News Article: 5 Worst Trades in Senators History

[AchtzehnBaby]

The Ottawa Senators have made their fair share of trades throughout their history. Some of those moves have seen them come out on top, but others have fans wondering what just happened. As with any NHL team, the return an organization can get for a particular player or pick can vary a great deal. Are they buyers or sellers at the trade deadline? Is the organization in a rebuild? Did the player ask to be traded or was a player causing issues for the team, like what happened with Dany Heatley and Mike Hoffman?

https://thehockeywriters.com/5-worst-trades-in-senators-history/

Click to read more...

 

[Six Assets]

terrible list

 

[Micklebot]

Fisher trade over Heatley to Sj, Havlat to SJ, or Hoffman to SJ makes no sense at all...

 

[Karl Prime]

The Rundblad trade shouldn't be there because there's no way of knowing if Ottawa would have taken Tarasenko with that pick had they not made the trade.

 

[Sens With Benefits]

The Fisher trade was fine. It's the scouts and GM's fault for messing up the picks. He also wanted to go and wanted to go to Nashville.

Even the Tarasenko trade wasn't as bad as it seems. We turned Rundblad into a #2 center in Turris. We were not going to draft Tarasenko anyways, he's Russian. The Bishop trade stings but again Conacher looked like a promising prospect. The only trade that was a complete dud was the Demitra and Duchene deals. Those were poor GM moves. Especially the Duchene trade.

 

[swiftwin]

The Rundblad trade shouldn't be there because there's no way of knowing if Ottawa would have taken Tarasenko with that pick had they not made the trade.

Agreed. If we use that logic, we acquired Karlsson from Nashville in the greatest trade ever (Pickard and Beck for Karlsson).

Terrible terrible list.

 

[aragorn]

Moving Heatley instead of firing the coach was IMO the biggest mistake this franchise ever made & they have made plenty & continue to make lots of mistakes. While Michalek had a good run here he was nowhere near as prolific a scorer as Heatley was here & Heatley almost single handedly turned the franchise around. The incompetence starts at the top & runs right through the organization at every level it seems including on the ice with most of their acquisitions & their record continues to prove it. The two worse culprits IMO are the owner & the GM, both have to go.

 

[Sens With Benefits]

1) Duchene
2) Dany Healtey
3) Demitra
4) Ryan
5) Havlat
6) Zibanejad

Those are all worse trades.

 

[Caeldan]

The Rundblad trade shouldn't be there because there's no way of knowing if Ottawa would have taken Tarasenko with that pick had they not made the trade.

That Rundblad trade also got us Turris straight up, and there was plenty of hype around Rundblad at the time of the trade to make it an interesting move given the fact that we were pretty much guaranteed to not take a Russian between Murray and Melnyk.

I'll agree that the Bishop trade should be in our top five worst, but only because we should have told Lehner to go back to the AHL and quit his whining and given Bishop a shot to win the job over Anderson and possibly avoid RFA VI status.

Hossa and Havlat trades are also probably worse than most others on that list.

Fisher trade got us some interesting at the time futures(Maidens was derailed by concussions) and was a move more for personal than hockey reasons (though we were moving on from that core at the time).

 

[stempniaksen]

Moving Heatley instead of firing the coach was IMO the biggest mistake this franchise ever made & they have made plenty & continue to make lots of mistakes. While Michalek had a good run here he was nowhere near as prolific a scorer as Heatley was here & Heatley almost single handedly turned the franchise around. The incompetence starts at the top & runs right through the organization at every level it seems including on the ice with most of their acquisitions & their record continues to prove it. The two worse culprits IMO are the owner & the GM, both have to go.

To play devil's advocate, Heatley "expired" pretty quick after leaving Ottawa. One good season, one okay season and then he took a real nosedive in Minnesota (to the point where he ended up in the NHL and DEL to end his career). Guy was a fantastic player while he was here, but his trade demand kind of saved the Sens in a roundabout way, imo.

 

[aragorn]

To play devil's advocate, Heatley "expired" pretty quick after leaving Ottawa. One good season, one okay season and then he took a real nosedive in Minnesota (to the point where he ended up in the NHL and DEL to end his career). Guy was a fantastic player while he was here, but his trade demand kind of saved the Sens in a roundabout way, imo.

Saved them? They were never the same after he left, they lost their leading goal scorer because of an incredibly stupid & stubborn rookie coach. If he would have stayed it could have been different but you're right, his decline started quickly after he left.

