Flyers, Preds tamper.

On Monday afternoon, the Hamilton Predators and Flyers announced that they have negotiated a deal which returns a "conditional" draft pick from Philly to Nashville in exchange for exclusive rights to negotiate with Scott Hartnell and defenseman Kimmo Timonen. Both are were considered to be high profile free agents-to-be.

The TSN story is here.

This isn't a sign-n-trade. Nashville didn't sign the players first. The players are still scheduled to and WILL become free agents on July 1. However, Philly will have "exclusive" rights to negotiate with them. No other team will have the right to tender a sheet at that point.

Does someone want to tell me why this isn't considered to be tampering? Collusion? If the other teams are locked out, isn't that tantamount to allowing Philly to tender a sheet before July 1? Am I missing something?

EDIT ---> Apparently, Philly has signed these two players to long-term deals. Hartnell : 6 years for a total of $25.2M. Timonen: 6 years for a total of $37.8M.

Remember, this isn't being referred to as a "trade". Trades are fine. This kind of negotiation smells fishy to me. Even if it is referred to as a "trade", this is still fishy as hell. Two top notch players for one draft pick?

As if there wasn't enough sketchiness going on in Nashville, now there's this.