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(rambling post warning about tampering)

It's going back a ways, but the Devils filed a tampering charge against St. Louis after they offer sheeted Scott Stevens in 1994. That saga was interesting to looking back on as it was before my time as a fan. Stevens signed a Group II offer sheet in 1990 which Washington didn't match and St. Louis forked over five first rounders. Stevens and his wife bought their dream house and were mentally ready to settle down in St. Louis.

The next summer, St. Louis signed Brendan Shanahan to a Group I offer sheet (this was done away with in the 1995 CBA). While Group II offer sheets had a pre-defined compensation scale like we're used to today, for Group I offer sheets teams instead offered up equivalent players in a de facto trade process called equalization. If the two sides couldn't agree, an arbitrator would be brought in and both teams would present what they thought was a fair offer. St. Louis offered up Rod Brind'Amour, a young Curtis Joseph, and a couple of draft picks. New Jersey requested Scott Stevens. To many people's surprise, the arbitrator ruled in favor of the Devils. Stevens was pissed since he was suddenly forced to move after just one season and initially refused to report but eventually relented. But understandably, he had a desire to return to St. Louis eventually.

Fast forward to the summer of 1994 and Stevens is a restricted free agent again (true unrestricted free agency wouldn't be introduced until 1995). So he signed an offer sheet with St. Louis but the Devils matched. But Lou Lamoriello always felt something felt fishy when he was trying to negotiate with Stevens' agent beforehand. So behind the scenes he pestered the NHL to investigate.

Fast forward to 1999 and the Blues were sold. I had one Blues fan tell me how there was a vengeful guy in their management group who wasn't being retained, so he ratted out the team regarding Stevens in 1994. In the ownership switch, some form of proof was uncovered which showed that the Blues had negotiated with Stevens before they were allowed to.

As punishment, the Blues were fined 1.4 million dollars and had to fork over a 1st rounder to New Jersey between 1999-2003. New Jersey was also permitted to swap 1st rounders (as long as both options weren't done in consecutive seasons). The Devils ended up whiffing when they took the Blues' 2001 1st rounder, but they swapped picks in 2003 which enabled them to trade up for Zach Parise.

--------------

TL;DR: The league has come down hard on tampering, but finding evidence can be difficult.
 
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https://thehockeywriters.com/nhl-rumors-october-15-2020/

Vegas Golden Knights owner Bill Foley to said during an interview with Brian Blessing on Vegas Hockey Hotline that the team was willing to trade Nate Schmidt to the Canucks (a division rival) because they didn’t think they’d had to face him much next season. “Yeah, but they’re going to be in the Canadian Division,” he said.


Which supports the rumors that the NHL will have to shorten their season to under 60 games, and that due to border restrictions, the 'canadian division' would include all the Canadian teams who would play only the other teams in the divison and not leave Canada.

The American teams would be adjusted to be in 3 divisoins, Pacific, Central, Eastern and potentially have only interdivisional play to cut down on travel and COVID risk.
Of course the logical decision would be to cancel, but Bettman won't do that.

So depending on the state of the world/country in Jan when they hope to start, they have to outline a few options.
 
deeshamrock said:
https://thehockeywriters.com/nhl-rumors-october-15-2020/

Vegas Golden Knights owner Bill Foley to said during an interview with Brian Blessing on Vegas Hockey Hotline that the team was willing to trade Nate Schmidt to the Canucks (a division rival) because they didn’t think they’d had to face him much next season. “Yeah, but they’re going to be in the Canadian Division,” he said.


Which supports the rumors that the NHL will have to shorten their season to under 60 games, and that due to border restrictions, the 'canadian division' would include all the Canadian teams who would play only the other teams in the divison and not leave Canada.

The American teams would be adjusted to be in 3 divisoins, Pacific, Central, Eastern and potentially have only interdivisional play to cut down on travel and COVID risk.
Of course the logical decision would be to cancel, but Bettman won't do that.

So depending on the state of the world/country in Jan when they hope to start, they have to outline a few options.
Click to expand...

So, the Kings will play 20 games against SJ, 20 vs ANA and 20 vs AZ? Cuts down on travel!!!
 
Sleeping Dog said:
So, the Kings will play 20 games against SJ, 20 vs ANA and 20 vs AZ? Cuts down on travel!!!
Click to expand...

no, each division would be broken out and encompass other teams, not normally in that divison. So if 8 teams are in the pacific, they would play each other 7 times unless they opt to play less and somehow incorporate the other divisons, but that would defeat the purpose of cutting down on travel and risk.

That was 1 option, they might cut the risk further by having say North East South and West with like 6 teams in each, so the teams in the south, normally in metro or central would stay south.

It depends on how bad COVID spikes by Jan. The players do not want bubble, so that is not an option. But they could select like 2 arenas per divison and play only there, to cut the risk, maybe.

I'm sure they are working on options. And as much as Bettman and Daily mention' people in the arenas, I don't see that, no indoors too risky.
 
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What's up with the Hurricanes? Them and the Caps seem to be all about ex-Kings garbage.

Brodeur said:
(rambling post warning about tampering)

It's going back a ways, but the Devils filed a tampering charge against St. Louis after they offer sheeted Scott Stevens in 1994. That saga was interesting to looking back on as it was before my time as a fan. Stevens signed a Group II offer sheet in 1990 which Washington didn't match and St. Louis forked over five first rounders. Stevens and his wife bought their dream house and were mentally ready to settle down in St. Louis.

The next summer, St. Louis signed Brendan Shanahan to a Group I offer sheet (this was done away with in the 1995 CBA). While Group II offer sheets had a pre-defined compensation scale like we're used to today, for Group I offer sheets teams instead offered up equivalent players in a de facto trade process called equalization. If the two sides couldn't agree, an arbitrator would be brought in and both teams would present what they thought was a fair offer. St. Louis offered up Rod Brind'Amour, a young Curtis Joseph, and a couple of draft picks. New Jersey requested Scott Stevens. To many people's surprise, the arbitrator ruled in favor of the Devils. Stevens was pissed since he was suddenly forced to move after just one season and initially refused to report but eventually relented. But understandably, he had a desire to return to St. Louis eventually.

Fast forward to the summer of 1994 and Stevens is a restricted free agent again (true unrestricted free agency wouldn't be introduced until 1995). So he signed an offer sheet with St. Louis but the Devils matched. But Lou Lamoriello always felt something felt fishy when he was trying to negotiate with Stevens' agent beforehand. So behind the scenes he pestered the NHL to investigate.

Fast forward to 1999 and the Blues were sold. I had one Blues fan tell me how there was a vengeful guy in their management group who wasn't being retained, so he ratted out the team regarding Stevens in 1994. In the ownership switch, some form of proof was uncovered which showed that the Blues had negotiated with Stevens before they were allowed to.

As punishment, the Blues were fined 1.4 million dollars and had to fork over a 1st rounder to New Jersey between 1999-2003. New Jersey was also permitted to swap 1st rounders (as long as both options weren't done in consecutive seasons). The Devils ended up whiffing when they took the Blues' 2001 1st rounder, but they swapped picks in 2003 which enabled them to trade up for Zach Parise.

--------------

TL;DR: The league has come down hard on tampering, but finding evidence can be difficult.
Click to expand...

Always intrigued by the Stevens/Blues/Devils saga. He wanted nothing to do with them, but ended up captaining 3 Cup teams there.
 
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The Blues also tendered an offer sheet to Marty McSorley in 1993, which is why the Kings ended up having to trade him after matching the offer sheet. They did the same with Petr Nedved a year later.

Nice to see them get penalized by losing Scott Stevens for their actions, and then get hit with more losses after they were discovered to be tampering with him.
 
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Ziggy Stardust said:
The Blues also tendered an offer sheet to Marty McSorley in 1993, which is why the Kings ended up having to trade him after matching the offer sheet. They did the same with Petr Nedved a year later.

Nice to see them get penalized by losing Scott Stevens for their actions, and then get hit with more losses after they were discovered to be tampering with him.
Click to expand...

Yeah it was interesting to read up on how Group I/II/III free agency worked during that 1988-1994 era CBA. St. Louis seemingly was in the middle of most of those, some of the players thought that the arbitrator awarded Stevens to the Devils as punishment for signing him in the first place. The arbitrator was supposed to be independent from the league, but they thought otherwise.

During that time period, unrestricted free agency didn't exactly exist yet so everything was an offer sheet but with different rules depending on which Group the player fit in.

Group I (under 24, but with 4 years pro experience): I was floored when I read that the original team had no right to match as I had always wondered why the Devils didn't just match the Shanahan offer if they didn't like what the Blues were offering. The Shanahan case was the first big Group I offer sheet and the ruling scared off teams from pursuing this option since St. Louis lost a proven All-Star for a potential one. The last Group I offer sheet (before it was done away with in the 1995 CBA) was when St. Louis signed Petr Nedved from Vancouver in 1994. St. Louis offered Craig Janney and a pick while Vancouver requested Shanahan. The arbitrator ruled in favor of St. Louis but Janney refused to report to Vancouver. Nedved's offer sheet happened late in the season, so Vancouver didn't have the luxury of waiting Janney out. They ended up trading him back to St. Louis for Jeff Brown, Bret Hedican, and Nathan Lafayette. That one in particular is amusing to me knowing how a couple marriages were affected by that: Shanahan ended up marrying Janney's ex-wife and there was a persistent rumor about Brown and Canucks goalie Kirk McLean's wife who penned an article like 20+ years later to dispel that story.

The Rangers stole Adam Graves via a Group I offer sheet in 1991. Graves was a fourth liner with meager numbers in Edmonton (7 goals in 76 games) and the arbitrator awarded them Troy Mallette (12 goals in 71 games). Rangers GM Neil Smith had helped draft Graves originally in Detroit and figured there was untapped potential.