 

[stempniaksen]

Saved them? They were never the same after he left, they lost their leading goal scorer because of an incredibly stupid & stubborn rookie coach. If he would have stayed it could have been different but you're right, his decline started quickly after he left.

Certainly would have helped the team in the short term, but being locked in for that kind of money to a 1-dimensional (at that stage) ~50 point scorer would have hurt, given we were still a cap team at that time.

The return was still awful, I'm not gonna deny that, but I do think there was the potential for him to be a negative on the team given his rapid decline.

 

[stempniaksen]

That Zibanejad trade should absolutely be top-five as well, if we get to use the power of hindsight. Didn't look as bad in the moment as some of the other deals posted, but given how Zib vs Brassard's careers have gone since the move it turned out awful.

 

[swiftwin]

IMO, worst trades:

1. Demitra for Olsson
2. Havlat and Smolinski for Preissing and Hennessy
3. Spezza for Chiasson & spare parts
4. Campoli and Comrie(2nd stint with Ottawa) for Mcammond and a 1st (Kyle Palmieri)
5. Tugnutt and Laukkanen for Barrasso

 

[danielpalfredsson]

What are we judging by, how the trade was at the time or how it turned out?

I am going to assume how it turned out.

The Heatley trade is far from the worst. Let's put Heatley into perspective. He was signed for almost 15 percent of the cap. That would be like having a 12 million dollar player right now. He had one really good season in San Jose, his decline continued, and he was out of there within two seasons.

I guess it could be argued that Michalek also only had one real star studded season, but he was a lot cheaper so the consequences weren't as high when he wasn't performing.

The Duchene trade is the worst. I guess it was the hockey gods taking what was owed to them for the Chara/Spezza for Yashin trade.

 

[danielpalfredsson]

That Zibanejad trade should absolutely be top-five as well, if we get to use the power of hindsight. Didn't look as bad in the moment as some of the other deals posted, but given how Zib vs Brassard's careers have gone since the move it turned out awful.

I don't think that trade is even that bad in hindsight because judging by everything we've done, we would have gone with a short term contract and then liquidated Zibanejad before he became a UFA.

I don't think we end up with as good of a return trading Zibanejad as a pending UFA in 2019 as we did for Brassard from Pittsburgh.

 

[stempniaksen]

I don't think that trade is even that bad in hindsight because judging by everything we've done, we would have gone with a short term contract and then liquidated Zibanejad before he became a UFA.

I don't think we end up with as good of a return trading Zibanejad as a pending UFA in 2019 as we did for Brassard from Pittsburgh.

If we're coming at it from the perspective of the dysfunctional current day Senators than sure, I can see your point.

For any "regular" team trading a 22 year old (former top-10 pick) who has gone on to put up 158 points in his next 212 games (and is trneding up) for a 29 year old who has put up 108 points in 223 games (and is now gone from the organization and trending down) would be pretty disastrous. That's not even counting the 2nd round pick, which everyone could see was overkill in the moment.

I guess the fact we sold off Brassard for a decent return could "save" the deal, but if we don't "hit" on any of those guys it should go down as one of the worst, imo.

 

[stempniaksen]

IMO, worst trades:

1. Demitra for Olsson
2. Havlat and Smolinski for Preissing and Hennessy
3. Spezza for Chiasson & spare parts
4. Campoli and Comrie(2nd stint with Ottawa) for Mcammond and a 1st (Kyle Palmieri)
5. Tugnutt and Laukkanen for Barrasso

Good call on that Barasso deal. I guess you could argue we didn't give up a ton, but holy crow did that one ever backfire tremendously.

 

[Gil Gunderson]

The Zibanejad trade always looked bad IMO.

 

[swiftwin]

What are we judging by, how the trade was at the time or how it turned out?

I am going to assume how it turned out.

The Heatley trade is far from the worst. Let's put Heatley into perspective. He was signed for almost 15 percent of the cap. That would be like having a 12 million dollar player right now. He had one really good season in San Jose, his decline continued, and he was out of there within two seasons.

I guess it could be argued that Michalek also only had one real star studded season, but he was a lot cheaper so the consequences weren't as high when he wasn't performing.

The Duchene trade is the worst. I guess it was the hockey gods taking what was owed to them for the Chara/Spezza for Yashin trade.

It's really tricky to make lists because of this. Do you rank them based on the value at the time of the trade? What about draft picks? How do you value those? What about unexpected player improvement/decline/injuries? What about factors outside of hockey?

