Friedman talked about it in his postdeadline podcast (around 16:30) Basically, the Avalanche give Carolina permission to talk to Rantanen’s agent, they asked if Rantanen would be open to signing a new deal with Carolina. Rantanen/his agent thought it was a negotiating tactic and said “sure, he’ll sign there.” Carolina takes him at his word. The trade happens.
Based on listening to that, it's even more proof that the deal should have never happened. If you believe the accuracy of what Friedman says, and the way he describes it, it demonstrates that the impression the Rantanen camp was giving was that of not taking the trade possibility seriously, and being entirely non committal to anything.
He even says that very often this type of situation is known to be a pressure tactic and the other team is being used.
So basically, Tulsky was dumb, and took something seriously that everyone else but him knew was not serious.
The Avs were probably laughing because they knew they would have never gotten that type of pure hockey trade from other teams.