With the NHL Trade Deadline slowly approaching, there are a lot of rumors circling around. One of the biggest names on the block is future Hall-of-Fame goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury in Chicago, but we’re being told by league sources that if he is indeed traded, it won’t be to the Colorado Avalanche.
When the Vegas Golden Knights agreed to move Fleury to the Windy City, there was a handshake deal between Kelly McCrimmon and then GM of the Blackhawks, Stan Bowman, that they wouldn’t flip Fleury to the Colorado Avalanche, and that if they did, the Golden Knights would never make another deal with the Blackhawks for as long as McCrimmon remained general manager.
The Avalanche were actually heavily interested in Fleury, more so than the Blackhawks were, and were even willing to give up more in a trade, but the Golden Knights had no interest in giving him to a team that could beat them in the playoffs, so they opted to move him to Chicago.
It’s unclear if conditions have changed with McCrimmon due to the GM change in Chicago, but I’ve been told that he was very insistent on those terms.
Fleury, 37, is 13-13-3 with a .913 save percentage on the season. I think we’ll be seeing him get traded by the deadline, but don’t expect it to be to Colorado.