Darren Dreger was on Vancouver’s TSN 1040 on Tuesday afternoon.

As part of a much larger discussion on Jimmy Vesey, switching to a potential tampering angle:

“I can tell you this much – and I don’t know if I’ve ever shared this publicly, but I will.

“I, in fact, was accused as part of a tampering process years ago by the Vancouver Canucks, specific to Daniel and Henrik Sedin. The belief was that based on the alleged relationship that I had with their agent, J.P. Barry of CAA Sports, that I might have been the conduit to the Toronto Maple Leafs. That was prior to Daniel and Henrik signing their extension. Brian Burke, then with the Toronto Maple Leafs, went to Sweden and all of these things. But it was quickly dismissed.

“So it sort of supports your point, in that ‘What is tampering? How clear cut is it?’ “

On if this accusation process went any further:

“Exactly what happened was deputy commissioner Bill Daly reached out to me. I think it was via email first. And then said, ‘Look, your name has been brought up in a tampering allegation, and I’d like to ask you a couple of questions just to get a sense as to whether or not we as a league need to move forward with this investigation.’

“… I was annoyed, I’m not going to lie. Doing what I do, to your point, for a living, of course I’m talking to the Canucks, I’m talking to the Leafs, I’m talking to player agents. That’s what I do.

“But I said, ‘Okay, you can ask me a few questions.’

“And he asked a couple of questions. And I answered a couple of questions. And then I got more annoyed, and just simply said, ‘If we’re moving forward with this, then I’m going to report it. And it’s going to become more of a public issue.’

“And it was almost immediately dismissed. But my name was certainly included in the allegation.”

Source: TSN 1040/ Transcript: Nichols