The Duchene trade is so hard to judge. On one hand, Duchene was actually fantastic for us, exceeding expectations, while Turris massively underperformed for Nashville, and was a healthy scratch at one point. On the other hand, it was terrible for us because (a) we lost a good 1st round pick, and (b) Duchene did not stay with us very long. But those were because of non-hockey external factors (locker room drama, ownership meddling/cheapness). Like, would you say Luc Bourdon was a terrible pick for Vancouver because he never became a regular defenseman for them? Ofcourse not.

 

[swiftwin]

If we're coming at it from the perspective of the dysfunctional current day Senators than sure, I can see your point.

For any "regular" team trading a 22 year old (former top-10 pick) who has gone on to put up 158 points in his next 212 games (and is trneding up) for a 29 year old who has put up 108 points in 223 games (and is now gone from the organization and trending down) would be pretty disastrous. That's not even counting the 2nd round pick, which everyone could see was overkill in the moment.

I guess the fact we sold off Brassard for a decent return could "save" the deal, but if we don't "hit" on any of those guys it should go down as one of the worst, imo.

Also tough to judge the addition of the 2nd rounder, because that was the first of many "if you pay this player's bonus on July 1st, we'll add a pick" trades. The Rangers paid Brassard's bonus right before we traded for him.

 

[stempniaksen]

Also tough to judge the addition of the 2nd rounder, because that was the first of many "if you pay this player's bonus on July 1st, we'll add a pick" trades. The Rangers paid Brassard's bonus right before we traded for him.

Which would make it "bad" from the perspective of any team not named Ottawa (or Arizona at the time I guess).

Certainly tougher to judge the moves made recently under the guise of "save money, no matter the cost" as opposed to the "real" hockey trades.

 

[danielpalfredsson]

If we're coming at it from the perspective of the dysfunctional current day Senators than sure, I can see your point.

For any "regular" team trading a 22 year old (former top-10 pick) who has gone on to put up 158 points in his next 212 games (and is trneding up) for a 29 year old who has put up 108 points in 223 games (and is now gone from the organization and trending down) would be pretty disastrous. That's not even counting the 2nd round pick, which everyone could see was overkill in the moment.

I guess the fact we sold off Brassard for a decent return could "save" the deal, but if we don't "hit" on any of those guys it should go down as one of the worst, imo.

I don't disagree, but we have to look at it through the frame of how our team has to operate with our current ownership.

Zib would have been signed to a short term deal that ate up his remaining RFA years. We'd then end up selling him off from a position of weakness like we did with all of our other players.

I think our return for Zibanejad with either 1 or 1.5 years left would have been at best comparable to the Brassard return. It would have been a wash.

 

[swiftwin]

That Rundblad trade also got us Turris straight up, and there was plenty of hype around Rundblad at the time of the trade to make it an interesting move given the fact that we were pretty much guaranteed to not take a Russian between Murray and Melnyk.

I'll agree that the Bishop trade should be in our top five worst, but only because we should have told Lehner to go back to the AHL and quit his whining and given Bishop a shot to win the job over Anderson and possibly avoid RFA VI status.

Hossa and Havlat trades are also probably worse than most others on that list.

Fisher trade got us some interesting at the time futures(Maidens was derailed by concussions) and was a move more for personal than hockey reasons (though we were moving on from that core at the time).

I have a tough time putting Bishop in that list. We acquired Bishop for a 2nd round pick, and moved him out only one year later for a 4th and Conacher. Big whoop. It's not like the trade made us worse, Andy was quite solid for us for quite a while after that trade. Goalies are highly volatile assets and rarely ever net you a nice return. Since then, Tampa moved him for even less than they paid for him, and Bishop still played amazing and got nominated for a Vezina this past season.

 

[BonHoonLayneCornell]

There's some doozies in there like most franchises, but the ones of the past have been covered. Under Dorion, his 5 worst in order imo...

Hoffman trade (We literally would have been better off putting him on waivers)
Duchene trade #1
Zibanejad trade (Regardless of the run or the decent return on Brassard (1st, 2nd & Gus), we should have just stepped up and extended Zbad)
Karlsson trade (quantity was fine, but wanted at least one piece to be really excited about)
Ceci deal for Zaitsev (Just don't see the point of adding term for yet another role player after in large part having to rebuild because of dollars wasted in this fashion)