[dino7c]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

I remember Tkachuk saying very distinctly at the time, that he wanted a long term deal and would have signed it in a heartbeat. He said they wanted him to accept a short term deal to try to keep the team together longer. He said be didn't want to be the reason someone else had to leave, so he agreed to sign their 3-year offer.

Treliving even praised Tkachuk's willingness to put keeping the roster together over his own needs.

Fast forward to this season, and there's a Tkachuk quote saying he was just essentially returning the favour of not wanting to lock him up long term when they had the chance. Something like, "they only wanted to give me three years back then, so I decided to take advantage of that and return the favour." (paraphrased from memory)

I look at it as it was Tree's job to make the hard decision at the time, and make room to sign Tkachuk long term. By asking him to sign a shorter deal, using "keep the team together" as the excuse, it put him in a corner. If he said no and forced a max term deal, he'd essentially be kicking someone off the team. Who wants that on their shoulders? If Tree just does his job and makes enough room for a long term offer, then it still might be the same result, but it's different when the GM decides to do vs making a player decide.

Like in the Roman coliseum... It's one thing if the Emperor gives you the signal to kill a guy vs saying, "hey man, it's your call." The first option is you obeying your Emperor while the second is you murdering someone.

He also said he wanted to sign long term in may 2022 so take it with a grain of salt