Blockbuster trades that went bad for both teams

[ViD]

I was thinking about the Tkachuk trade in 2007 when the Thrashers acquired Keith at the deadline for Glen Metropolit and three picks including a first.

Tkachuk scored 15 points in 18 games and then 3 points in 4 games as Atlanta got swept in the play offs before returning back to the Blues.

Since Tkachuk immediately signed back with the Blues, it’s hard to say the trade was really bad for St Louis, but had he signed somewhere else, it would’ve been much worse.

St Louis received Metropolit who only played 20 games for them.

The three picks they got, two were nothing and the first round pick they got was traded to Calgary(Backlund!) in exchange for another first round pick which they used to select Ian Cole.

Cole played a few years for the Blues, but never played more than 54 games before leaving for the Pens.

All in all, the trade did not really work out for both sides, unless you consider the fact the Blues re-signed Tkachuk in UFA.

What other big trades you would say did not work out for both teams?

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[Strawberry Fields]

The three way trade between Nashville, Philly, and Vegas

Ellis's career in Philly lasted three or four more games

Patrick's career didn't last much longer.

Myers and Glass, at this point, are depth pieces who are no longer on the teams they were traded to. If I remember correctly, Nashville loaned Myers to the Toronto Marlies rather than Milwaukee before cutting bait with him.

There were risks involved with Ellis and Patrick's injury histories, but it wound up being a swing and a miss for all three teams. Well, mostly for Philly and Vegas since they got the biggest pieces involved.

 

[Soundgarden]

The three way trade between Nashville, Philly, and Vegas

Ellis's career in Philly lasted three or four more games

Patrick's career didn't last much longer.

Myers and Glass, at this point, are depth pieces who are no longer on the teams they were traded to.

Nashville got rid of Ellis' contract and Myers got us McDonagh who brought in a 2nd after a few successful seasons.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

There was the McDonnaugh for Gomez trade.

Gomez didn't do much for Montreal and then McDonnaugh... oh wait.

 

[BigDaddyLurch]

There was the McDonnaugh for Gomez trade.

Gomez didn't do much for Montreal and then McDonnaugh... oh wait.

 

[Victoire HuGo]

Laine for Dubois fits the bill but WPG got a good return at least.

Kassian for Hodgson.

Smyth to Isles

 

[Moose Head]

Ed Belfour to SJ for three spare parts that did little for the Hawks. Belfour hated it in SJ, played the worst goaltending of his career and left as a UFA for much greener pastures in Dallas that summer.

 

[Strawberry Fields]

Jagr for Beech, Sivek, and Lupaschuk?

 

[Brodeur]

To some degree, Lucic to LA didn't pan out long term. Boston turned the haul into Colin Miller (lost in 2017 expansion draft), Trent Frederic, and Jakub Zboril. Kings got one useful season from Lucic before he left as a free agent. According to former assistant GM Mike Futa, LA would have taken Matt Barzal had they kept the 2015 1st.

Doug Gilmour did okay as a Devil but the team only won a single playoff round in his two runs. Toronto got a decent return on paper. Steve Sullivan and Jason Smith would each play 1,000+ NHL games plus a decent prospect in Alyn McCauley. Sullivan was waived in 1999 to open up a roster spot for Dmitri Khristich and would break out with Chicago. Smith would be traded for a couple picks.

The Gretzky to St. Louis trade didn't do much long term for either when the trade happened in February 1996. LA targeted a 1st in the 1997 Draft because it was supposed to be a stacked class (the 1996 Draft was known to be really bad). LA proceeded to use the pick on Matt Zultek who they chose not to sign and got a 2nd round compensation pick in 1999 (arguably the worst class of the Bettman era). Roman Vopat had some hype at the time but he was traded in 1998 and was out of the league by 1999. The most 'useful' piece that LA got back was bottom six winger Craig Johnson.

Since I don't have many reasons to talk about Johnson, I have an amusing memory of being at a Kings game in 2000. They used to run a promotion where if a certain player scored in that period, everybody would get a free McFlurry. When they announced it was Johnson, the entire crowd moaned. And then he'd actually get on a breakaway that period but didn't score.

Meanwhile St. Louis only got 18 regular season and 13 playoff games from Gretzky before Mike Keenan decided not to re-sign him. The funny thing I remember about that was that Wayne was pissed because he had put down non-refundable deposits on St. Louis Cardinals season tickets.

 

[tmg]

I guess some of the young players (including the assets returned in the Jiricek trade) may yet prove worth… but at a glance, the trade of Seth Jones and the picks that became Nolan Allan and Dominic James… for Adam Boqvist and the picks that became Cole Sillinger, David Jiricek, and Aleksei Heimosalmi … seemed like a whole more more blockbuster value on both sides at the time than it does today.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

Jagr for Beech, Sivek, and Lupaschuk?

