12 days ago, word got out that Swedish agitator Per Ledin had signed with the Avalanche. In typical Avalanche fan-hating fashion, there has yet to be any formal announcement of this by the team.
It has been confirmed that Ledin is coming to the NHL. This article on Ledin's former team, HV71, confirms that he has used an NHL opt-out clause in his contract and would be joining an unnamed NHL team. The guy quoted in the article wishing Ledin luck in the NHL is Fredrick Stillman - the GM for HV71 - so I think it's a good bet that he's heading this way.
So, why have we heard nothing on it? I thought maybe we needed to wait until the start of free agency, but Jori has said that this doesn't apply to European players. Have the Avs and Ledin hit a snag on contract talks?
While researching this, I came across something really interesting - Adrian Dater's Post article about the Brad Richardson trade. What's interesting about that? Well, remember on draft day when we knew the Avs had made the trade for the Kings' pick but we didn't know who we gave up? Here's how that sentence about the trade originally read (thanks to a google cache):
The Avs were slated next to choose at the No. 110 spot, but made a trade with the Los Angeles Kings for the 61st pick. The Avs traded the rights to recently signed European free agent Per Ledin for the pick, which they used to select 18-year-old goalie Peter Delmas from the Lewiston MAINEiacs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.
So, even if this turned out to be incorrect info on the trade (shocking, given that the Avs are just a free-flowing fountain of knowledge), it seems obvious that the Ledin signing is a known deal, even if the Avs are, for whatever reason, keeping this under wraps.