Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli admitted that he explored the possibility of trading Tim Thomas before the start of the 2010-11 season. That really shouldn't come as a shock as, at the time, it looked like Tuukka Rask would serve as the team's starting goaltender and Thomas comes with a $5 million annual cap hit. "There were some calls in that and they kept him in the loop at all times," Chiarelli said. "He kept stressing he didn't want to leave. And I said 'I know. . . let's just look at this very briefly.' I know there are a lot of stories that flowed from it, but I can't stress enough the fact that Tim never wanted to leave." It is believed that Philadelphia was one of the top destinations for Thomas, if he was to be traded, but the two sides couldn't agree on fair value. That turned out to be particularly unfortunate for the Flyers, given their goaltending woes during the 2011 playoffs, but of course hindsight is 20/20.