Worst Trade of All Time

[rockalt]

I was just thinking about the Luongo trade that sent him to Florida and wondered if it was the worst trade of all time. It's certainly up there, though a lot of Milbury's trades are. So in short, what is the worst trade in the history of the NHL? Feel free to add some in as I'm probably missing some glaring ones.

[Cornuck]

Interesting to note that the Islanders have 3 of the bad side of the deals in your list.

[Sid Dithers]

Except for the Philly/Quebec trade, none of these trades ended up with either team winning a Stanley Cup. Which would make that trade similar to the Boston/Chicago trade in 1967 (Espo etc).

[supercanuck]

What about this one? Player wise it appears to be one of the worst ever:

"Gretzky was traded with Marty McSorley and Mike Krushelnyski by the Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings for Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas, $15 million cash, and the Kings' first-round draft picks in 1989 (Jason Soules) , 1991 (Tyler Wright), and 1993 (Jason Arnott)."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Gret ... e_Trade.22

[levelheaded]

Calgary's 10 player swap was pretty terrible. Maybe not the worst but it has to be up there.

To Toronto: Doug Gilmour, Jamie Macoun, Kent Manderville, Ric Natress and Rick Wamsley
To Calgary: Craig Berube, Alexander Godynyuk, Gary Leeman, Michel Petit and Jeff Reese

Pretty much sank the Franchise for the next five years or so.

The absoloute worst trade was the Lindros trade because it, along with the Roy deal, handed the Nordiques/ Avs a pair of Stanley cups which they otherwise wouldn't have deserved.

Edit: The Kiprusoff trade was for a 2nd round pick that turned into Marc-Edouard Vlasic. Still a pretty awful trade, but Vlasic looks like he could be a very good player in the next few years.

[rockalt]

Edit: The Kiprusoff trade was for a 2nd round pick that turned into Marc-Edouard Vlasic. Still a pretty awful trade, but Vlasic looks like he could be a very good player in the next few years.

Damn. I thought it was a second round pick but I read somewhere that it was a 3rd round. Also, I heard that about Vlasic too but I couldn't remember his name. That's definitely not my choice but I was trying to round out the list and it seemed lopsided enough to make it.

Also Cornuck, ya pretty scary to think three of those deals involved the islanders. If you think about it, they have some pretty decent scouts because they have consistently drafted some amazing players.... only to trade them away for scraps. I would hate to be an Islanders fan for that reason....

I didn't even add that because the Islanders traded Luongo, they moved up in the draft to pick Dipietro, when they could have just kept Luongo (& Jokinen) and used that pick to choose Heatley or Gaborik.

[Jyrki21]

I think the single most lopsided has to be Stojanov for Näslund just because there are only two names involved, and the difference has been SO glaring (ironically Stojanov was an earlier draft pick in the same year! )

My runner-up would probably either be the Luongo-Parrish trade (don't forget that the Islanders essentially also traded the opportunity to get either Heatley or Gaborik by drafting DiPietro as part of that whole thing), or the 10-player Flame/Leaf trade.

I think the significance of the Neely trade has been WAY overblown in Canuck history. I doubt Neely ever would have become the player he did if he stayed in Vancouver (meaning the opportunity cost is overstated – same logic for SJ giving up on Kiprusoff), and it's not like Pederson was an insane guy to go after – he was a two-time hundred point scorer who clocked in around a point-per-game for the Canucks when they first got him.

It was by no means a good trade (it was clearly imprudent), but it is defensible from the Canuck perspective at the time – they just got unlucky as hell. (Which is true for most of these, obviously, but less so for the most egregious ones like the Luongo/Parrish or CGY/TOR ones, which had people scratching their heads at the time).

[the Cunning Linguist]

I'd also add the Joe Thornton trade in that list; he ended up racking up a ton of points in SJ last season while the Bruins went into the tank and had to rebuild the entire team from almost scratch this past summer.

[rockalt]

I'd also add the Joe Thornton trade in that list; he ended up racking up a ton of points in SJ last season while the Bruins went into the tank and had to rebuild the entire team from almost scratch this past summer.

I didn't include that trade because I actually thought the return was pretty decent despite how good Thornton has been. Brad Stuart is a number 3 pick and a pretty good defencement and Sturm is pretty solid. Primeau is the throw-in but not too shabby himself. Obviously Thornton is much better than any of those players but I don't think the trade is as lopsided as the other ones on the list.

My runner-up would probably either be the Luongo-Parrish trade (don't forget that the Islanders essentially also traded the opportunity to get either Heatley or Gaborik by drafting DiPietro as part of that whole thing),

Exactly why it was my choice. For one, Khvasha never amounted to anything and while Parrish is decent, Jokinen is clearly better. Oh, and in addition, they threw in a franchise goaltender - potentially the greatest goaltender in the game today. If Luongo ever goes on to win some cups, I think this trade will gain more attention (even though he'll be winning them with us ).

