Wrighting a wrong in the smyth trade? | Edmonton Journal
But now we have the TSN’s omnipresent Bob McKenzie, who has a rolodex of fine contacts, saying Smyth has said he’d like to play for the Oilers this upcoming season if a trade could be worked out. […] Nobody on the Oilers can comment because Smyth is not their player and that would be tampering and the Kings aren’t of a mind to talk, either, but Smyth did.“Holy Cow…that’s the first I’ve heard of that. I have not asked for a trade. I have a year left on my contract. We’ve got some good things here,” said Smyth, who wouldn’t rule out a return here in the summer of 2012 as an unrestricted free-agent, but that’s if the Oilers wanted him. And it might only be a two-year deal for, say, $3.5 million per season. “I guess we would cross that bridge then,” said the 35-year-old leftwinger, who played 770 Oiler games before he was traded to the New York Islanders in a teary goodbye in 2007. […] I know Smyth, who had 47 points (23 goals) last season, likes the Kings’ team. They are considerably closer to making a Stanley Cup run than the Oilers are in their rebuild. I don’t see him aching to get out of LA with another year at a $4.5 million salary, even if he has never lost his feelings for his Oiler No. 94 jersey. Maybe he hasn’t asked for a trade; maybe he’s asked his agent Don Meehan to quietly sniff around to see if the Oilers would be interested, now. They could use his leadership qualities, for sure. […] Frankly, I see Smyth getting traded at the deadline next February or early March to a Cup contender than over the summer.
So McKenzie says Smyth asked and Smyth says he didn’t ask. So who told Bob McKenzie that Smyth asked? And no, the answer isn’t “nobody, he made it up.”