Senators Cam Talbot opens up on trade from Wild: I never wanted to leave

Cam Talbot was hanging out with his wife Kelly and their six-year-old twins at his Southern Ontario home the morning of July 7 when he got a surprising phone call.

It was Marc-Andre Fleury, whose two-year, $7 million extension was going to be announced that night at the NHL Draft.

The future Hall of Famer wanted to let Talbot know so he wasn’t caught off guard.

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“He’s one of the nicest guys in the world,” Talbot said. “For him to give me a heads up, I completely respect him.”

Talbot, who returns to St. Paul Sunday with the Senators, made a few things clear in a conversation with The Athletic Friday afternoon. The 35-year-old goaltender had no problems with Fleury, and would have been happy to share the net with him this year. Talbot said he wanted to sign an extension with the Wild and eventually retire in the Twin Cities. Was he “pissed” he only played one game in the playoffs? Sure. But Talbot said he never requested a trade or wanted out, even if conversations between his agent and GM Bill Guerin “blew up” at the draft.

Talbot said he was shocked he was dealt to the Senators five days after Fleury’s extension — “It threw me through a loop.”

“Even after all that shook out, even after I was pretty pissed I didn’t play in the playoffs, I was ready to stay,” Talbot said in a 20-minute chat from Detroit, where he faced the Red Wings Saturday. “My family liked it there. We were committed to Minnesota and they knew that. It was one of the reasons it was such a tough pill to swallow. We never wanted to leave. We wanted to commit long term for a few more years and hopefully retire there. Unfortunately that’s not how it played out.

“They just moved on.”

Both sides have. The Wild received goalie Filip Gustavsson in the deal, and the 24-year-old Swede has been really good, winning his last five starts heading into Sunday’s matchup with Ottawa. With the way Gustavsson is playing, his age and his contract (RFA after this year at $787K cap hit), he could end up giving the Wild a chance to ‘overbake’ prized prospect Jesper Wallstedt, who is in AHL Iowa. And for as much as Talbot hoped to stay in Minnesota, he said he’s happy in Ottawa, where he’s five hours from his hometown (his father and 85-year-old grandmother have already visited). After being sidelined earlier in the season with a broken rib, Talbot has been on a roll, winning four of five starts heading into Saturday’s game in Detroit.

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Talbot wanted to start Sunday against the Wild. He even brought it up to the Senators’ coaches. But they had him play Saturday instead.

“The division games take precedent over the personal rivalry,” Talbot said. “I told them whatever decision they made, I understand. But they knew I wanted to play Minnesota.”

What went wrong?

Talbot felt he played well with the Wild, going 51-20-9 with a 2.71 goals-against average, .913 save percentage in 82 regular season games over two years (3-5, 2.66 in playoffs). He played in just one playoff game in a first-round loss to the Blues (a must-win Game 6). But Guerin entered the summer fully preparing for the 2022-23 season to be a combo of Fleury and Talbot, who had one year left on his deal at $3.67 million AAV.

When the Wild signed Fleury to a two-year deal, Talbot’s agent George Bazos was seen in a corridor off the draft floor at the Bell Centre having an animated conversation with Guerin. It ended up sparking headlines and a back-and-forth with the two, as Bazos told The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun Guerin had a lot to think about — and the Wild retorted “I don’t have s— to do.”

Talbot regrets that “blew up” in the media — “We didn’t want that to happen” — but insisted his disappointment wasn’t about Fleury, it was about not being able to agree on his own extension. It’s believed the Wild offered Talbot another year, but not at a raise or higher AAV than Fleury.

While Talbot may have not formally requested a trade, it seems as though there were some concerns about if there would still be a fit if he remained in Minnesota.

“We said we wanted an extension, and then we said we weren’t sure how it was going to shake out,” Talbot said. “I played really well down the stretch and they still give the net to ‘Flower’ in the playoffs. And when they re-signed him for the two years, it’s ‘Okay, where do we fit in?’ What if. Play really well again, it was going to shake out the same way in our mind. We just didn’t know what to do with that, how they saw the starts being divvied up. It was confusing.

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“But there was no formal trade request on my end.”

Even after the Bazos-Guerin meeting blew up and they had their back and forth, the Wild were still planning on sticking with Talbot and Fleury for this season. The Sunday after the draft, Guerin insisted he wasn’t moving Talbot. He told Bazos and Talbot to take a few days and cool their heads.