On the surface this is definitely up there. When you consider its importance in each respective franchise being able to draft future legends, however, it becomes significantly more palatable to both sides. This is a good starting spot for the best worst trade, if such a thing exists.

I feel like Heatley for Havlat is the gold standard here. Heatley had just started to fall off and would turn into a rotting pumpkin for Minnesota within a year and Havlat was pretty immediately a pumpkin for San Jose, thanks in large part to his penchant for being the most injury prone player to perhaps ever play the game. A very high profile change of scenery swap that hurt both franchises pretty badly. Heatley had one thoroughly mediocre 53 point (in a full 82) season before being a complete liability the rest of the way. Havlat never hit the 30 point mark again.

 

[Bizz]

Heatley for Havlat. Both players got injured and their careers derailed less than 4 months later.

 

[BlueDream]

I was thinking about the Tkachuk trade in 2007 when the Thrashers acquired Keith at the deadline for Glen Metropolit and three picks including a first.

Tkachuk scored 15 points in 18 games and then 3 points in 4 games as Atlanta got swept in the play offs before returning back to the Blues.

Since Tkachuk immediately signed back with the Blues, it’s hard to say the trade was really bad for St Louis, but had he signed somewhere else, it would’ve been much worse.

St Louis received Metropolit who only played 20 games for them.

The three picks they got, two were nothing and the first round pick they got was traded to Calgary(Backlund!) in exchange for another first round pick which they used to select Ian Cole.

Cole played a few years for the Blues, but never played more than 54 games before leaving for the Pens.

All in all, the trade did not really work out for both sides, unless you consider the fact the Blues re-signed Tkachuk in UFA.

What other big trades you would say did not work out for both teams?

That’s kind of a weird example to use.

I mean there are tons of trades where a team receives a draft pick and they don’t turn into much. That’s fairly normal I would imagine.

But to get Tkachuk signed back, he’s still a scout for us actually, and they drafted a serviceable player in Cole who turned into Bortuzzo, who wasn’t a notable name but played a role on our Cup team. I don’t think any Blues fans are complaining about how it turned out.

 

[Brodeur]

I made this trade tree for a different thread awhile back.

Heading into the 1999 Draft, the Rangers had a trade in place for Ziggy Palffy but the league rejected it. GM Neil Smith would pivot and target Pavel Brendl at the draft instead. Brendl didn't pan out, but the Rangers were able to use him as a trade chip to get Eric Lindros in 2001.

Meanwhile Tampa had just hired Rick Dudley. He inherited a bad team that didn't have a ton of assets. So he opted to turn the top pick into bunch of players/picks. Unfortunately he seemed to turn it into less and less with each subsequent trade.

In the end, here's the 'haul' that Dudley got for the #1 overall pick:

RW Nikita Alexeev (144 games - 35 points)
LW Jimmie Olvestad (111 games - 17 points)
LD Andrei Zyuzin (107 games - 33 points)
G Dan Cloutier (76 games - 12 wins)
C Steve Guolla (47 games - 16 points)
RD Mathieu Biron (36 games - 0 points)
RD Adrian Aucoin (26 games - 12 points)
LD Bill Houlder (14 games - 3 points)
RD Sascha Goc (9 games - 0 points)
LW Shawn Burr (4 games - 2 points)
LD Josef Boumedienne (3 games - 0 points)
RD Brett Scheffelmaier, LW Anton But, RW Alexander Polushin, RD Andreas Holmqvist (0 games)

But I suppose they were stuck either way. If they had kept the pick, Tampa would have taken Brendl for themselves.

 

[BigDaddyLurch]

View attachment 978392

I made this trade tree for a different thread awhile back.

Heading into the 1999 Draft, the Rangers had a trade in place for Ziggy Palffy but the league rejected it. GM Neil Smith would pivot and target Pavel Brendl at the draft instead. Brendl didn't pan out, but the Rangers were able to use him as a trade chip to get Eric Lindros in 2001.

Meanwhile Tampa had just hired Rick Dudley. He inherited a bad team that didn't have a ton of assets. So he opted to turn the top pick into bunch of players. Unfortunately he seemed to turn it into less and less with each subsequent trade.

