Tyler Bertuzzi comments could lead to tampering investigation
National Hockey League's free agency is an exciting & stressful time for those involved. For Tyler Bertuzzi, it may have been smooth sailing thanks to a phone call.
At the end of the 2023-2024 season, it had become apparent that some changes were required to the Toronto Maple Leafs roster and while everyone has been talking about whether or not the franchise would trade Mitch Marner, some had wondered if the team would be able to sign Max Domi and/or Tyler Bertuzzi who both were coming off expiring one-year contracts.
As July first has come and gone & both Domi & Bertuzzi signed we have a better understanding and appreciation as to why the latter decided to sign with the Chicago Blackhawks so willingly and it appears it didn't necessarily come down to money.
While it is evident that the Blackhawks front office was interested in signing the twenty-nine-year-old left winger, it seems as if they had some help convincing him to sign in the form of Nick Foligno who reached out to Bertuzzi. Bertuzzi had admitted that Chicago hadn't even been on his radar until the interaction.
Is it cool that Foligno was an extension of the front office reaching out to Bertuzzi? Sure.
Did collusion or tampering occur in this instance? Well at 7:30 am on July 1st, the full details of Bertuzzi's contract were revealed online.
So unless Nick Foligno was magically able to negotiate this deal, it does seem fishy. Situations like this probably happen all the time and innocently enough. But it's also likely that some sort of tampering or collusion occurs deliberately, albeit through players or their representatives and not teams themselves. Either way, Bertuzzi is set as he signed a four-year deal to call the United Centre home for a while.
| POLL | ||
Did the Tyler Bertuzzi signing in Chicago involve tampering? | ||
| Yes, it absolutely is | 149 | 45.4 % |
| No, it's not | 78 | 23.8 % |
| Every team does it | 101 | 30.8 % |
| List of polls | ||
