A GM’s Carol: The Ghost of No-Trade Clauses
By Danny Gray
12 years ago
Feaster had barely had time to get back into his deep slumber when he was violently shaken awake and came face to face with a pair of demonic eyes.
“Jaaaaaaay…..Jaaaayyyyy”
Jay slowly rises from the bed and is promptly cut off at the knees by the apparition.
“Darcy Tucker? Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?”
“I am the Ghost of The No Movement Clause”
“All No Movement Clauses?”
“Of course not Jay. Your No Movement Clauses."
"Do you see this Jay? This is your capgeek page.”
“What are all those little green locks?”
“Those are your No Movement Clauses, all 11 of them, and they will be your undoing should you not heed my warning”
“Well we don’t have that many.”
“No other team has more than 8! And that’s the Canucks! Are you trying to set some sort of record Jay?”
“Well those players are valuable to us so we rewarded them, why would we want to move them?”
“I was once valuable Jay, when I had outlived my usefulness the team couldn’t get rid of me. In fact they’re still paying me, and my contract counts against the cap.”
“I would never have to buy anyone out.”
“Do you really think anyone is going to want to pay 34 year old Alex Tanguay $3.5 Million Dollars in 2013-2014? Do you know what his buyout would cost? You’d have to pay him $1.16 million dollars until 2018-2019.”
“So we keep him around, we can get rid of other players if we need to.”
“Every remotely valuable player on the team has one Jay! Jarome Iginla, Miikka Kiprusoff, Jay Bouwmeester, Mark Girodano, Cory Sarich, Anton Babchuk, Ollie Jokienen, Curtis Glencross, Rene Bourque, Matt Stajan, and Alex Tanguay. If we were the Muskoka Five, this is the Elbow Park Eleven. These guys aren’t going anywhere and they’re going to bring the team down with them.”
“Well I got rid of Damon Langkow just fine.”
“I guess the ghost of Cliff Fletcher hasn’t haunted you yet.”
“Maybe I could cobble together some of the players who don’t have one, like Hagman, Morrisson, Kostopolous, and Staios, into a deal for a young promising Norris Nominee.”
“I was unaware that Darryl Sutter was working again. Heed my warning Jay, stop giving out No Movement Clauses”
And with that, Feaster felt a hard shove in his back and he fell face first into his crumb covered bed.
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