NHL issues memo on latest tampering scandal involving Chicago Blackhawks.

The National Hockey League has issued a memo after an attempt at making a trade deal on the part of the Chicago Blackhawks violated rules that the NHL intends to enforce with some extremely harsh punishments.

On Friday, NHL insider Elliotte Friedman shared the first details oh why the Blackhawks had specifically found themselves on the NHL's bad side and why the league felt the need to issue the memo. According to the insider, the Blackhawks attempts to trade soon to be unrestricted free agent forward Ilya Mikheyev had crossed a line that the league was not comfortable with.

"They made him available for trade and one of the things that was part of that conversation was Chicago was looking at it like 'If he goes out there and he doesn't find what he likes, maybe he will circle back and we will be able to find our own common ground,'" revealed Friedman on the 32 Thoughts podcast.

While the league did not take issue with the Blackhawks trading away Mikheyev's rights in a trade deal, they did draw the line at the Blackhawks allowing him to discuss a new deal with other teams while still under contract with Chicago.

"The league sent a memo out basically saying 'That is not allowed' and the reason they are saying it's not allowed is a few years ago there used to be an interview period... and you could talk to any UFA however you could not sign them until the free agency period started," said Friedman. "Eventually that went away and the league's point is, that's gone and you can't do that."

While this may not sound like a big deal to the average fan, in the eyes of the NHL it is an extremely serious matter and they have reportedly reminded teams just how seriously they view this situation to be.

"Permission for a UFA to talk to other teams is a no no and what they did as part of this is remind everybody about tampering fines," said Friedman. "The fine for tampering can be up to $5 million and people can be suspended and you could lose draft picks. That's what they did here."

Thankfully for the Blackhawks it sounds like they will serve as just the warning in this scenario, although any teams caught attempting a similar trade in the future likely won't be so lucky.