Big Toronto Rumor
This was posted and is entirely the work of Hockey Analyst Eklund over at hockeybuzz.com. The article goes as follows:
They will deny it up and down, but Mats Sundin could very well be moving. I have heard everyone deny it, and I expect them to mock me ruthlessly on Leafs Lunch as they did when I broke the Hossa/ Heatley trade…but here it is..this is from an email from a very old source in the Midwest…. “As you stated before, Mats name was put out in rumors a few months ago in a very strategic way to see who would call. And at least four teams did, and this is coming from “you know who” himself: LA, Detroit, Boston and Chicago. All the teams just inquired and were told that the Sundin wasn’t available. But this is a classic tactic…float a rumor, see who calls to check it, deny that the player is available, but take note on who calls. Then in the last week, through some external people, talks started up again with all four teams. Due to the way the Toronto media jumps on things they once again called on another classic tactic. Third party discussions. Basically it is like high school but it works. It also is used constantly in free agent talks before the start of the signing periods. It goes like this. Ask one of your friends to ask one of her friends if she wants to go on a date. No paper trails. Very few leaks. Unless one of those friends is friends with me. So far this is what I gather Detroit is highly interested in Sundin. Toronto wants either Zets or Dats. And Detroit wants a little more back, but it isn’t that far off. Toronto also likes Visnovski and Frolov. they also like Tuomo and “The Wall” in Chicago, and in Boston they like Lashoff and Raycroft. It also no accident that all these secret talks are going on while most of Toronto is in Italy…” I have several calls out, and I had three other sources that wouldn’t deny, but wouldn’t comment on the record either…..