Kevin Lowe was prepared.

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Anaheim Ducks' general manager Brian Burke corroborated what we were thinking in the Ryan Smyth trade headline. He confirmed to the press that Edmonton Oilers GM Kevin Lowe gave him a call 2 days before the trade deadline of February 27th.

Burke declared that the negociations with the Oilers were cut short because he didn't have a 1st round draft pick to give them and didn't want to send a young player on his roster to compensate the Alberta team.

This prooves that Kevin Lowe was prepared to let go Smyth for a certain time and doubted that he could sign the player. Ryan Smyth's agent Don Meehan is known to be very greedy and inflexible in his negociations. Lowe was aware of that so he started to browse around the league looking for a trade. He finally was able to send Smyth to the New-York Islanders one minute before the trade deadline. Originally Kevin Lowe was looking for players like Keith Tkachuk according to Brian Burke's affirmation.

Case closed.