So who was the most surprised by the Jarome Iginla trade to Pittsburgh? It seems like it was Boston Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli.
During a news conference Thursday afternoon, Chiarelli discussed how Boston’s package deal for the coveted Flames captain was put together and eventually fell apart in the early morning hours.
“We made a firm offer two days ago and were told at Noon yesterday (Wednesday) that we’d won the Jarome Iginla sweepstakes so to speak,” Chiarelli told reporters. “We believed that we had a deal.”
According to TSN.ca, the deal the Bruins had on the table for Iginla was defenceman Matt Bartkowski, forward Alexander Khokhlachev and a first-round pick conditional on Iginla re-signing with the Bruins. Chiarelli went on to say that Bartkowski and Khokhlachev were scratched from their Boston and Providence lineup assuming that the deal was pretty much finished.
That phone call from Calgary to confirm the deal though never came. Instead Chiarelli received a call at about 11:45PM ET that it was a player’s choice for Iginla to ultimately be dealt to the Penguins.
“We relied on the fact that we had a deal,” said Chiarelli. “Now, these things happen all the time, more than you know, about deals going south for whatever reason. We believed we had a deal. We operated on the premise that we had a deal. When things were silent, in my experience, when things go silent, things are usually going screwy from your end. And it was.”
h/t: TSN.ca
