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Coyotes pushed for John Scott to be included in trade with Canadiens (Report)
The John Scott All-Star Game saga took another turn towards the ridiculous during the Insider Trading segment on TSN in the first intermission of the Wild-Jets game.
When asked by host James Duthie if the trade that sent Scott to Montreal is the end of the forward's reign as an All-Star captain, venerable NHL reporter Bob MacKenzie replied with:
"I would certainly think so at this point. Even if the National Hockey League were to declare a player who is in the minors, playing for St. John's in the American Hockey League, or a player who is playing in the Atlantic Division, could still be the captain of the Pacific Division All-Star team, I don't see that happening for the very simple reason that I believe John Scott, at this point, has had enough, and that he will almost certainly be bowing out of the National Hockey League All-Star Game.
"Prior to this, John Scott was asked by both the National Hockey League and the Arizona Coyotes to reconsider his decision to accept a spot on the team that was awarded to him by a fan vote. He refused to do that.
"I can tell you that the Montreal Canadiens had no interest whatsoever in getting John Scott in this trade. The Arizona Coyotes wanted him to be included. You can draw your own conclusions from that. A lot of people have conspiracy theories. Whatever the case may be, but it was Arizona who wanted him in this trade, not the Montreal Canadiens."
(Transcribed from broadcast)
Conspiracy theories? Surely you jest!
Puck Daddy reached out to the Arizona Coyotes for comment. We received back the same Don Maloney quote given earlier to Craig Morgan of AZ Sports, "This trade wasn’t about the All-Star Game. John was a good soldier for us and did his job well, but we have to run our business. To make the finances of this deal work we had to include John Scott in the deal."
Let's take a look at those financials. The trade was a three-way deal of sorts. The Coyotes sent Stefan Elliott to the Nashville Predators for Victor Bartley. Bartley was then flipped with John Scott to Montreal for Jarred Tinordi and Stefan Fournier.
To Montreal | Cap Hit | NHL Salary | Contract |
Victor Bartley | $666,666 | $800,000 | UFA |
John Scott | $575,000 | $575,000 | UFA |
Total | $1,241,666 | $1,375,000 |
|
|
|
|
|
To Arizona | Cap Hit | NHL Salary | Contract |
Jarred Tinordi | $850,500 | $850,500 | RFA |
Stefan Fournier | $583,333 | $600,000 | RFA |
| $1,433,833 | $1,450,500 |
|
To Nashville from Arizona | Cap Hit | NHL Salary | Contract |
Stefan Elliott | $650,000 | $650,000 | RFA |
NET ARIZONA | $783,833 | $800,500 |
|
Factoring in the Elliott trade, the Coyotes do save money by shipping Scott's contract out. Arizona walks away with only $800,500 in NHL salary retained.
But as Bob said, conspiracy theories abound in regards to Scott. Did the NHL have a hand in this? We don't know for sure. With a blanket comment by the Coyotes, neither Arizona or the league, for that matter is doing anything to refute them.
To turn this into even more of a cluster, Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman tweeted to our own Wyshynski that Scott and his family were offered a ticket to the All-Star weekend.
@wyshynski on the family point, word is they were still offered a free trip to the weekend.
— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) January 16, 2016
So he can go, but not participate. Nice, NHL.
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Jen Neale is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow her on Twitter! Follow @MsJenNeale_PD.
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