-win-win-win to me. Calgary was able to maximize Fox's value with the Carolina trade and get two key players back. Carolina got a pretty good return for a player who didn’t want to sign with them. New York gets a great prospect, arguably a late 1st round value in a redraft. Fox gets to play close to home (and potentially finish his Harvard degree if he goes that route).
I hope Fox kills it. It would be cool to look back and have a “wow, I can’t believe the Flames drafted and had Andersson, Valimaki, Fox and Kylington all in the system together at one time” moment.
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