Fort Erie, ON
In what may seem like a stunning turn of events this offseason, Fort Erie has dealt John Tavares to Halifax in exchange for Claude Giroux, in an exchange of high-priced star players.
Many assumed that Tavares was set to wear the captain's "C" on his jersey this upcoming season with his outstanding leadership qualities, but if he is to wear a letter, it would be with the Halifax Norsemen.
Meanwhile, Giroux returns to the Falcons after a few seasons away from the team and was quite pleased to be returning to Fort Erie.
"It's very exciting. I played some of my best hockey wearing Falcons' colours and if you look at this lineup, I'm very confident I can put up big numbers given the depth of our top nine forwards," said Giroux upon landing at Buffalo's airport, which is just 15 minutes away from his new home.
For his part, Falcons GM Matt Young was quite pleased to welcome Giroux back to the organization and explained the team reacquiring him in a rather simple fashion.
"Look, when we dealt Claude before we were looking to move in a bit of a younger direction and wanted to get a ton of young assets in the door. He was part of that process, absolutely. The thing is we have hit a stage where we have all of our young guys ready to compete for titles, but needed a veteran that could also play the wing while winning a big draw. JT just wasn't willing to move to the wing, where now Claude and Pavs (Joe Pavelski) give us that option."
It is also worth noting that GM Young wanted Giroux back for a while, previously discussing a deal with Bismarck before the sign-and-trade to Halifax this offseason.
"Our reality is we've never been the same team since dealing Claude, so we're hoping with him back in the fold we'll get back to where we were. He's an important piece for us and even though he's a bit older, we feel like he'll contribute for all four years of his deal, even if it's down in the lineup in the coming years."
In other news, Young was pleased to say that Shane Wright has agreed to terms with the team. Wright, taken first overall in the 2022 CCHL draft looks to play a year back in the OHL before getting ready to join the Falcons for the 2022-23 season.
GM Young did note that the team is having a bit of trouble with Juraj Slafkovsky's contract though as the young star doesn't see where the ice time is coming with so many young forwards already present in the Fort Erie system.
For his part, Young acknowledged that it's a bit of a battle going forward for ice time in Fort Erie and that he's open to options to get a good defenceman of a similar level back in return for the winger should a team be interested.
"We're listening and happy to talk, anytime," said the extraordinarily good-looking GM.
With that, you are up to date with the happenings in Fort Erie.
