The first day of the NHL Board of Governors meeting has started with some dramatics. According to TSN’s Pierre LeBrun, the owner of the Ottawa Senators, Michael Andlauer, has accused the New York Rangers of “soft-tampering.”
It’s safe to say there’s now a Brady Tkachuk-sized wedge between the two organizations. Andlauer’s statement was regarding a report from Larry Brooks of the New York Post indicating the Rangers were aggressively pursuing Tkachuk in a trade with the Senators.
Nothing indicates that Brooks’ report came from a leak within the Rangers organization but the Senators organization believes it did. Andlauer told LeBrun that Ottawa hasn’t discussed Tkachuk with any team and he hopes he will be the team’s leader for many years.
The accusation is understandably heavy and will likely be discussed at the Board of Governors meeting. Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reports the Rangers responded to the accusation by saying, “This is an irresponsible accusation and we defer to the Commissioner’s office.”
It’s a situation the league will likely investigate given its updated policies on tampering. The league was reportedly displeased with the number of contracts preemptively announced before free agency began on July 1st and sent a memo to all 32 teams.
Any team caught tampering could face fines as large as $5MM, lose draft capital, or even have contracts voided (although that wouldn’t apply in this scenario) should they be caught tampering. The last time a team has been charged with tampering by the league came back in 2016 when former-general manager for the Vancouver Canucks, Jim Benning, made public comments regarding P.K. Subban and Steven Stamkos which resulted in a $50K fine.
Yeah, but he was an owner of the Montreal Canadiens, and they do it all the time. In the Montreal news, when the free agent period comes, we can hear: Montréal Canadiens MAY BE interested in this player or this one, and those players are still negotiating with the team that owns their contract.
Is soft tampering like mistruth?
Alternative Facts.
Ottawa hasn’t even reportedly discussed trading Brady Tkachuk to any team. So I don’t get how a “soft-tampering” accusation could be had if no discussions of such a trade has even occurred as it makes no sense. I feel some piece of information in this whole matter is missing. Is it “soft-tampering” because word got out early that trade discussions could happen within the next few months?…If it is that’s rather shallow. This is a bit of a muddled scenario that seems rather vague at this point in time.
It’ll be an interesting situation to see play out. Tampering itself must come from the team. The league can’t fault the Rangers for a journalist saying ‘Player A’ would be nice for ‘Team A’. The league would have to determine if the Rangers leaked some internal discussion to the New York Post, but there’s been nothing indicating that has happened.
I agree with you as this a peculiar case to say the least. I just currently don’t see with the information provided in the report of any sort of actual tampering charge here. This seems a rather vague accusal that has no real basis to support it. Until this is looked into further, there just isn’t any evidence of support in this claimed accusation right now.
Worth noting… Larry Brooks is behind a paywall.
I think yes, especially a journalist near the team. Otherwise, it is easy to pass your message through the journalists. Journalists near the team should have certain restrictions, especially near the free agent dates.
Soft tampering….is this the opposite of heavy petting?
Translation: Ottawa holding out for Rangers top prospects. Kreider and Perrault perhaps?
Larry Brooks must be laughing knowing the trouble he can still cause. :D
Sad that another billionaire owner is getting so worked up about a pathetic media figure like Larry Brooks.
Ahh, a Jim Benning reference brings back a lot of horrible flashbacks for this Nucks fan…
To placate the fans, OTT can’t give any oxygen to the spark of Tchacuk trade. If they want to sign them they can’t have NY press talking about 10 million contracts and stuff that OTT won’t match. They gotta shut down public discussion especially if there are private discussions to lock him down.
Michael Andlauer just Streisand Effect confirmed these talks involving Tkachuk when everyone would have just dismissed it as another Larry Brooks lie if he’d said nothing.
And nothing will come from his nonsensical accusation.
Good work, Bud.
I don’t get this at all. Brady Tkachuk is awesome. 29 other teams would love to have him and the majority would target him should he ever become available. How is that tampering? He’s locked up for years.
“The Soft Tampering” was the weakest Doors album.