The hockey world was abuzz on Sunday afternoon as the Toronto Maple Leafs acquired former Calgary Flames captain Mark Giordano from the Seattle Kraken. According to TSN’s Pierre LeBrun on Insider Trading, the Flames were interested in getting Giordano back but an expansion draft quirk prevented them from doing so.
According to LeBrun, the Flames weren’t close on reacquiring Giordano. The main reason was cap space. Specifically, there was a rule attached to the Seattle expansion process: the Kraken weren’t allowed to trade a claimed player back to their original team with retained salary for a full calendar year – even with a third team being used as a broker.