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So let’s assess the road not taken. Had Colorado decided that the acrimony and US$10-million price tag over the next two seasons was too much, then Calgary would have had to pay Ryan O’Reilly a US$2.5-million signing bonus and then put him on the curb, where the Blue Jackets presumably would have loaded him in the back of their truck and driven off.

Colorado would then have received Calgary’s first- and third-round picks this year, which since the Flames entered last night’s game against Vancouver as the seventh-worst team in the NHL by points gained per game, could be pretty good. It would have essentially been the Phil Kessel deal if you immediately gave Phil Kessel and US$2.5-million to Columbus for a bag of magic beans. And in Calgary, everybody probably would have gotten fired.

Colorado, however, decided to match, so now the Flames front office might just get ridiculed to death. Vancouver Canucks general manager Mike Gillis told Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday night that he knew O’Reilly had played KHL games, but so far he’s about the only one in the league who has said that aloud.

O’Reilly’s agent, Pat Morris, has said he didn’t know. Greg Sherman, the general manager of the Avalanche, cannot have known, otherwise he would have told the 29 other teams that any RFA offer to O’Reilly would result in waivers, destroying O’Reilly’s negotiating position.

So in short, nobody knew. The Flames claim they had a different interpretation of Clause 13 of the NHL’s Memorandum of Understanding, the back-of-a-cocktail-napkin document that is being used to govern the league until a full CBA is written. As pointed out by TSN legal analyst Eric Macramalla, there is at least a sliver of daylight there.