The Florida Panthers had the same reaction as their fans when former Boston Bruins captain Brad Marchand was traded.
Their initial reaction was one of excitement, but it quickly turned into questioning who had been traded to Boston.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman was one of the first NHL insiders to break the trade news, but he didn’t reveal who was sent away to Boston in the trade. This left the Panthers group chat to guess who was going to the Bruins.
Matthew Tkachuk was the one to send out who he thought was in the trade. He originally said it was for young forwards Mackie Samoskevich and Eetu Luostarinen.
The group chat quickly realized that Tkachuk was making it up.
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“We were like, wait, we wouldn’t have done (that), that seems odd,” Sam Bennett told the “Empty Netters” podcast. ” (Tkachuk) was just messing with us, completely (explicit) with us… He didn’t know, so we were all freaking out, trying to figure it out.”
Bennett said it took them around an hour after the text to figure out it was for a 2027 NHL Draft pick.
Friedman, in his most recent episode of “32 Thoughts: The Podcast,” said he took it as a lesson after Panthers’ forward Evan Rodrigues pulled him to the side to talk to him after the trade was done.
“When Florida came to Toronto after the trade deadline, Evan Rodrigues, who’s a great guy, pulled me to the side and said, ‘The next time you do a trade, you don’t wait an hour to post what the return was,’” Friedman said.
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