When the Canadiens extended their offer sheet to Sebastian Aho a couple of weeks ago, which included a poison pill in the form of $21 million in signing bonuses coming due within the first 12 months of the agreement, an interested party with no skin in the game flashed back some 22 years.
“I knew that Carolina had to match and that the Canadiens weren’t going to get him,” Neil Smith said in a phone conversation on Friday. “Just like I knew we were never going to get Sakic.”
Ah, Joe Sakic … Broadway Joe, at least for a hopeful blink or two for the folks in New York who had just lost Mark Messier to Vancouver following a bitter negotiating stalemate between No.