Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts
I don't think Gaudreau operated in good faith, I have said it all along he knew what he was going to do. He just took the team for a ride.
I don't know about Oliver, but he said he wanted to come back but that Washington offer if true makes sense for someone to go after that.
|
I don’t know know if he acted in good faith or not, but I knew the minute he said that he wanted to wait until the end of season to talk about a contract, that he was being pulled in another direction and the Flames were working against external forces.
I’ve seen this exact same decision making behaviour in everyday life with regular people, and I don’t think hockey players are that much more complicated. If someone is procrastinating or non-committed, there is a good chance that they are just trying not to upset people because the answer isn’t what they want to hear. There is always a chance that you can pull them back from those external forces, but with the Flames being the smaller market Canadian team they are, it’s a big gamble.
That is why I was saying that the Flames should have traded him before the season began. Granted, that was one hell of a fun season watching that line. In fact, I would bet that the success they had that year might have almost worked in convincing JG to stay. I imagine it was a hard choice and the easiest thing for him was to just let the clock run out on July 1st.
Quote:
|
Oliver situation to me seems simple. He got bad information, Flames moved on and signed a better player, and he got this deal.
|
I am not sure if I believe the Washington rumour. It’s hard to believe any team would be foolish enough to offer a multi year deal. But if true, it would seem like a pretty extreme case of tampering. I know a little bit of tampering here and there happens all the time, but straight up giving a verbal contract offer to a player under contract to another team when they are opening trying to negotiate an extension, would seem to me to be something that should be punished. It’s kind of different when the player and team already decided to part ways and are just waiting it out until July 1st, but to get in their ear during negotiations, that is pretty bad. This is why teams trade for player rights.