Quote:
Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina
With Gaudreau it's not entirely true.
What I believe happened is this (not to re-litigate it but...):
- Gaudreau (either directly or through his agent) told the Flames what deal he would accept
- The Flames agreed to give him that and thought the deal was signed
- Gaudreau's camp then went quite which was a red flag
- They then told the Flames he would be going to free agency
- When he did, he found the interest to be lower than expected including from teams he was interested in (e.g. Philly)
- At some point the Gaudreau camp re-engaged with the Flames. They were not interested at that stage at re-considering anything
- The Gaudreau camp started to panic and reached out to CBJ to express interest including to get a deal done.
I'm pretty sure that's how things played out. So he didn't take less to play elsewhere because at that time, the Flames deal was no longer on the table. When they turned down the Flames, they did so thinking they could get as good a deal elsewhere (except for the 8 year part)
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They made a huge mistake, and I think New Jersey was offering in the 8's. So yeah it makes sense they panicked and came back to the Flames, and settled on finding a team with cap space like the Jackets.
In cap squeezed league, they made a huge mistake.
Chucky was offered the same 10.5 and signed for 9.5 but he is likely taking more home now anyways with no state tax in Florida.