Although things have cooled down now considerably with teams in the National Hockey League well into their preparations for the upcoming 2022 - 2023 regular season, we are coming off of what was a pretty crazy and tumultuous offseason for a number of NHL players and a number of NHL teams.
While there will be plenty of storylines to pick from when we look back on this summer many years from now, there's no question that the most impactful storyline of the summer came courtesy of the Florida Panthers and the Calgary Flames. The two organizations came together to pull of what many believe to be the single biggest trade of the salary cap era, one that saw both teams take what were believed to be franchise players and ship them nearly all the way to the opposite ends of North America.
While we will still have to wait and see to learn how things will work out for Matthew Tkachuk with the Florida Panthers and Jonathan Huberdeau with the Calgary Flames, we don't have to wait any longer to know how Huberdeau initially reacted to the news of being involved in such a monumental trade. On the most recent episode of the Spittin Chiclets podcast, former Huberdeau teammate Keith Yandle revealed that his longtime teammate had not been happy upon learning of the news.
Yandle made the revelation when he was asked about it by former NHLer Paul "Biznasty" Bissonnette who asked the following:
"Hey let me ask you this one, this is a bit of a curveball," began Bissonette on the podcast. "Is it true that when Huberdeau was called by [Bill] Zito to tell him that he was traded, Huberdeau goes 'To who?' and then Zito goes 'Calgary' and he goes 'F*** you' and then hung up?"
The way the question was asked by Bissonnette made it seem like Huberdeau was specifically upset about the fact that Calgary was the trade destination, something that Yandle did not agree with. Instead Yandle revealed that Huberdeau was upset he had been traded at all, especially after having such a strong season for the Florida Panthers.
"I don't think he said it about where he was going," said Yandle. "I don't think he said 'Where am I going?' I think it was more of a 'You traded me are you f***ing serious?' type of thing. Especially coming after a 115 points or whatever."
It sounds like Bill Zito won't be getting any Christmas cards from the Huberdeau's anytime soon.
