Brian MacLellan is about as upfront and honest as a general manager in sports can be, but he recently found that his candor was no match for the rumor mill when Tom Wilson’s name landed on it.
Before Wilson re-signed longterm with the Capitals on August 4, several different reports emerged that Wilson was available in trades as he entered the final season under contract. This came despite MacLellan saying multiple times, unequivocally, that the Capitals were not dealing the forward.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman commented on the Wilson signing during his 32 Thoughts Podcast on Thursday and revealed that the trade rumors drove Capitals’ brass crazy.
Friedman: I’m not surprised about that one in the least. There were times this year, I don’t know if I heard a team bite back as hard on trade rumors as the Capitals did about Tom Wilson. Because they would say ‘We’re not trading Tom Wilson’ and then there’d be more Tom Wilson rumors. I think it drove them absolutely bananas.
Or, as performed by Gwen Stefani: B-A-N-A-N-A-S.
Wilson would sign a seven-year, $45.5 million extension, worth $6.5 million per season. Both sides admitted to the media that the rumors made them both urgent to get a contract done before the season started.
“I think we got a little taste of it this summer with how crazy it can get once stuff in the media gets people to start talking,” Wilson said then. “A couple times I just texted my agent and was like, ‘What’s going on?'”
“It was important for us to get him in our lineup and not create a distraction going forward this year,” MacLellan added. “Tom creates a lot of attention and even this past offseason he was creating attention about future contracts and possibilities of being traded so it was a priority for us to get him signed.
“I talked to [Tom’s] agent regularly when they were coming out just to assure them that wasn’t the case and that people were creating false narrative out there. Still, I think it’s unnerving when you hear your name [in rumors]. I tried to reassure Tom and his representatives that it wasn’t the case. It looked like if we went into this year that was going to continue to happen whether we were pursuing that avenue or not so it was important for us to get a contract signed.”
Wilson’s name first found himself in rumors in March when Penguins forward Tyler Kennedy tweeted that the popular Capital was coming to Pittsburgh in a deal before the 2023 trade deadline.
In June, former NHL’er Jason York, brother of Senators’ partial owner Jeff York, sparked even more talk when he said that Ottawa had concrete interest in trying to acquire Wilson. York’s “breaking news” came just weeks after Los Angeles Kings blogger John Hoven and The Fourth Period’s Dennis Bernstein also discussed the Kings “allegedly kicking the tires” on a Wilson trade of their own.
The rumors were denied by leading hockey insiders Elliotte Friedman and Pierre LeBrun as well as statements from MacLellan himself.
“We haven’t had one discussion about it,” MacLellan said at the 2023 NHL Draft. “We’re constantly telling people we’re not (trading him).”
This craziness led Wilson to not put off re-signing any longer.
“I think I’ve been around long enough that you see some of these contract years and some of the distraction as the year goes along,” Wilson said. “We just kinda wanted to get rid of that and not have to worry about that. I knew I wanted to be here for as long as I could and the team expressed the same. I think it just makes it easier. Get it out of the way now. I’m pretty fortunate to be able to do it now and I’m just glad we could get it done.”
Headline photo: Rodrigo dos Reis on Unsplash
