I’m not going to mock you, but I continue not believing the entire story. I don’t doubt that you have your source, but I believe you’ve been fed bs.
To elaborate on that a bit:
- I don’t doubt that Montreal made that offer.
- I don’t even doubt that Verbeek showed some interest and considered for longer than he should have (not very long), as he was asking his amateur/pro scouting for thoughts on Mailloux.
- We know the Ducks wanted an additional pick in that range, targeting Solberg. They found a way to make that happen without weakening the roster.
- The whole „it was us, the Habs, who didn’t want it in the end“ just reeks of dramatic performance. Since the main interest from the Ducks was Solberg, this deal wouldn’t have been too advanced at the time the Habs allegedly nixed it (after taking Demidov, or even at a time when they realized he was falling to them as some reports appeared to put it). It would have been contingent on the Ducks seeing Solberg was still around with that pick, and there were other avenues to be explored to get him. One of them materialized - one that was easily preferable to the Habs trade.
- Zegras wasn’t dealt. Not in this deal, not in any other. The desire wasn’t there to that degree - if this deal would have gotten it done, I don’t believe there wouldn’t have been others to make it happen, as well.
So, I think Montreal sources are free to continue to talk about this for whatever reason and add to the possibly imaginary lore of this non-deal by introducing reasonings over some „redundancy“ from adding too much talent, but unless there’s something from the other side - the side that made another deal and kept the player throughout - it just doesn’t seem like a convincing narrative.
