News Article: 10 Traded picks that turned into NHL Superstars (including an old Kings trade)

[deeshamrock]

This is a pretty good read, teams that traded their 'picks' and the 'picks' that turned out to be stars.

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/goes-brown-10-traded-picks-turned-nhl-superstars/

including a Kings trade

2. THE TRADE: On the eve of the 1978-79 season opener, the Los Angeles Kings trade their first-round pick in the 1979 draft to the Boston Bruins for goalie Ron Grahame

That pick turned out to be Ray Bourque.

and this one, wow...

8. THE TRADE: On Feb. 25, 2004, the Nashville Predators sent Timo Helbling to the Tampa Bay Lightning in exchange for an eighth-round pick

Preds used that to draft Pekke Rinne...8th round home run.

Click to read more...

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Here are a couple of other good ones involving the Kings.

1982: Kings trade the 6th overall pick (Phil Housley) to Buffalo for Jerry Korab.

1983: Kings trade the 5th overall pick (Tom Barrasso) and an additional 3rd to Buffalo for Rick Martin.

Buffalo bent the Kings over two years in a row.

 

[Jericho111091]

Knew which Kings trade it would be from the get go. That has to be one of the worst trades in league history.

 

[Reaper45]

Ugh these kinds of threads come up around the deadline every year. Don't remind us how terrible the early Kings management was!

 

[kingsholygrail]

To be fair though, the reason those trades are as bad as they are is because scouting and such was awful in those days even in the good organizations. Bourque didn't get picked 1st overall with the Kings pick. The Kings pick was what 8th overall? Other teams passed up on him.

 

[VoluntaryDom]

The Sharks 3rd rounder which got traded to Tampa and became Brad Richards.

(Also, the 1st with swap rights in that same trade that became Lecavalier)

(Also, I didn't read the article, so maybe they are on it, IDK lol )

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Not really in these particular cases but I often wonder how much of it was 'bad drafting' vs. 'bad development', particularly from the 90s on.

Look at a team like the oilers and despite their many high picks very few beyond the 1st and top of the 2nd make it to the NHL period.

 

[Herby]

Kings made so many awful decisions over the years.

The whole McEachern-McSorely-Sandstrom debacle just sums up how awful the team was ran for so long.

The Kings also drafted between 1988 and 1993 four defenseman who would play 1000+ games in the NHL and be multi-time all-stars, and traded 3 of the 4 for pennies on the dollar and then butchered the picks (and had some bad luck) with the Blake trade.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Kings made so many awful decisions over the years.

The whole McEachern-McSorely-Sandstrom debacle just sums up how awful the team was ran for so long.

The Kings also drafted between 1988 and 1993 four defenseman who would play 1000+ games in the NHL and be multi-time all-stars, and traded 3 of the 4 for pennies on the dollar and then butchered the picks (and had some bad luck) with the Blake trade.

To add to this, to this day Bob Miller still thinks that the absolute worst trade this organization made was trading a then 21-year old Larry Murphy to the Capitals in exchange for two 30 year olds in Brian Engblom and Ken Houston. Murphy only went on to win four Stanley Cups and appear in over 1,600 NHL games.

That would be like trading Drew Doughty after his entry level contract expired for Dan McGillis and Steve Bernier.