Veteran defenseman says no to retirement, but his career may be over.

There is a very strange story going on in Calgary, and it sounds an awful lot like a behind the scenes agreement between player and team may be playing a huge role here.

On Thursday Calgary Flames defenseman Ladislav Smid claimed that he would not be announcing his retirement from the National Hockey League and furthermore indicated he had no intention to do, but that seems awfully strange when you consider the announcement that came from the Flames today.

The Flames revealed that Smid, who has two years left on his current contract, was dealing with a very serious neck injury. How serious you might ask? Well it turns out that the injury is serious enough that the Flames have already ruled him out for the entire duration of the 2016-2017 season.

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When you combine this announcement with the fact that Smid has only played in 53 games over the past two seasons, it certainly sounds like he's extremely unlikely to return to the ice, and this is merely a ploy from the Flames to avoid having his contract on their salary cap by burying him on long-term injured reserve.