[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

This is what I strongly believe played out over those final days of Johnny's time with the Flames.

- The team and player had been negotiating for some time. At some point Johnny's camp outlined exactly what it would take for him to sign
- The Flames informed his agent that they would meet all of these requirements. At this point the Flames (and I believe the agent) though they had a done deal. Because of the size of the deal, of course Edwards was involved to approve it - and he approved agreeing to every term that Johnny was asking for. Make no mistake, they thought it was done. To the point that the Flames started to coordinate the press conference and other details to announce the signing.
- But that Johnny's camp went dead silent. Which was alarming because logistics needed to be worked out. Sure enough, hours later, Johnny informed the team that he would be testing free agent, which floored Calgary. I'm not sure if this came directly or if Johnny talked to BT himself. There is also speculation that at some point Edwards and Johnny talked directly with Murray tearing a strip off him.

All that stuff I believe is pretty close to being correct. The rest I'm less sure of but still somewhat confident that this is how it played out. I'm also not speculating as to why Johnny changed his mind, just that when it came time to put pen to paper, on a deal that met ALL his requirements, he backed off.

Johnny and his camp (himself, family and agent) were then stunned that interest in him including from specific teams (Philly) wasn't there. They badly mis-judged how he was perceived around the league and who would be interested. As other teams started to use their cap, panic started to set in. The first panic move was to go back to the Flames to try and get a deal done. But Edwards wouldn't entertain this at all. I suspect BT also felt badly burned and also had no interest. At that stage, the panic worsened for the Johnny side, and they started to worry about getting a much smaller deal than they thought, and efforts were made to "get the bag" where they could. They identified a team that had the strong motivation, cap room, and a player (Gudbransson) that could create a back-channel communication to let the Jackets know that Johnny was interested. And they grabbed that deal because that's the one that was out there for them.

That's how I think it all played out.

How does your agent fumble that bag about your perception in other markets that badly?