Imagine Lindros in a Rangers sweater.
After the Lindros trade debacle, the NHL instituted the trade call process that lives on today. Apparently GMs at the time hated it, so they would prank call the NHL pretending to be another GM to state a phony trade.
Speaking of Quebec, one "almost trade" that I only learned about recently was that they offered an unsigned Peter Forsberg to the Sharks for the #2 pick in 1993 with the intention of taking Chris Pronger. Quebec had a ton of young forwards at the time and they wanted a franchise D.
The Sharks were a bit of a mess at that point. The owner fired GM Jack Ferreira after their first year. Instead of naming a replacement, he had a three headed GM with Dean Lombardi, Chuck Grillo, and head coach George Kingston. San Jose's scouts were split on who to take at #2. Some liked Pronger but the Sharks had two other 6'5 prospect LD in the system plus Sandis Ozolinsh just finished a promising rookie year. Other scouts liked Paul Kariya. But Grillo had a fascination with European prospects and wanted Viktor Kozlov. Eventually Grillo got his way and Lombardi was tasked with finding a trade down where they could get Kozlov and add assets.
Quebec first offered Mike Ricci and #10 but San Jose declined since the pick was too late to guarantee Kozlov. Quebec then offered Ricci/#10 to Tampa for #3 then would have flipped spots with San Jose, but Tampa said no. The Rangers also made an offer but couldn't guarantee Kozlov.
Lombardi had a meeting scheduled the night before with Quebec to talk about the trade and apparently the Nordiques brass no showed which left Lombardi steaming. Hartford GM Brian Burke had a modest trade on the table offering #6, #45, #58, and veteran Sergei Makarov in exchange for #2. San Jose had unsuccessfully offer sheeted Makarov the previous summer. Left with no other options, San Jose agreed to that deal.
But allegedly Quebec made a last minute offer of Forsberg on the draft floor which further pissed off Lombardi. He vented to the press afterwards that he would have done that deal contingent on getting Forsberg signed. But since Quebec waited so long, they had no time to talk to Forsberg's agent.
The problem was that Forsberg (and Markus Naslund) were declared Group IV RFAs and could sign offer sheets a few days after the draft. The previous summer, Teemu Selanne signed an offer sheet (3 years @400K/year plus 1.5 mil signing bonus) with Calgary that Winnipeg begrudgingly matched. The rumor was that Forsberg was eyeing the contract that 1993 top pick Alexandre Daigle was about to sign in Ottawa (14 mil over 5 years). San Jose was afraid that a team would give Forsberg a bloated offer sheet that would cripple them financially if they matched. And if they didn't match, they would receive no compensation unlike Group I/II/III RFAs at the time.
