trades that helped bad teams become good teams

[Jumptheshark]

We have a thread where is about players going from good teams to bad teams. Every so often a trade happens that turns around a team and suddenly they go from the laughing stock to a team that has turned the corner

For me the that turned the Washington Capitals from being a joke to turning into a good team in the 80's. From 1974 to the Spring of 82 the Caps did not get a wiff of the playoffs. As training camps opened in 82, they did a trade that turned the organization around. Rod Langway wanted off of the Montreal Canadian(Langway asked for the trade for different reasons).

The trade was
Langway D, Brian Engblom, Doug jarvis and Craig laughlin in return montreal got younger forward Ryan Walter and the 1976 first overall pick Rick Green. Both players were on the Canadians team that won the 85/86 cup

But this trade turned around a franchise that had never made the playoffs in their existence. Langway won the Norris his first year with the caps(he won back to back Norriis'). Jarvis(the Iron man at the time) was one of the best face off guys in the league and one of the best two way players in the league. Engblom had two good years with caps when he was traded for Larry Murphy who would take over the PP for the cap's and Laughlin was a perfect fit for their 4th lines. Both team won the deal. While the caps never won a cup--they stopped being the doormat of the nhl.

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[BigBadBruins7708]

Boston gets:

Phil Esposito
Ken Hodge
Fred Stanfield

Chicago gets:

Giles Marotte
Pit Martin
Jack Norris

Bruins went from 17-43-10 un '67 to 37-27-10 in '68

 

[MadLuke]

Cheap answer, Gretzky trade, they went from a 30 wins team, first round team to a 42 wins winning a round.

The giant flames-leaf trade ? missed the playoff twice to making the conference finals twice in a row

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

trade deadline 1991:

>> garth butcher, dan quinn

<< geoff courtnall, sergio momesso, cliff ronning, robert dirk


although really that trade was part of a bonkers 15 month run where we pulled off:

March 6, 1990: jyrki lumme for a 2nd

January 12, 1991: tom kurvers for brian bradley

January 12, 1991: gerald diduck for a 4th

March 5, 1991: dana murzyn for kevan guy and ronnie stern (same day as the courtnall/ronning trade)

June 22, 1991: dave babych for tom kurvers

just completely remade the team, turning a D of butcher, lidster, reinhart, nordmark, agnew, and jim benning into lumme, murzyn, diduck, babych, lidster, dirk.


1990 season, second last, 64 pts

1991 season, fifth last, 65 pts, snuck into the last playoff spot on a 3-1 OT win in game 80 (we were down 2-0 to winnipeg with the winner getting the playoff spot until all three guys we got in the trade scored: momesso, then ronning, then courts with the OT GWG)

1992 season, fourth, 96 pts, won the division for the first time i think ever

 

[carjackmalone]

The Larry Murphy to Washington trade

 

[Brodeur]

Maybe doesn't exactly fit, but.....

Early into the 1997-98 season, Colorado owned first rounders from Boston/San Jose/LA/Washington who had just picked 1-2-3-9 at the 1997 Draft. By some small miracle, all four teams improved and made the playoffs. In particular, Boston and Washington seemingly made a mutually beneficial trade at the 1997 deadline:

Boston: C Jason Allison, RW Anson Carter, G Jim Carey
Washington: C Adam Oates, RW Rick Tocchet, G Bill Ranford

At the 1997 deadline, LA got a young Glen Murray for an aging Eddie Olczyk. LA reacquired Luc Robitaille in the summer of 1997 for Kevin Stevens. They had gotten Mattias Norstrom in a 1996 deadline deal that was starting to pay off for 1997-98 as well.

San Jose had a really odd co-GM setup from 1992-96. This led to many disputes between Chuck Grillo and Dean Lombardi (anybody who's shared a fantasy team with a friend probably could empathize). Going into the 1993 Draft, the Sharks scouts were mostly split between Chris Pronger or Paul Kariya, but Grillo steered them to take Viktor Kozlov. Grillo thought Europe was undervalued (he wasn't necessarily wrong) so that's why those early Sharks drafts were very European.

But in early 1996, Grillo was let go and Lombardi finally had full autonomy. In the press he even alluded to how the Sharks would no longer be a mix of "Grillo guys" and his guys. After being spurned by Eddie Belfour, Lombardi traded for Mike Vernon to be the starting goalie. Early into the 1997-98 season, Lombardi essentially swapped Kozlov for Mike Ricci who brought the grit that Lombardi wanted; This was somewhat ironic since Lombardi had turned down Ricci+ at the 1993 Draft because of Kozlov. Ricci's offense would dry up but he was good defensive center as the Sharks started to turn the corner in the late 90's.