Seemingly Small Moves That Ended Up Having Major Consequences

Ryan Smyth requested a trade in 2011 and the Kings sent him back to Edmonton in June of that year. The deal was originally in exchange for Gilbert Brule but that was scuttled because there was a disagreement over Brule’s health so the Oilers sent Colin Fraser back instead. If Smyth hadn’t done that the Kings would not have had the cap space to trade for Jeff Carter later that year without making another move. Colin Fraser ended up centering the Kings’ aggressive forechecking 4th line on their way to a Stanley Cup.
 
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Yzerman starting the rebuild in Tampa near the trading deadline in 2012, sending Steve Downie to Colorado for Kyle Quincy, who was in turn flipped to Detroit for a 1st round pick, which ended up being used to draft Vasilevskiy.
not as impactful but another interesting one involving colorado and detroit.

avs traded conner bleackley, kyle wood, and alex tanguay to phoenix for mikkel boedker. now conner bleackley was a bum but because he was an unsigned 1st round draft pick the phoenix coyotes got a compensatory 2nd round draft pick.

phoenix then traded that 2nd round draft pick with joe vitale and a 2016 1st rounder (cholowski) to detroit for datsyuk and a 2016 1st round pick (chychrun). detroit ended up taking hronek with the 2nd round draft pick.

hronek and chychrun both ended up finding a more permeant home elsewhere with both of them signing 8 year deals somewhat recently. it all started from one bust not getting signed.
 
The last game of the 13/14 season, the Oilers decided to name Ryan Smyth captain for his last career game…

The crappy Oilers stepped up and won the game for one of the most beloved players in franchise history. The win put the Oilers above the Panthers in the standings, and the Panthers ended up winning the lottery. The Oilers lose out on drafting the franchise defenseman that they desperately need and fans are pissed. And then… their consolation prize turns into a top 4 player in the world, and nobody would swap Draisaitl for Ekblad
 
The Kulak example is riddled with false equivalencies, half-truths and hyperbole.

However, the premise of the thread is interesting. I will submit the example that appeared most obvious to me when clicking on the thread.

Waiver pickup Gustav Forsling. I don't think I need to explain further.
Speaking of waiver pick ups ... Martin St Louis. Flames picked Begin over him.
 
June 27, 2016 - Ottawa and Calgary trade.

Seemingly nothing trade between 2 teams.

Ottawa trades an okayish player for a 20 year old prospect with fairly uncertain odds of making the NHL as a regular. Should be an insignificant trade.

Ottawa shipped out Chiasson, reportedly good friends with Hoffman.

Ottawa receives Sieloff. Sieloff soon after ends the career of Clark McArthur with a hit during training camp which ends McArthur's career.

McArthur, a good friend of Erik Karlsson, was often described as a leader in the room and a locker room glue. His absence was part of a series of moves that gutted the Senators of their leadership core over a short period of time.

My theory is that had McArthur stayed healthy, the EK/ Hoffman drama would have been resolvable. He would have been the peace keeper and the mediator, the whole issue would've ended with Hoffman traded and everything forgotten.
 
The Toronto Maple Leafs and St. Louis Blues made an impactful trade way back in November of 2008. The main players of the trade were Lee Stempniak and Carlo Colaiacovo, but there was a second, seemingly-more-obscure piece that went to the Blues: forward Alexander Steen.

Steen has a solid career with the Blues, including being a leader (had the "A") and willingly going to the fourth line in 2019. But then he goes into the front office, and it's likely he takes over for Armstrong as the GM after this year.

So, a supposedly minor trade made a huge impact for the Blues franchise. And who knows what happens with Toronto if Steen isn't dealt?
 
The Pens trading David Perron to the Ducks for Carl Hagelin. Hagelin - a complimentary player - became part of a line that was instrumental in his team winning the Cup.
I remember that. Perron actually played really well for the Ducks but BM didn't want to re-sign him, or he used the cap elsewhere.
 
Late picks becoming something is cool but we all know it's like scratch lotto tickets.

Already said but it has to he Forsling

  • 2021-Jan-09 Claimed off waivers by Florida Panthers from Carolina Hurricanes

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Feel like everything posted so far is like - "player not good actually was good" or "pick became good player" which is kinda boring. Are there any good examples of like a butterfly effect thing where a tiny domino turned into something much bigger down the road whether it be player or organizational impact?
 
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The one that haunts me is the Drouin for Sergachev trade. What makes it so bad is that we played Tampa in the 2021 finals and Drouin did not play a single game of that run. I know that Tampa would have traded Drouin either way, but it makes you think.
 
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2013 TDL: Brenden Morrow + 3rd for Scott Morrow + 5th.

A lot of Pens fans hated this because we viewed Morrow as one of our top defensive prospects. The 3rd we got in return? Jake Guentzel.
 
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The Pens trading David Perron to the Ducks for Carl Hagelin. Hagelin - a complimentary player - became part of a line that was instrumental in his team winning the Cup.
That trade tree is a little crazy as well.

