Ryan Reaves didn't believe it at first.
Upon hearing rumblings that he was being traded by the St. Louis Blues during Friday's first round of the NHL draft, the forward took to Twitter to check the scuttlebutt.
What he saw initially convinced him it was much ado about nothing.
"First thing I saw was, 'It sounds like Reaves is going for a first-rounder,'" he told Jeremy Rutherford of the Post-Dispatch. "I was like 'OK, obviously that's a bunch of garbage.'"
There was truth to those tweets, however, as the Pittsburgh Penguins acquired Reaves and the 51st overall pick from the Blues in exchange for forward Oskar Sundqvist and the 31st and final pick in the opening round.
The Penguins thought it was necessary to add some toughness to the back-to-back Stanley Cup champion roster.
Jim Rutherford says it was a priority to add some muscle in the form of Ryan Reaves because of how hard teams play his stars.
— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) June 24, 2017
"It was a little shocking," Reaves said of the deal, according to Rutherford. "The first thing I thought of was all the boys in St. Louis. I truly love every one of the guys on the team."
Reaves added that he was honored the Penguins traded for him and said he'd already received a text from Sidney Crosby.
Reaves on text from Crosby: "He just said, 'Really happy to have you on the team, looking forward to playing with you and we'll talk soon.'"
— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) June 24, 2017
Reaves had been in the Blues organization since being selected in the fifth round of the 2005 draft.
The Blues used the 31st pick to land Klim Kostin, the top-rated European skater heading into the draft.
Copyright © 2017 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.