Chiarelli On Preseason Thomas Rumors: 'Tim Never Wanted To Leave'
BOSTON (CBS) – Tim Thomas' 2010-11 campaign was one for the history books.
The Bruins goaltender set a new NHL record with a .938 save percentage in the regular season. He was even better in the playoffs, stopping 94-percent of the shots that came his way. In all, Thomas stopped a record 798 save during the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
He allowed less than two goals per game in the postseason, and notched four shutouts. Two of them came against the Canucks in the Finals, two in Game 7's, and the first-ever by a road goalie in a Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.
Thomas easily won the Conn Smythe for playoff MVP, and the Bruins certainly would not be Champions if it was not for him.
Could you imagine if he was traded before the 2010-11 season? There were plenty of rumors out there before the season started, with Thomas coming off an injury plagued year that featured then-23-year-old Tuukka Rask between the pipes more times than not.
Nothing ever was close, but general manager Peter Chiarelli said there were offers out there.
"If you can recall at the time, there was kind of a mutual agreement between myself and Tim and Billy Zito (Tim's agent), on the premise that Tim does not want to leave Boston and that's where it ended," said Chiarelli at his year-end press conference on Friday.
"There were some calls, and I kept Tim in the loop all the time," he said. "He kept stressing he didn't want to leave, and I said I know but lets just look at this very briefly."
"I know there were a lot of stories that flowed from this, but I can't stress enough that Tim never wanted to leave," Chiarelli said of Thomas. "I wouldn't be doing my job if I at least didn't just look at some things, and I did."
"You go through those things on a number of fronts on a number of players," he added. "You field stuff, you look at them, and you talk to other teams. At the end of the day you make the call yay or nay, and here it was nay. It was an easy nay."
Sometimes the best deals are the ones you do not pull the trigger on.
