TSN: Dave Poulin when asked about the report over the weekend from Elliotte Friedman about punishment coming to the Ottawa Senators about failed the trade from the Vegas Golden Knights to Anaheim back at the 2022 trade deadline.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Host: “We spent the entirety of our conversation with you on Friday talking about the shame Pinto suspension and unfortunately, this morning we have to spend part of our time with you talking about what looks like potentially some punishment in relation to lost, a lost draft pick or more to the Sens regarding the Evgenii Dadonov failed trade between Vegas and Anaheim a year and a half ago. And of course, Dadonov was originally signed with Ottawa and traded to Vegas. It’s a complicated thing, but it involves a no-trade list.
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I just want to go back to your time when you’re in management with the with the Maple Leafs and partial no-trade lists, where there’s 10-team lists. Can you kind of take us through what managers, assistant managers etc, the lengths that you go, or don’t go to, to keep track of those sorts of things when you’re making trades, etc?
Poulin: “There are checks and balances. There’s no question. This is a little bit of a murky one guys, and they have tightened us up a lot in the NHL since I was in those positions. You know, it was it was pretty loose actually, it was. We would actually, I can remember conversation with Dave Nonis and Claude Loiselle, and, and you know, and Burkey was there for a couple of years, and where it would be okay, you know, Claude Loiselle was the cap manager. It was up to him to be responsible to get the list and make sure they get them.
But some of them are coming from, we had issues with one and I think it was, if I’m correct was Mikhail Grabovski. And it was a European agent and you know, okay, well, you know, we got the list. Well, he says he’s sent it in, well did you make sure and we’ve seen it? You know, those types of conversations definitely go on and it’s the layers of who is responsible for that. But then there’s checks and balances within it.
And this one does sound unusual. And you know, I don’t know. You know, who essentially the blame goes on? But those kinds of things, there are checks and balances within the office to make sure the layers of different going over it and there are so many different things to go on with that you do need layers to check it. It’s not just on one person it’s, it’s usually on more than one person from an administration standpoint to make sure that that’s done.
This one sounds strange to me because, you know, and can I keep going back and forth now that we brought his name up again. So it was ‘Dad-on-ov’ and it went to ‘Dad-an-ov’ when I was in Montreal, (inaudible) now it’s back to ‘Dad-on-ov.’
So it’s Dadonov, you know, when they brought up the point, like why is this coming up a year and a half later? Like or you know as much later as it is. Like that I don’t understand. And it seemed like he didn’t want to go somewhere or did want to go somewhere.
But there’s some confusion about why would that come to bear now who produced something now that they didn’t produce back then? And that’s the question and once again, similar to the Pinto situation, when we were talking about it Friday, we didn’t have as much information then as we do now on Pinto. And we don’t have as much information now as we’ll likely will have on another day on Dadonov.”
Host: “So at this stage though, Poulie, it’s the NHL is coming down with some punishment. So they’ve made a determination right, that something has gone awry here.
So it’s one of two things, either they believe the facts were misrepresented on the trade call or you didn’t know but you should have known. Now, what are the repercussions for that? Like we’ve like, I’ve been trying to go back with examples, right, where managers have made mistakes and, and you know, look, we know what happened to Dale Talen what he didn’t get the QO’s in on time, or his office didn’t, and he ended up taking the fall for that. John Chayka more recently with the draft combine bringing guys in. That didn’t go well for him here.
Is this something that conceivably could cost Pierre Dorian his job?”
Poulin: “Well, it’ll have to depend on what it is. Those two situations were very different. For me, Talon. Talon was a paperwork mess with a date in the summer. In the Arizona situation, they knew they were circumventing the rules by bringing somebody in. So there, those are very different situations for (me Steve??).
And you know, one was intent and one was a mess, and that, it sounds like this was more of a miss, initial indication, but we have to wait and see to why now and how now? Like, how is this represented now, and why is it coming to bear now?
And Dadonov has since settled nicely in Vegas. He would have been on his way to Anaheim. And you know, but that move happened. Is happened, you know, he’s jumped around since then actually. Been crazy on what’s happened since then.
So I don’t know. Is it a piece of paper that is involved that says it’s dated? That somebody stamped with a date on it? Is it as simple as that? We have to wait and see if we, what we find out from that because since that point if you think about it, the Vegas was waived. He went to Montreal. Then he went to Dallas. Now he’s resigned in Dallas. And he was terrific last year in the playoffs. So. why is it coming to bear now and who brought it forward?”
Host: “You mentioned when Jr kind of asked you take us through the mechanics and you said it’s changed a lot since then you are working in the league. But correct me if I’m wrong, I’m just, because it’s been a year and a half right?
At the time, didn’t the league because of this, didn’t they update now that, because every contract registered for the league, right? But now they went a step further. Now we need, the league needs all of these details, ironclads, we never have this kind of confusion again, when you’re doing trade calls.”
Poulin: “Yes, and it’s a good thing. So the reason that it wasn’t included in contracts was because somewhere along the line, it fluctuated. So you could renew your list. Someone had the power, okay, each July 1st, I want to change the teams. Look at, you know, who the favorites are in the NHL and I say, ‘yeah, I don’t want to go there anymore. I do want to go there.’
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And that’s why it wasn’t written into the contract because it wasn’t part of the collectively bargained part that was in the written contract. It was more of an addendum. So the addendum changed each calendar year. I’m not sure why that happened or when that happened. If somebody got that idea that said, ‘Okay, I did want to go to LA, now I don’t want to go to LA, you’re not a cup champion anymore.’
So somewhere along the line, that required flexibility and now they’ve tightened it up and said, okay that has to be registered with the league just as a contract would. In a good way.”
