NHL Announcers Fooled By Fake Trade Between Leafs and Canadiens

A couple of NHL announce crews were duped by a fake social media post suggesting that both Ben Chiarot and Jeff Petry had been traded by the Montreal Canadiens on Monday. In one instance, a couple of announcers call the game between the New York Islanders and Colorado Avalanche said Petry was moved to the Maple Leafs. In another broadcast, an intermission panel announced that Ben Chiarot had been traded. Neither report was accurate.

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Jeff Petry’s name was circulating on social media when it was believed (by many) he’d been traded from Montreal to Toronto. Play-by-play announcer Marc Moser mentioned the trade on air during the Islanders vs. Avalanche game but later retracted their story realizing they’d been had by a fake account. Interestingly, the announcers contended the trade made sense to them, which is partially why they believed it to be true.

In a second slip-up, the Tampa Bay television crew also got fooled by the same tweet when they mentioned that Chiarot went to Toronto for what they believed to be a first-round pick and two prospects.  Of course, that wasn’t true either.

What’s so interesting about all of this is that it would have been next to impossible for Toronto to trade for both players and there’s not much of a reason for the Maple Leafs to want both players. Not only that, the timing was impeccably bad as defenseman Jake Muzzin stepped onto the ice Tuesday morning for the Maple Leafs. He’s not with the team yet and there’s a timeline on his return from a concussion, but the fact that it’s looking like he’ll be back in time for the playoffs means the Maple Leafs don’t have the money to afford either Chiarot or Petry unless the Canadiens retain salary, which they are unlikely to do.

Could the Maple Leafs eventually end up trading for one of these two players? It’s certainly possible and the club has been loosely linked to Chiarot in rumors already. It just didn’t happen on Monday night as some had reported.

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