But as Guerin continued to think about the situation Monday and Tuesday, he had a “change of heart.”  “Sometimes you just know in your gut that things might not work out, and somebody might not be happy,” Guerin said in July. “I don’t want a player to be like that either. And sometimes it’s best to just move on. … I know Cam, he’s a no-BS guy, and so am I. So let’s just try to make everybody happier and we’ll just part ways.”

When Guerin said he wanted to rid his team of any potential “drama” or “controversy” in an awkward situation with Fleury and Talbot, that caught Talbot off guard.

“That part did surprise me,” Talbot said. “Bill knew me better than that, that I wouldn’t have been a distraction if I did come back. I would be the same partner, same teammate I had always been. I don’t know where that kind of came from. The last thing I (had) ever been was a distraction. You can ask any of my teammates, so that was out of the blue.”

Cam Talbot. (Jeff Le / USA Today)

Talbot pointed to late last season, when even after him going on a 13-0-3 run, the Wild decided to ride Fleury for the first round of the playoffs. Talbot said the coaching staff communicated with both goalies the plan with about four games left in the season, citing Fleury’s pedigree, Stanley Cups and playoff success. Fleury, to his credit, called him on his way home to make sure Talbot was okay.

“Playoffs are the best time of hockey, you work your butt off all season long to get in the playoffs — you want that start without a doubt,” Talbot said. “I thought coming down the stretch, the streak I was going on and the way I was playing, I thought I had earned the start. But obviously, the organization didn’t feel that way. That played into our decisions and stuff over the summer and how we felt it was going to play out moving forward.”

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Asked if he had any regrets or any ‘what-ifs’ about how the Talbot situation shook out over the summer, Guerin told The Athletic, “I don’t wonder ‘what-if?'” he said. “I really don’t. You just put it in the rearview mirror and keep driving forwards.”

Guerin said Gustavsson has been “fantastic,” noting he’s been “better than his record shows.” The Wild have loved how calm Gustavsson is in the net, and how low maintenance he’s been off the ice. Gustavsson has no problem sharing the net.

“Very calmly, very professionally just goes about his business,” coach Dean Evason said. “He gets a shutout and we don’t come back to him and there’s no pushback. It’s just like, ‘Okay, this is what the team needs or wants to do.’ It’s nice to have players that like forget about goaltenders but it’s nice to have players that just want to play for the right reasons and for the wins and he’s doing that.”

Fleury loves how Gustavsson doesn’t change how he plays because of what’s happening in the game — good or bad — noting he’s “always calm, cool and collected.”

It’s been the best run of Gustavsson’s career, what’s the key?

“Consistency,” Gustavsson said. “Before I could have really good games and then I could have really bad games. Just find something in between where you can be doing the same thing every day. These guys have played really good now lately too with not giving up so many chances, so that helps a lot.”

Gustavsson said he tries to “make the same boring saves every time.

“You don’t always have to be flashy and do those cool saves. It’s fun to do them sometimes, but if you do the same boring saves all the time, then most pucks are going to hit you.”

“Boring is good for goalies.”

It’s also helped Gustavsson that the Wild play a more predictable game in front of him, as the Swede appeared to take a little dig at his former team.

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“I remember in Ottawa it was always nervous coming into the rink, not knowing what team would show up,” Gustavsson said. “You’d play against good teams and then you’re actually nervous. This team is so good, so you can expect the team to win every night. It’s just relaxing coming in here and doing what I’m doing.”

Both Gustavsson and Talbot are looking forward to catching up with former teammates. Talbot said he used to live around the corner in Edina from captain Jared Spurgeon, with their wives remaining good friends. It was the hardest part of Talbot’s transition was his kids Sloane and Landon asking why they couldn’t go to school with their friends anymore.

Talbot said the Wild team was “one of the closest groups I’ve ever been a part of,” and he’s not surprised they’re off to a strong start, having won four in a row and 10 of their last 13. It’s why this is such a “bittersweet” return.

“We loved it there so much,” Talbot said. “I hope that comes across, that the fans know I never wanted to leave. It’s a great place to live, raise a family. We enjoyed our two years. Last year I was able to be part of one of the best teams in franchise history — I’ll always be able to hang my hat on that.”

(Top photo: Kyle Ross / USA Today)

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