“It was a roller coaster. My head was definitely spinning a lot during this time, but, at the end of the day, it’s a business, and you got to understand that. I definitely didn’t think that this was going to happen. I think the phone call in the last hour changed everything. And, you know, I’m just happy that we could find common ground and work something out.

“In my head, I think I was fully set on going somewhere else. And so I had kind of a list of teams in my head that I thought maybe would be good fits and and then I just still was kind of uneasy about everything. And then they called, and, you know, at the end of the day, I think my heart was still at Vancouver… I was talking to Ben [Hankinson], just kind of going over everything…And then he said, Patrik was calling him, and that kind of raised my eyebrows. I was like, ‘Okay, maybe we can figure something out here.’ And then they kind of went back and forth a little bit, and we found some common ground.

“It was hard. I really mentally tried to throw scenarios in my head on different teams I could possibly see myself being on, and tried to envision it. But that can only get you so far. Just thinking about it, I just felt like in my stomach, I still had a weird feeling about everything. When they called back, I kind of lit up. Even after everything that’s happened, I still kind of had that feeling in my stomach. I just listened to it and it felt right when I started talking and trying to figure out a deal, I just started getting excited. And, you know, I just knew it’s meant to be.

“It felt like the door shut a couple of times there [with the Canucks]. So I really had to wrap my head around moving on, and then obviously, trying to get a sense in my head what might be a good fit and all that. So there’s so many things going through my head, and that’s why I said my head was spinning a lot, and it was hard to kind of grasp, and you know, that phone call kind of came out of nowhere. So it was definitely a shock to me. But you know, the way I felt when that phone call came is, like, I told my agent. I was like, ‘get a deal done’, and then we made something work. I didn’t even know if Patrik was calling to get a deal done. He was just calling Hank, I was just assuming that was it. So, you know, I’m really happy that he did.”