Havlat Unloads on Blackhawks Drama

Martin Havlat may play for the Minnesota Wild now, but there is obviously some acrimony over his departure from Chicago.

Twice during the two weeks since Havlat signed with Minnesota, he has used his Twitter page to drop some interesting hints about why he is no longer with the Blackhawks. Tuesday's re-assignment of general manager Dale Tallon led to the latest Twitter outburst. Now, Havlat feels it really is time to move on, and he let it all out during an interview with TSN's Darren Dreger.

Havlat told Dreger that team president John McDonough had wanted to fire Tallon for some time, intimating that McDonough simply needed a good excuse to do it. Havlat also made it clear that he and his agent were not the ones responsible for his departure.

"My negotiation with Chicago was not between Dale and my agent, it was between Dale and McDonough. Why? Because McDonough couldn't stand that Dale was so successful and getting the credit for building the Hawks from a last place team to making the Conference Finals in 3 short years. Remember, we were also the youngest team in the NHL last year," Havlat said.

"I was too closely identified with Dale. McDonough knew long ago he was going to fire Dale. He wanted someone he could claim as his own. He wanted to stand up at the convention and claim credit for signing this guy or that guy."

According to Havlat, he's not the only one upset about what happened to Tallon.

That Chicago players would be loyal to Tallon is not unprecedented. Just this past season, the team showed a remarkable amount of character in taking what would have been a day off and instead traveling to attend the funeral of Tallon's father.

"Back in the locker room a vote is taken after the game was complete, and a unanimous decision is made by this young team to skip this flight (home) and stay one more day. They make arrangements to check back in the hotel and on a frozen Sunday morning charter two buses that have no heat and begin a journey two hours straight north into a sparsely inhabited Canada , but where hockey is its passion. They arrive at their destination to the surprise of the teams general manager who is there attending his fathers wake."

Surely, someone in the organization will come out and try to label Havlat "bitter", or something along those lines. While Havlat may be bitter, that's not going to completely discredit what has been said. After all, the crux of this decision was choosing Marian Hossa over Martin Havlat.

Yet not once has Havlat made any mention to Hossa in his posts or in his discussion with Dreger. Instead, Havlat has focused on making sure everyone knew that Tallon wasn't responsible for this choice. While many fans would prefer he focus on his future in Minnesota, there is nothing wrong at all with showing loyalty.