Insider provides clarity on trade reportedly vetoed by Leafs President Brendan Shanahan

Published May 24, 2023 at 4:54 PM
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Ever since it came out that Kyle Dubas had asked for more autonomy on his next deal, rumours have been swirling around what moves could be credited to Shanahan and which ones came from Dubas. The most prevalent of these rumours is that Shanahan had vetoed a trade a week before last year's trade deadline. The trade would have sent Matthew Knies, Petr Mrazek and a first round pick to Chicago in exchange for Brandon Hagel and Marc Andre Fleury. For some reason, the story has become that Dubas wanted to make the deal, and Shanahan stopped him from doing so.

On his 32 Thoughts podcast, Elliotte Friedman told the story of the night the deal leaked and the whirlwind of events that followed. Friedman also revealed what both Shanahan and Dubas had said about the deal at the time.

"The Maple Leafs were like 'We never were gonna do that deal, it was presented to us' and basically, I think I can say it now, both Dubas and Shanahan made it very clear, they were like 'how stupid do you think we are that either one of us would consider making that trade?' and they were adamant that neither one of them wanted to do it and they defended each other. They were like 'The other guy didn't want to do it either.' I think the story I was told, if I remember correctly, was I guess Shanahan was asking 'what's going on out there?' And they were talking about their talks with Chicago so Dubas showed it to Shanahan and Shanahan's like 'we're not doing this' and Dubas was like 'of course we're not doing it, I'm just showing it to you' and apparently they both laughed." - Elliotte Friedman on a trade proposed to the Leafs by Chicago

Looking back at the proposed deal, the Leafs were absolutely right to turn it down. Knies is an NHLer who only put up one point less than Hagel in this year's playoffs. Fleury's game has gone off a cliff in Minnesota. I'm just glad we can finally put the idea that Dubas wanted this trade to bed. Not only did he not want to do it, he and Shanahan had laughed about the absurdity of the proposal. While I'm still curious as to what moves Shanny DID veto, I doubt we'll ever find out.


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May 24   |   191 answers
Insider provides clarity on trade reportedly vetoed by Leafs President Brendan Shanahan

Would you have made this trade if you were the Leafs?

Hell no!15581.2 %
Yeah, I would have at the time3618.8 %
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