An American Hockey League GM Traded His Own Son For Future Considerations

The NHL trade deadline passed about a week ago, but one of the strangest trades of the year in hockey just happened this week down in the American Hockey League.

A GM traded his own son for…

*checks notes*

…future considerations.

According to Sportsnet, Dan MacKinnon is the general manager of the AHL's Utica Comets — the AHL affiliate of the New Jersey Devils.

On Thursday, he stunned a lot of folks by trading his son, Will MacKinnon — a 24-year-old defenseman out of the University of New Hampshire who had played 42 games for the Comets this season — to the Cleveland Monsters, the AHL affiliate of the Columbus Blue Jackets.

While that stunned a lot of people on the surface, if you look at the situation, you'll pick up on how MacKinnon worked a deal that will hopefully help his son's career.

MacKinnon had played parts of the last two seasons in Utica as well as two games in the ECHL with the Adirondack Thunder.

However, he had been healthy scratched for a few games leading up to the trade.

Perhaps the Comets are just deep on defense and don't have room for another left-shot blueliner, but whatever the case, it's hard to just sit in the press box and rip chicken tenders.

So, hopefully, the younger MacKinnon will get some more playing time in Cleveland (who have a pretty sweet logo and uniform set, not like it matters though) and a bonus is that while the Comets are in last place in the AHL's North Division, the Monsters are in a position to potentially get into the playoffs.

I can see why the headline was a bit of a stunner, and it is — but business is business — and I think we've just got a case of a dad doing what he thinks is best for his son, even if that had to be one of the harder trade calls a GM has had to make in recent memory.

Here's to hoping it all pans out.