As a Gm who's selling, it's in his best interest to leak **** left and right. If the other Gm doesn't like it, then he's the one passing on a opportunity to improve his club, not the other way around.
Sometimes the GM selling
will leak information to the media. You weigh the risk and reward of doing that. Do you risk losing NJ as a possible suitor, banking on the chance that someone else will offer you more? What if you leak the information, NJ gets mad and withdraws, and no one comes anywhere near what NJ was initially offering? You have to assess things on a case by case basis as a GM.
It's a fraternity, built on establishing great relationships with your counterparts. I doubt you'd be able to keep a job for a long time by alienating or ************ Lou. He's been in the league for so long and has so many connections that if anyone can "blackball" a GM I bet it's Lou. It happens all the time in other sports, where a GM loses the respect of his peers, can't pull off moves, and ends up fired.
At the end of the day, the team who's selling will get a solid offers thrown their way and if you don't make the entire league aware of a player being on the market, you're basically screwing yourself out of a possible trade cause certain Gm's weren't even aware that player "x" was even on the market to begin with.
There's a difference between informing a team that a player is on the market and leaking New Jersey's exact offer. Especially if the players involved are NHL players. You "leak" the information to the media and suddenly cause the NJ media to ask the players and team questions that Lou clearly doesn't want being asked. It's a distraction. That's likely one of the main reasons why the policy exists.
Also it's a pain in the ass when you're trying to deal with someone and they're constantly putting you on the back-burner, shopping your offer against other offers around the league.
sorta
