The first 12 hours of the NHL free agent market has come and gone and nearly 100 players have already signed contracts with new teams or have re-signed with their recent team.
One of the players who’s on the move is goalie Robin Lehner, who joined the Chicago Blackhawks on a 1-year, $5 million deal on Monday afternoon.
Lehner’s departure from the Islanders was a tad confusing for some fans considering the 27-year-old is coming off a career-season where he won 25 games and captured the William M. Jennings Trophy and the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, and it became even more of a head scratcher after they decided to go with Semyon Varlamov on a 4-year, $20 million deal.
After the moves were all said and done and Lehner was a member of the Blackhawks and Varlamov was a member of the Islanders, the new Chicago netminder shared how things went down on his way out and it’s a little upsetting how it all unraveled for the Swedish goalie.
According to Chicago Sun-Times Blackhawks beat reporter Ben Pope, Lehner really wanted to stay put in New York and was prepared to try to make things work so he could re-sign, but when he went back to talk to management they broke the news to him that they decided to go ahead and sign Varlamov instead.
(H/T Twitter/BenPopeCST)