Back then Bob Probert was considered one of the best enforcers in the league. The Devils had a young enforcer named Troy Crowder (played a couple seasons in LA) who did well in a couple of fights against Probert so Detroit signed him to a Group I offer. I think this was after the Shanahan/Stevens ruling, so Lou Lamoriello decided to aim high again and requested Probert as compensation. But the arbitrator ruled for Detroit who gave up Dave Barr and Randy McKay. McKay would be a decent cog in a couple of Stanley Cups. If I recall correctly, Crowder immediately had back problems which kept him out for a couple of seasons.

Group III (over 31, later amended to over 30): It was interesting to learn that Group IIIs weren't fully unrestricted back then. It's been tough to find an exact copy of the CBA, but it appears that the player had the option of letting the original team match the offer. But if the player didn't let the original team match, the new team would have to go through the equalization process which obviously would hamper their market value.

McSorley gave the Kings the chance to match the offer sheet he signed with St. Louis but the Kings would have received no compensation if they didn't. So they ended up matching and immediately trading him to Pittsburgh. In the 1995 CBA, they added a clause where a team matching an offer sheet wasn't allowed to trade the player for a year.

Al MacInnis was pissed at Flames management and he signed with St. Louis but didn't give Calgary the right to match. So the two sides had to come up with a trade or else go before an arbitrator. Eventually the two sides agreed and Phil Housley (plus picks) were sent to Calgary.

I think one of the earliest cases was the Kings signing Larry Robinson was one of the early prominent Group III offer sheets. Robinson gave Montreal the option to match and they didn't, so the Kings got Robinson but didn't owe them any compensation.
 
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KingsFan7824 said:
What's up with the Hurricanes? Them and the Caps seem to be all about ex-Kings garbage.



Always intrigued by the Stevens/Blues/Devils saga. He wanted nothing to do with them, but ended up captaining 3 Cup teams there.
Click to expand...


Sheldon Rempal joins the ranks , just like LaDue. There's probably more.
 
KingsFan7824 said:
What's up with the Hurricanes? Them and the Caps seem to be all about ex-Kings garbage.
Click to expand...

Both of those teams prioritize having competitive AHL teams in order to help insulate their prospects, just as LA does (Hershey and Charlotte both won Calder Cups fairly recently if I recall correctly). It makes sense that they'd want to sign Rempal and LaDue as they're both top of the lineup AHL players.
 
deeshamrock said:
https://thehockeywriters.com/nhl-rumors-october-15-2020/

Vegas Golden Knights owner Bill Foley to said during an interview with Brian Blessing on Vegas Hockey Hotline that the team was willing to trade Nate Schmidt to the Canucks (a division rival) because they didn’t think they’d had to face him much next season. “Yeah, but they’re going to be in the Canadian Division,” he said.


Which supports the rumors that the NHL will have to shorten their season to under 60 games, and that due to border restrictions, the 'canadian division' would include all the Canadian teams who would play only the other teams in the divison and not leave Canada.

The American teams would be adjusted to be in 3 divisoins, Pacific, Central, Eastern and potentially have only interdivisional play to cut down on travel and COVID risk.
Of course the logical decision would be to cancel, but Bettman won't do that.

So depending on the state of the world/country in Jan when they hope to start, they have to outline a few options.
Click to expand...

What a sneaky way to get a Canadian team into The Final. Canada is desperate! :)

Not sure why whoever wrote this thinks the logical decision would be to cancel the season. Bettman's statement on this issue should be just like that of NFL Commissioner Goodell, "This is the NHL, we are playing."

An interdivisional schedule would be reminiscent of the old six or seven team Western Hockey League. Teams play each other 10 or 12 times in a season and they really develop a healthy hate for each other.

Another thing which might make it interesting is Arizona and Nevada may allow a limited number of spectators, while California will still be locking down on fan attendance.
 
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deeshamrock said:
no, each division would be broken out and encompass other teams, not normally in that divison. So if 8 teams are in the pacific, they would play each other 7 times unless they opt to play less and somehow incorporate the other divisons, but that would defeat the purpose of cutting down on travel and risk.

That was 1 option, they might cut the risk further by having say North East South and West with like 6 teams in each, so the teams in the south, normally in metro or central would stay south.

It depends on how bad COVID spikes by Jan. The players do not want bubble, so that is not an option. But they could select like 2 arenas per divison and play only there, to cut the risk, maybe.

I'm sure they are working on options. And as much as Bettman and Daily mention' people in the arenas, I don't see that, no indoors too risky.
Click to expand...
So, I am guessing the Pacific Division would be picking up Dallas and Colorado?

Um yeah, it's going to be a long season playing Vegas, Colorado, and Dallas seven times.
 
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Bandit said:
Thornton to the Leafs. Good to see that still posting anything other than kissing the Leafs ass on the main board results in an infraction.

1967.
Click to expand...
i made a passing joke about nate schmidt's PED problems in his thread and they deleted it, main board is an absolute joke
 
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