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Video: Milbury questions ‘shady’ Iginla trade

IginlaPens

NHL on NBC analyst Mike Milbury is skeptical of events that led to last week’s Jarome Iginla-to-Pittsburgh deal.

“It was shady,” Milbury said prior to Tuesday’s Penguins-Sabres game on NBC Sports Network. “There were some things I didn’t like at all about that.

“I think it’s too bad we didn’t find out a lot more about it. [Bruins GM] Peter Chiarelli handled it, I thought, pretty well.”

Here’s the video, which also delves into a discussion of whether or not Boston “settled” for Jaromir Jagr:

Back to the Iginla deal...

In his latest 30 Thoughts column, CBC’s Elliotte Friedman touched on the subject of tampering -- specifically, a “relatively new rule” that players can be equally guilty of tampering as a coach or front office member.

There were rumblings that Penguins captain Sidney Crosby may have reached out to Iginla, his former Team Canada linemate at the Winter Olympics, prior to Pens GM Ray Shero making the deal.

When asked, Iginla made it clear he never actually spoke with Crosby, but did acknowledge No. 87 may have played a role.

Iginla, who was traded to the Penguins on Wednesday night in exchange for college forwards Kenneth Agostino and Ben Hanowski, along with Pittsburgh’s first-round pick in 2013, revealed Crosby had factored in him deciding to join Pittsburgh, adding he couldn’t say no to playing with two superstars.

“There’s some truth to that,” Iginla said, when MacLean asked if Crosby helped sway his decision. “I did hear that Sid — I didn’t talk to him before — but he’d put in a good word and I really enjoyed playing with him at the Olympics and getting the chance to meet him.”

Should note that, also in 30 Thoughts, Friedman explained that trying to prove tampering is very difficult, “unless you have a paper trail.”

Update:

Today, Bruins president Cam Neely went on 98.5 The Sports Hub with Michael Felger and Tony Massarotti and was clearly still irritated at how his club lost out on Iginla.

Here’s a snippet:

“We were told we had a deal. What happened from when we were told we had a deal until [Iginla] ended up in Pittsburgh is anybody’s guess.

“When you’re told you have a deal and you hang up the phone and think that you’ve got the player, I don’t know what else you could do.

“When you lose any kind of contact for a period of time and then you start to question what’s going on, and Peter [Chiarelli] does ask to speak with the player or the agent and is not permitted to do so, you start to wonder what’s really happening . . .

“We were told we had a deal done.”

Neely also added that there’s been no contact or conversation between Chiarelli and Flames GM Jay Feaster since the deal went down.

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Chiarelli: We were told we got Iginla