Trades are an essential part of all professional sports, but for players, a phone call telling you your whole life is about to be uprooted usually isn't one you want to get.
It's not a call you want to miss, either.
“Both my first and second trades caught me completely off guard,” Erik Gudbranson recently told me in Columbus. “My first one, Florida to Vancouver, I was in Africa. I missed the call. I was on a safari with no service for two days, and I got to a new hotel, and my phone exploded.
“I'd got traded two days earlier, so I called my wife (my girlfriend at the time, my wife now). I was like, 'Hey babe, I got traded,' and she was like, 'Yeah, I've known this for two days, buddy. You've been lost.'”
Gudbranson is only too familiar with the uncertainty of life in the NHL. When he signed a four-year contract with the Columbus Blue Jackets last July, the team became the defenseman's eighth in less than 12 years. Five of those moves were the result of mid-season trades.
Aside from a brief roster freeze over the holidays, NHL teams can make trades and acquisitions at any time during the year, moving players from city to city with little to no notice. If not handled well, trades can be an unpleasant way for a player to be jolted out of their comfort zone. Even when relatively amicable, there's no option for players but to face the harsh reality: