At the age of 39, defenseman Kimmo Timonen hasn’t played a game all season. That’s due to a blood clot, but he’s been skating and will now join the Chicago Blackhawks after being traded out of Philadelphia on Friday.
While the Blackhawks lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the same evening, they’re still in a prime position to make the playoffs. And they’re only two years removed from a Stanley Cup. A championship is the one driving force right now for Timonen.
“Last summer, when I got sick and I was back in Finland in a hospital bed, they said you have to wait six months and see what happens,” said Timonen, as per the Chicago Sun-Times.
“If that small chance [of returning] happened, the only thing I’m missing from my hockey career is a Stanley Cup. That was the only goal if I returned to hockey. It wasn’t money, it wasn’t anything else.”
In exchange for Timonen, the Flyers, 10th in the Eastern Conference and six points out of a playoff spot, get a second round draft pick in 2015 and a conditional draft pick in 2016.
“The return, I think, is a fair return. I think it’s fair for Chicago, I think it’s fair for us. There’s a lot of upside to this deal for them,” said Flyers GM Ron Hextall, as per CSN Philadelphia.
“In the end, they may have underpaid by a longshot for this deal. There’s some risks, obviously, on their side — he hasn’t played all year. But there’s so much upside as well.”