How players deal on Deadline Day

Brian Campbell was set to attend a team stretching session in the winter of 2008 when he was told to come into the office of Buffalo Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff for a talk. The Sabres’ general manager, Darcy Regier -- the man who drafted Campbell in the sixth round, taking a chance on the kid from Strathroy, Ont., back in 1997 – was in already in the room.

The whispers in the papers, the rumours bandied about by the suits on television, and the mumblings on message boards had spoiled the surprise but didn’t soften the blow.

"There’s so much talk beforehand. I knew there was a 90 per cent chance I was getting traded, but when it comes and hits you…" Even three years later, Campbell finds it difficult to connect the words that will describe the feeling of being dealt from a city where he had spent eight years. “I really enjoyed my time with those guys. To say goodbye was a tough situation for myself. Obviously, they’re general manager and coach, but they’re friends as well. They taught me a lot, like father figures. Saying goodbye was difficult.”

On Feb. 26, 2008, Campbell -- who had been an all-star rearguard for Buffalo two seasons running – was shuffled off to the San Jose Sharks, along with a seventh-rounder in the upcoming draft (Drew Daniels). In exchange, the Sabres received winger Steve Bernier and the Sharks’ first-rounder (Tyler Ennis).

With Campbell suiting up in teal, the Sharks went 16-2-2 in their final 20 games of the season. Campbell scored nearly a point per game with his new team and finished with a career-high 62 points. Points-wise, Campbell proved to be the third biggest immediate payoff in Deadline Day history. Yet the Sharks were ousted in the Western Conference semifinals that spring by the Dallas Stars, and the Chicago Blackhawks then grabbed Campbell on July 1, 2008.

Campbell’s was a classic rent-a-player Deadline Day deal: a player facing unrestricted free agency in the summer gets moved to a squad making a playoff push. The pending NHL UFA on a non-playoff-bound team might as well start packing his bags. Destination: unknown.

“For other players that aren’t getting traded, you kinda sit back and get excited. For myself, it wasn’t very enjoyable. You’re just waiting for something to happen, waiting for the ball to drop. A lot of guys who do get traded, it’s nerve-wracking. You want to know where you’re gonna go. You want to get put in a good position. And then there’s the guys you get traded for: they’re often younger, and it can be a shock,” explains Campbell, now the quarterback of the Florida Panthers, who’s having another all-star season in yet another uniform.

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HOCKEY CENTRAL NHL TRADE DEADLINE 2012: Follow the frenzy with the sportsnet.ca live stream or tune in to the HOCKEY CENTRAL Trade Deadline show on Monday, Feb. 27 at 8 a.m. ET for complete coverage of hockey's biggest day | Follow the latest rumours here

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Philadelphia Flyers forward Claude Giroux recalls how much it stung when his offensive teammates, Jeff Carter and Mike Richards, were both dealt within hours of each other in order to clear salary cap space to sign goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov in June. Yes, the Flyers lost a tremendous one-two scoring punch, but Giroux also lost two close friends.

“It’s not fun to see your buddies leave, but it’s the business side of it, and you need to understand it and cheer them along,” Giroux says.

Tampa Bay Lightning centre Steven Stamkos, the NHL’s current goal-scoring leader, also cites the “business side of hockey” as running interference with of one of his friendships. That goaltender Mike Smith, 29, left Tampa Bay as a free agent, signing with the Bryzgalov-free Phoenix Coyotes in the 2011 off-season for two years and $2 million, is beside the point.

Smith, who arrived in Tampa as part of the 2008 deadline deal that saw Brad Richards leave, is seven years older than Stamkos, but both are Ontario boys who were relatively new to Florida when Stamkos was drafted first overall in ’08. The two struck up a bond.

“He really helped me break into the league. We’re really close friends. It’s not a trade, but it’s more where you lose a player. That’s the business side of hockey — you lose close friends. It’s not like we see him much in Phoenix anyway,” Stamkos explains. “Sometimes you lose close friends, great leaders, great teammates. But it’s your ability to react to those situations that keeps teams together and makes them successful.

“There’s always a little anxiousness or nervousness around trade deadline. Whether you’re a team that’s looking to add players or get rid of players, it’s the same way. You see each other every day, so you never want to see someone go, but you have to realize that management is trying to do what’s best for the team.”

Stamkos says that the players themselves seldom know more about pending trades than the jersey-wearing fan or cap-crunching analyst. The best tipoff, he figures, is the NHL standings report.

“The only thing you know is how well your team is doing in the season leading up to trade deadline. That’s how you know if you’re going to add a few guys for a playoff run or get rid of some players to rebuild,” says Stamkos, whose Lightning have already swapped Pavel Kubina to Giroux’s Flyers. “With rumours and all that, we hear it from you (media) guys, so we’re not really in the loop that way.”

As fans of the game (and fans of general hearsay and rumour mongering) are doubtlessly aware, Feb. 27 marks Trade Deadline Day 2012, the most intensely scrutinized off-ice date on the NHL calendar. What fans might not consider is that players (trade bait or otherwise) will be watching as well, anxious for themselves, their friends, their father figures, their team’s future.

“I’m a fan of the game. I’ll watch it to see what’s going on, as long as I’m not playing that day,” says Campbell, whose Panthers will indeed have the day off from their Southeast title race. “It’s entertaining to see what teams do and see what they think is better for them.”