Leafs Coach Wilson's Comments Lead to Tampering Investigation

Tampa Bay Lightning general manager Brian Lawton could very well be smarter than Toronto head coach Ron Wilson.

After all, Lawton has been able to convince everyone that he and the agent for Mattias Ohlund, J.P. Berry, negotiated a complex player contract and finalized details in less than 20 minutes July 1. Wilson, meanwhile, couldn't resist making comments on the radio about Vancouver's Sedin twins before free agency began. Take a guess which team is potentially in hot water with the NHL.

That's right. Lawton gets off scot-free for what seems to be obvious tampering, while Wilson's vague remarks about two players who never entered free agency are drawing scrutiny.

Leafs general manager Brian Burke confirmed yesterday that the NHL has informed him that the league will examine potential tampering because of remarks made by the Leafs coach in an interview with a Toronto radio station last week.

"The league has indicated that they are looking into it, so we will have no public commentary at this time," Burke said yesterday when asked to respond to a column published by the Vancouver Province last weekend in which an unnamed NHL executive remarked that what Wilson said was a "clear-cut case of tampering."

Last Tuesday, less than 24 hours before the Sedin twins re-signed with the Vancouver Canucks, Wilson told the Fan 590 in Toronto, "You're hearing right now, and this sounds very contradictory but, there's a real possibility, I would think, that we would be going after the Sedins. Let's just speculate there."

I get that Wilson should know better. Everyone working in the NHL should know better.

But this is ridiculous.

There's no evidence to support an argument that the Lightning tampered with Ohlund, except for the terms of his contract and the fact that it was announced when the signing period had just started. Reality, however, is that Ohlund indeed did sign with the Lightning, and you're naive if you believe that Lawton and Berry had no contact whatsoever regarding Ohlund before free agency began.

Wilson's comments were not smart, but they were made about two players who eventually chose to re-sign with their current team, and never made it to the open market.

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told the Globe and Mail that the Canucks have not filed charges, which also adds intrigue to the story. If Vancouver doesn't feel they were victimized in either case, then why is the league investigating in the first place?

Does Wilson's crime really rise to a level where it doesn't matter if the "victim" feels like a victim?