From what I’m hearing, Clarke had a nice trade worked out that included Naslund, Kesler and a draft pick from Vancouver for Gagne, but that deal was yanked by the Vancouver GM Dave Nonis after verbally telling Clarke it was a go.

What happened next? Clarke signed Gagne and put an offer sheet in on Kesler to put the wood to Vancouver and its cap. You think Clarke just randomly picked Vancouver to resurrect the first offer sheet scenario in the NHL in almost 10 years?

If Vancouver matches the $1.9 million offer from the Flyers and opts to keep Kesler, Clarke still gets his point across. The Canucks would not be able to trade Kesler during the year and would be on the hook for nearly 200 percent more in salary than what they paid him last season. This puts them right at their self-imposed $42.5 million cap and they still have unsigned players as well.

Welcome to the NHL as a GM, Nonis.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 13th, 2006 at 10:31 pm and is filed under Bully's Perspective. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.