"What are they saying?"
The text had popped onto my phone most unexpectedly. This was June 27, 2014, in Philadelphia, deep into the evening after the Penguins and Predators had pulled off a trade that dwarfed in every way the NHL Draft that had just been conducted there: James Neal for Patric Hornqvist and throw-in Nick Spaling.
And the message that arrived was from Neal.
He'd already communicated with a few of his former teammates, not to mention friends and family, to try to cope with what had just occurred. He'd just been shoved out of a place where he'd felt he finally found a hockey home. He'd heard rumblings, as did all of us on that draft floor, that some with the Penguins' front office were branding him a bad influence in the locker room. He'd tried to begin burying that by reaching out to his new employers in Nashville.
But that wasn't why he reached out to a reporter. That wasn't the answer he wanted.
And upon my asking for clarification for his original question, he quickly came back: "What are the fans saying? Do they believe this? Do they think I was some kind of problem?"
And then this: "What should I do?"
Yeah, this guy was a real problem, huh?
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PHILADELPHIA — The restructuring of the Penguins' front office now complete, the reconstruction of their roster formally began with Jim Rutherford's shot heard round the hockey world Friday night at the NHL Draft, as announced from the on-stage podium of one Gary B. Bettman.
“Is it OK if I announce a trade?” the commissioner screeched to the Wells Fargo Center crowd, apparently — and hilariously — expecting something other than the belligerent booing he and everyone else had been hearing all evening.
Nope. They're Flyers fans. They don't come equipped with a second sound, and they aren't exactly accustomed to hosting hockey events in June.
The commissioner began, anyway.
“The Nashville Predators trade Patric Hornqvist and Nick Spaling …”
He paused, followed by a striking second or two of silence for the suspense.
“ … to Pittsburgh ... ”
Booooooooooooooooo!
“ … for James Neal!”
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
And yes, I'm describing the reaction on this side of the commonwealth, although it was easy to tell from the instant tidal wave of social media aimed this way that it was pretty much the same back home.
Wow, what a time that was, if you'll recall. The new GM must have seemed like a doddering old man. He had just stumbled through an awkward coaching search to come up with Mike Johnston, his lieutenants were quietly complaining that they weren't being consulted on anything, the rest of the front office was nervously trying to save face after a harrowing couple of months that saw Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle fire Ray Shero and Dan Bylsma ... and now they'd just dumped off a 40-goal guy for someone who they themselves were describing as a "heart-and-soul guy who goes hard to the net."
Don't flip history here: The boos were real. People were ticked.
And then, Hornqvist happened.
He did become the heart-and-soul guy. He not only went hard to the net, but he inspired others to take the same path. He exorcised all the Tuukka Rask-sized demons in that regard all by himself. He transformed, more than any player on the roster these past three years, a team that tried to win pretty to one that won in his image: Tough, skilled and tougher still.
Nothing could have been more fitting on the night of June 12, 2016, than this puck coming off this stick to seal the franchise's fourth championship:
They liked Hornqvist a lot in Nashville, too. A year before trading him, the Predators had signed him to a five-year, $21.5 million contract.
And then ...
"I didn't see me getting traded," as he remembered Sunday. "I just signed that deal, I played one year on it, had my best year ... and got traded in the summer. I didn't see it coming. But obviously, it worked out for me and for them."
Of facing the Predators, he added: "Sure, it'll feel a little special playing your old team in the Final. You don't think something like that happens too often. That's going to be a special moment for me. I'll go out there and have fun with it."
On Nashville's first Final: "I'm happy for that city. I am. It's a great place, a great building, the fans there are really loud, and I'm happy for my friends there. ... But I don't want them to be happy after this."
Of his progress since coming to Pittsburgh: "Obviously, being around Sid and Geno and other great players, this organization helped me rise to another level."
David Poile, Nashville's only GM since joining the NHL in 1998, would address the trade only from his team's perspective Sunday.
"We were looking to change up our forwards," Poile said. "We always felt our goaltending, our defense was kind of driving our team. I think the Neal trade was a start to try to get more and better offensive players. He’s an offensive player who gives us a chance to be better at that end of the ice. He’s pretty well provided that for us."
That perspective was just fine, though, as there were will never be a shortage of those willing to glow about Hornqvist's impact in Pittsburgh.
Of his intangibles, Rutherford said, "I’ve never met a player like him. He never has a bad day. We could lose 10 in a row, and he’d be in the locker room as if we’d won 10 in a row. He keeps things going in there. He’s given us everything we thought."
Of possibly having Hornqvist back for Game 1, Malkin fairly gushed, "It will be so great to for us to have Horny back. He's like our guy with the biggest heart."
Let the record show, too, that Hornqvist exceeded expectations in any fair comparison of offensive production:
Seriously, take another look at those numbers up there. They're strikingly similar up and down both columns. They're almost the same player from a productivity standpoint.
Anytime a GM makes a trade, even when he's genuinely confident he's just pulled off a heist of criminal proportions -- I'm picturing Rutherford on the day he finally landed Phil Kessel for much, much less than the Maple Leafs had originally wanted -- he'll go out of his way to say he hopes it work for both teams. That's standard procedure. That's professionalism. That's assuring a chance of doing business with that counterpart again someday.
With this trade, it was and still is the unvarnished truth. It's an even exchange, especially in that it addressed shortcomings on each end and, if weighed in its own lane, it powered two franchises to the Final.
"I think it worked out all-around," Neal said. "Everybody won."
