Thomas Vanek remembers waking up in Edmonton, Alberta, and turning on the TV in his hotel room to find out where he was heading.
It was March 5, 2014, the NHL’s trade deadline day, and Vanek’s bags were packed. He knew he had played his final game a few days earlier for the New York Islanders after rejecting the team’s bid to sign the pending free agent to a contract extension.
It wasn’t until the deadline passed when Vanek’s phone started ringing. It wasn’t his agent, the Islanders nor some other team’s general manager.
“I got a message from a reporter saying, ‘The Montreal media wants to talk to you,” Vanek said in recalling how he found out he had been traded to the Canadiens.