Penguins threatened Hornqvist in order to get trade done!

It took over 24 hours to get the deal done, but finally forward Patric Hornqvist was traded by the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Florida Panthers in exchange for defenseman Mike Matheson and forward Colton Sceviour last week. 

When he was first asked about the move, the veteran forward was shocked, but excited to get his career going in Florida. 

“This came up and blindsided me because I had a no-move clause,” Hornqvist said days after the move. “But then I find out that Pittsburgh didn’t want me and Florida really wants me, and it was an easy choice for me and my family. I’m super excited to go down there and help them win some games.”

Hornqvist had to waive his no-trade clause for the transaction to go through, but felt he preferred to be desired by the Panthers, then pushed out by the Penguins. 

“It’s been obviously a little crazy,” he went on to explain. “It was obviously a tough situation for me and my family, when you get blindsided a little bit. When you know you have a no-trade, you don’t think this kind of question is going to come up. When it came up, I took my time to go through every scenario.”

However, it sounds like Hornqvist didn’t have much of a choice to waive the clause. According to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet, the Penguins forced Hornqvist to accept the deal to the Panthers, threatening to waive him if he refused.  This is reportedly what pushed Hornqvist to accept the deal and move on from the Penguins. 

This surely explained why Hornqvist thrashed his Penguins’ equipment in his driveway before leaving Pittsburgh. Over the weekend, an image of the veteran forward’s equipment tossed out of the house appeared to explain Hornqvist’s frustration with the Penguins and general manager Jim Rutherford. 

The move came as a surprise to the fanbase in Pittsburgh seeing that Hornqvist played a key role in the back to back championship the Penguins won in 2016 and 2017. He spent the last six seasons with the Penguins, after playing his first six NHL campaigns with the Nashville Predators.

And it all ended in what seems more and more to be quite an ugly divorce.