Quote:
Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan
It says July 28th, right in CapFriendly and every newspaper story on it. I forget when free agency began, but the facts are the facts. There's no good UFAs worth signing over someone like Zadorov. If you can find one I'll listen to the argument for them instead, but we're splitting hairs here.
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Free agency started on July 28th as well, I believe . The trade was made on the first day of free agency.
Again, I’m not saying any of the free agents might necessarily have been better than Zadorov, but the actual list of UFAs available wasn’t close to as bare bones as the one you posted.
David Savard, Alex Edler, Derek Forbort, Mike Reilly, Cody Ceci, Ian Cole were all available and signed to a cap hit not significantly different than Zadorov’s. Good chance some of them had no interest coming to Calgary though.
I don’t believe the flames only wanted to sign him to a one year contract, when they traded for him. Be it lack of due diligence, pressure of arbitration or conversations not making headway, walking him to UFA status is no where close to ideal.