In the end he got for the #1 overall pick:

RW Nikita Alexeev (144 games - 35 points)
LW Jimmie Olvestad (111 games - 17 points)
LD Andrei Zyuzin (107 games - 33 points)
G Dan Cloutier (76 games - 12 wins)
C Steve Guolla (47 games - 16 points)
RD Mathieu Biron (36 games - 0 points)
RD Adrian Aucoin (26 games - 12 points)
LD Bill Houlder (14 games - 3 points)
RD Sascha Goc (9 games - 0 points)
LW Shawn Burr (4 games - 2 points)
LD Josef Boumedienne (3 games - 0 points)
RD Brett Scheffelmaier, LW Anton But, RW Alexander Polushin, RD Andreas Holmqvist (0 games)

But I suppose they were stuck either way. If they had kept the pick, Tampa would have taken Brendl for themselves.

 

[Elvs]

Subban for Weber?

Subban hit early decline and Weber was injured half the time.

 

[trick9]

Mantha for Vrana+.

 

[Moose Head]

Subban for Weber?

Subban hit early decline and Weber was injured half the time.

Disagree a bit although your points are valid. Both teams reached the final after the trades and both players played significant roles in those finals runs. It was Nashvilles first and only trip to the finals and the only trip to the finals for the habs in the last 30+ years. So although both teams likely aren’t completely happy how things turned out, they both did get something special out of the trade.

 

[Oddbob]

I was thinking about the Tkachuk trade in 2007 when the Thrashers acquired Keith at the deadline for Glen Metropolit and three picks including a first.

Tkachuk scored 15 points in 18 games and then 3 points in 4 games as Atlanta got swept in the play offs before returning back to the Blues.

Since Tkachuk immediately signed back with the Blues, it’s hard to say the trade was really bad for St Louis, but had he signed somewhere else, it would’ve been much worse.

St Louis received Metropolit who only played 20 games for them.

The three picks they got, two were nothing and the first round pick they got was traded to Calgary(Backlund!) in exchange for another first round pick which they used to select Ian Cole.

Cole played a few years for the Blues, but never played more than 54 games before leaving for the Pens.

All in all, the trade did not really work out for both sides, unless you consider the fact the Blues re-signed Tkachuk in UFA.

What other big trades you would say did not work out for both teams?

How is Tkachuk traded for picks and a player a blockbuster trade? Blockbusters are trades are when both teams get a big already playing piece or involve like a Gretzky level player.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

I was thinking about the Tkachuk trade in 2007 when the Thrashers acquired Keith at the deadline for Glen Metropolit and three picks including a first.

Tkachuk scored 15 points in 18 games and then 3 points in 4 games as Atlanta got swept in the play offs before returning back to the Blues.

Since Tkachuk immediately signed back with the Blues, it’s hard to say the trade was really bad for St Louis, but had he signed somewhere else, it would’ve been much worse.

St Louis received Metropolit who only played 20 games for them.

The three picks they got, two were nothing and the first round pick they got was traded to Calgary(Backlund!) in exchange for another first round pick which they used to select Ian Cole.

Cole played a few years for the Blues, but never played more than 54 games before leaving for the Pens.

All in all, the trade did not really work out for both sides, unless you consider the fact the Blues re-signed Tkachuk in UFA.

What other big trades you would say did not work out for both teams?

Blues got a 1st and Tkachik returned a few months later. That worked out quite well for St. Louis.

Cole has had a nice career, winning multiple Cups. He was traded for Bortuzzo who was a contributor on Blues Cup team. Tkachuk is still member of Blues organization and his son’s rep St Louis. I call that a win.

 

[RRhoads]

Mantha for Vrana+.

That plus is Buchelnikov and basically Cossa. Not sure I would call that a bad trade for Detroit.

 

[ElLeetch]

Glen Metropolit

I remember when this guy was as top player in the RHI

 

[Cursed Lemon]

Not quite a "blockbuster" but Tatar for 1+2+3, which was ridiculous, ended up with Tatar getting benched in the playoffs then signing somewhere else and Holland blowing the 2+3 on a couple players with no Wikipedia pages while the 1st ended up being... *drum roll* ...Filip Zadina Joe Veleno (SAME DIFFERENCE).

 

[FerrisRox]

Subban for Weber?

Subban hit early decline and Weber was injured half the time.

Trading Subban for Weber definitely didn't turn out poorly for Montreal.

He was an outstanding addition to to the team and played a huge role in leading that Canadiens team to the Stanley Cup Final.

 

[Hattrick Kane]

I feel like the Seth Jones trade did not work out real well for either team.

It ends up being Jones and Nolan Allan for Boqvist, Bean, Jiricek and Cole Sillinger

Hawks are looking to trade Jones now. Allan has some potential as a bottom pairing guy. Sillinger has been alright for the Jackets and the other three are gone.