Friedman seemed to hint at the possibility that other GMs might have viewed Briere shopping Hart as being done in bad faith after Hart took the leave of absence and the extent of the situation was clarified league wide. He said he "wondered", but if you learn to read between the lines Friedman sometimes says that when he can't or won't report something. When he's just making HFBoards speculation like the rest of us, he is always very careful to clarify that he has heard nothing because he doesn't want to be misquoted.
If I had to guess based on everything we know is that his agent may have known about the possibility of this going sideways and he wanted to secure the biggest possible contract in the short term.
If you look at the Senators position, they often gave out term to players just to kick money down the road and manage their budget better. So if I was his agent, I might think that the Senators could be convinced to go 2-3 years just to get Formenton cheap in year 1. I also might look at the Senators being vulnerable to an offer sheet because of their budget. For example, a big market team could have gone 3 years at 2.1M but front loaded the money, also possible paid Formenton in signing bonuses, and only owed Ottawa a third round pick. Granted, a team ready to do that would probably try to trade for Formenton.
My guess is that the market never materialized for him because of the smoke around the situation, and then when he went to Europe it exposed where he was at with his play and all NHL interest evaporated. NHL teams will bear controversy to get what they think is a good player or prospect at a steep discount (The Coyotes draft pick to Boston, Logan Mallioux, the Oilers signing Cody Ceci, etc), but they aren't going to do it to get someone they aren't excited about.