And you're right, the kicker is that they could have just kept Luongo and Jokinen and then used their pick to select Gaborik or Heatley. Also, I'm pretty sure they had to trade up to get Dipietro. If I remember correctly they had the number 2 or 3 pick but so highly coveted Dipietro that they traded for the number 1 pick. I haven't been able to find out what they gave up for it but the number of additional awful results from this trade solidify it, for me, as the worst trade.

[Grizzly]

Wow ... lots of brutal trades there ... all looked at in hindsite of course.

As I am tired of hearing about the Neely thing I will refuse to vote for that ... Naslund deal is good and positive if you are a Canuck ...

If Kipper continues to dominant the goaltending world that could jump right up there as one of the worst ...

Never cared much for Lindros so I will go with that one ... honourable mention to Chara and Spezza for the highly overated Yashin.

Grizz

[mattola]

New Jersey Devils traded Vadim Sharifijanov and a 3rd round selection (Tim Branham) in 2000 to the Vancouver Canucks for a 2nd round selection (previously acquired - Teemu Laine) in 2000 and a 3rd round selection (previously acquired - Max Birbraer) in 2000.




at least their draft picks didnt turn out all that well

[mattola]

To FLA: Oli Jokinen & Roberto Luongo... To NYI: Mark Parrish & Oleg Kvasha - Wow was this one a long term failure for NYI. Oli is one of the top centermen in the league right now and Luongo top 3 goalie in the world while Parrish and Kvasha have been middle range players at best.

To BOS: Cam Neeley & 1st round pick... To VAN: Barry Pederson... - how does that statement go. "Seemed like the right thing to do at the time" but yeah we got killed in this one. Imagine having Neeley in 94?

To NYI: Trevor Linden... To Van: Todd Bertuzzi, Bryan McCabe, & 3rd round pick (Ruutu) - Our team was in such a tail spin that I think this wasnt as bad as it looked. but man did it turn out well

To PIT: Alex Stojanov... To VAN: Markus Naslund - again at the time it seemed just a nothing for nothing trade. but man was Stojanov a bust

To NYI: Alexei Yashin... To OTT: Zdeno Chara, Bill Muckalt, & 1st round pick (Jason Spezza) - yup this looked as bad now as it did then I still cant believe Milbury carried that job for as long as he did. this was brutual through and through

To PHI: Eric Lindros... To QUE: Ron Hextall, Mike Ricci, Peter Forsberg, Steve Duchesne, Kerry Huffman, 1st round pick (Thibault), & Futures (Chris Simon), & Cash - this actually worked well for both teams in the short run. Lindros and the flyers made the Finals the year after the Avs won their first one. Eric was MVP and Art Ross winner. A very dominant player for years. neither team stepped back in what they were and the biggest thing that came out of this is the NOrdiques were able to aquire Roy ONLY becuase they moved to Denver. No way the Habs trade him to a division rival in teh same province. no way. hard to say this was a rip off. and no way does Denver win teh cup without Roy

To Cal: Miikka Kiprusoff... TO SJ: 3rd round pick - no brainer

[rockalt]

New Jersey Devils traded Vadim Sharifijanov and a 3rd round selection (Tim Branham) in 2000 to the Vancouver Canucks for a 2nd round selection (previously acquired - Teemu Laine) in 2000 and a 3rd round selection (previously acquired - Max Birbraer) in 2000.




at least their draft picks didnt turn out all that well

Brian Burke's self-proclaimed worst trade as Canucks GM. Nice. At least we didn't really lose anything in that trade though. A nothing for nothing trade in the end.

[Island Nucklehead]

Neely as a Canuck? Has to be the grossest trade. Neely's a Hall of Famer folks, and we pissed him away for nothing. Easily the worst raping up there.

Second has to be us getting Naslund, and it's not second by much. Markus won't end up in the hall of fame. And I gotta love Neely's guts and determination, the guy is my fav of all time. Him and Linden would have given us all the heart we'd have needed for that 94 run.

[galiano]

Here's one from a long long time ago. And it may be the best / worst trade of all time.

In 1970 Sam Pollock the gm of the Canadiens traded a couple of journeymen to the California Golden Seals ( yes they were an NHL team kids ! ) for their first round pick. Pollock then sent a number of good players to the team that was fighting it out with California for last overall in the league. California faltered and came last so the Canadiens got the first overall pick and with it they took Guy Lafleur. Pollock knew exactly what he was getting in Lafleur who of course turned out to be one of the greatest Canadiens of all time.