Jacob Trouba fiasco may force NHL rule change.
Players in the National Hockey League are not happy with how the Rangers handled Jacob Trouba and changes may be coming.
There has been a ton of discussion in hockey circles and on social media following the Jacob Trouba trade that we saw go down on Friday, and regardless of which side of the conversation you may be on it sounds like we could see some real changes following that rather chaotic fiasco.
It would appear as though players in the National Hockey League are not happy with how the New York Rangers effectively circumvented Trouba's no trade clause by threatening to place him on waivers, and it sounds like those very same players may take action when it comes time to negotiate the next collective bargaining agreement.
On Saturday night, NHL insider Elliotte Friedman shared some details on what is happening behind the scenes in the NHL coming off the heels of the Trouba situation.
"What bothered the players to a large degree was if you can't be traded to certain teams, why should you be allowed to go to those teams on waivers?" said Friedman on Hockey Night in Canada.
What it sounds like is that players would prefer to move away from limited no trade clauses all together, towards some form of partial no movement clause that we have yet to see in the NHL.
"I think what they are gonna ask the players association to do is have a conversation in the upcoming CBA negotiations where maybe there should just be one form of protection," revealed Friedman. "If you want to give me partial protection then I can't go to this team at all, it shouldn't be a trade or it shouldn't be waivers."
A no movement clause currently prevents a player from being traded or placed on waivers, and what Friedman is suggesting here is that the players would want to be protected from being claimed by certain teams during a potential waiver process. How that would work out under the rules of the collective bargaining agreement remains to be seen, but it appears that the players have been galvanized by what they saw happen to Trouba this week.
This could become a serious issue of contention in the next collective bargaining agreement and it will be interesting to see which direction this moves in once the two sides are forced to sit at the negotiating table and work out a deal.
