from Eric Francis of the Calgary Sun,

In St. Louis, it was coach Ken Hitchcock who saw Jaroslav Halak, Ryan Miller and then 25-year-old Jake Allen as Elliott's superior or equal, preventing him from taking over a starting job finally waiting for him in Calgary.

"He's had to fight for the net in St. Louis because management has always felt there's a goaltender there that's his equal," said Flames hockey president Brian Burke.

"That's certainly not the situation with us."...

Between both parties, we realized it was probably best to try to find a home for me somewhere else," said Elliott, 31, who was traded for the 35th pick Saturday and a third rounder in 2018 conditional on him re-signing in Calgary.

"I wanted to have that opportunity, just based on how the past couple years have gone. (Jake Allen) is a really good goaltender and is a good friend of mine. I don't want to go out with bad blood. I respect St. Louis, the city and the organization. I think they respected me as well. I think they wanted to give me an opportunity and I worked hard for it but they weren't able to give it to me.

"With this trade, Calgary's obviously shown a lot of interest in me and it was welcoming. Just having the GM and the coaching staff show interest in me, it makes me feel great. It makes you want to get to Calgary right away."

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