1st + Rob Klinkhammer for Perron
Perron for Hagelin
Hagelin for Pearson
Pearson for Gudbranson
Gudbranson for Andreas Martinsen and 7th

but...that 2015 1st: Edmonton traded it to NYI plus a 2nd for Griffin Reinhart who did jack shit for the Oilers. That 1st? Mathew Barzal. Had Edmonton kept that pick, they would have got McDavid and Barzal in that first round (or rather, could have had. Who knows where Barzal was on the Oilers list).
 
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What are some good/bad moves that started off as a generic small move that ended up being extremely profitable or costly to a team despite it being unimpactful at first glance?

For instance, during the 2022 trade deadline, the Oilers traded a 2nd round draft pick for Brett Kulak, seemingly a generic draft pick for defense depth move a lot of teams make. That 2nd round pick has since become a Calder trophy contender in Lane Hutson, which by itself has changed the entire outlook of the Habs future and turned it into one of the worst trades of the past few years. The Oilers would go on to re-sign Brett Kulak to block a vastly superior player in Philip Broberg from getting ice time because of Ken Holland's outdated "give benefit of the doubt to veterans to show respect" and "over-ripen prospect development" ideology. This gross mishandling of Broberg ultimately culminated in one of the most impactful for the Blues, disastrous for the Oilers events this past offseason via the Broberg-Holloway double offer sheet. Brett Kulak would also be the player who was responsible for both goals against in Game 7 against the Panthers. It has slowly percolated from a slight overpayment for a bottom pairing dman to, without exaggeration, one of the most franchise crippling, value bleeding moves of the 21st century.
One of the picks Edmonton traded to get Anthiousu ended up being Brock Faber. No guarantees that Edmonton drafts Hutson or Faber or that they develop the same way but I'm sure every team has a similar story.
 
It relies on nailing a random draft pick but Shea Weber being drafted using a compensatory pick we got from Ed Belfour who never played a game for us is always a fun example.
 
I honestly believe that Ottawa trading away Hossa and letting Chara go cost them multiple Stanley Cup wins.
 
Pretty interesting idea for a topic, no idea why you choose this horrible example though.

For one, a draft pick is just that, a draft pick. It's not a player, it's not even the rights to a player yet. That Montreal ended up picking Hutson with that pick is thus entirely irrelevant. There is no reason to assume that Edmonton would have drafted Hutson with that pick. Not to mention that for every Hutson drafted in the second round, there are dozens of players who never amount to anything. Not that it really matters, because trading a future piece for something that might help you win now is the whole point of contenders trading at the deadline. You take the risk (not that a 2nd rounder is a risk to begin with) of losing out on something that could help you in the future to have a better chance at winning now. And if you end up winning a Cup, it doesn't matter one bit what you gave up, because you won the very thing you wanted to win. Now, Edmonton didn't succeed in that, but so did plenty of others who tried as well. If they are an example for anything, it's that having franchise players doesn't equal an automatic Cup-win.

Brett Kulak has delivered exactly as expected, and has regularly upped his game in the playoffs by quite a bit. He was easily worth the 2nd rounder (a pick, not Hutson, no matter how much you pretend otherwise) that was being traded for him. Being somewhat responsible for goals against one one game doesn't change anything about that. Players have bad games, it happens, regardless of point in time. Patrick Roy is famed for his playoff performances, yet that didn't stop him from sinking his team in the conference finals with his "statue of liberty" mistake and following 0-7 drubbing in the next game.

Kulak was very much worth his contract extension. On top of that, Broberg was neither better than Kulak (much less vastly superior) at any point of their time on the team together, nor did Kulak block Broberg from playing, otherwise you hardly would have seen Broberg in the last playoffs, no?

In no way, shape or from did Kulak prevent the Oilers from playing Broberg, or from re-signing him. As evidenced by the fact that the team cleared enough cap-space to spend millions on UFA-wingers last summer.
Management clearly botched things with Broberg, and Holloway as well for that matter But that has nothing whatsoever to do with Kulak. There was nothing bad about getting him, nor about keeping him. It was not remotely close to being "value bleeding" and it sure as heck couldn't be further from "franchise crippling". So no, your post is very much not "without exaggeration", it is indeed the exact opposite of that. It is about as exaggerated as it gets and completely detached from reality.

And looking at your over the top ranting, if the Oilers hadn't traded that pick for a defenseman they clearly needed, you probably would have whined about how management failed to do its utmost to improve the roster and thus wasted years of McDavid's and Draisaitl's prime.
I agree with this for the most part. Contenders give up futures, and some of them hit. I don't have any regrets over that as an Oiler fan. I have also no regrets on getting Kulak, a good Edmonton kid who has been very clutch and versatile player.

Also, any opportunity that was blocked for Broberg and Holloway is also typical of a contender. Most of all though, both those players were happy to stay Oilers and were on the cusp of getting the opportunities they wanted all along. Jeff Jackson just did not sign them, and even spend all our cap space stupidly. That breaks any chain of events that led to that. The only real chain there is the signing of Jeff Skinner. We could have just re-signed Broberg and Holloway (for less than what they offer sheeted for), and added a Skinner type at the deadline. Also, if we decided we didn't have the cap for them, we could have traded them instead of closing our eyes and hoping that they'd accept whatever insulting offer we'd give them.
 

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