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.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

The Kings getting Carter in 2012 seemed to be the missing piece that turned them from wild card contender to Cup winner.

 

[Saskatoon]

Joe Thornton to the Sharks would be a more modern example

 

[ponder719]

The Flyers had not finished higher than 3rd in their division since 1986-87.

On February 9, 1994, the Flyers were 3-7-1, sitting on 7 points.
On February 9, 1994, the Flyers traded Mark Recchi and a 3rd round pick in 1995 to the Montreal Canadiens for Eric Desjardins, John LeClair, and Gilbert Dionne.

The Flyers then went 25-9-3 over their last 37 games, finishing 1st in the Division with 60 points, beating the Sabres and Rangers in the playoffs, losing the Conference Finals to the Devils.

The Flyers would not finish worse than 2nd in their division again until 2005-06.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

The Flyers had not finished higher than 3rd in their division since 1986-87.

On February 9, 1994, the Flyers were 3-7-1, sitting on 7 points.
On February 9, 1994, the Flyers traded Mark Recchi and a 3rd round pick in 1005 to the Montreal Canadiens for Eric Desjardins, John LeClair, and Gilbert Dionne.

The Flyers then went 25-9-3 over their last 37 games, finishing 1st in the Division with 60 points, beating the Sabres and Rangers in the playoffs, losing the Conference Finals to the Devils.

The Flyers would not finish worse than 2nd in their division again until 2005-06.

True, but that 1005 draft pick ended up being Constantine X.

 

[ponder719]

True, but that 1005 draft pick ended up being Constantine X.

Real talk: that was the second time I did that in that post. Caught the first, missed the second.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

True, but that 1005 draft pick ended up being Constantine X.

 

[CaptBrannigan]

Khabibulin coming over to the Lightning at the end of 2001-02 was huge for that team. A top tier goalie was something the team was lacking ever since Puppa’s brilliant season.

 

[Johnny Engine]

The Senators part in the 1996 3 way trade with the Leafs and Islanders was something I always saw as a huge turnaround for the team, despite really only upgrading a bad goalie to an average one, swapping blue chip defensemen that were a year away, and losing a very good young winger.

They didn't become a winning team right away, but Beaupre had a .207 winning percentage in his games while Rhodes had a .333 the rest of the way, and then Redden was a big part of their blueline from the get go the next season. I remember thinking that trade meant the Sens were immediately no longer one of the worst teams in NHL history after that trade, which I still think holds water even though they did finish 1996 in last place.

 

[Brodeur]

Joe Thornton to the Sharks would be a more modern example

San Jose did make the Conference Finals in 2004 and had made the playoffs in six of the previous seven seasons. Granted making the playoffs in the West in the mid-90s was a bit easier when there were only 13 teams and several teams were really bad. Thornton maybe helped them go from playoff team to perennial contender.

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Anaheim only made the playoffs twice between 1994-2002. Part of their problem was Disney not opening up the budget and not being able to field a complete roster with Kariya/Selanne taking up a significant chunk of their payroll.

June 2000: Anaheim gets J.S. Giguere for a 2nd round pick. The final round of expansion was happening and teams had the dilemma of protecting 2 goalies - 3 D - 7 forwards or 1 goalie - 5 D - 9 forwards. Calgary chose the latter and to protect incumbent starter Freddie Brathwaite instead of Giguere. Calgary figured Giguere would be taken by Columbus/Minnesota, so they traded him to Anaheim. It would take Giguere a couple years to establish himself as the starter.

March 2001: Anaheim trades Teemu Selanne to San Jose for Jeff Friesen, Steve Shields, and a 2003 2nd round pick. This was mostly a budgetary move for the Ducks and wouldn't pay immediate dividends as Friesen would struggle in Anaheim. The draft pick would unexpectedly be huge as the Sharks cratered in 2002-03 and would be relatively high at #36. Anaheim would trade up from that spot to land Corey Perry.

July 2002: Anaheim trades Jeff Friesen, Oleg Tverdovsky, and Maxim Balmochynyk for Petr Sykora, Mike Commodore, J.F. Damphousse, and Igor Pohanka. Anaheim freed up some salary by selling high on Tverdovsky. Sykora was a better fit to fill Selanne's spot at half the price. At the deadline, Anaheim flipped Commodore/Damphousse for Rob Niedermayer. Niedermayer had turned into a good role player winger in their 2003 run and obviously a big recruiting tool to lure Scott Niedermayer in free agency in 2005.

 

[Brodeur]

Most of these were before my time, but the 80s Devils/Rockies were a punching bag when they hired Lou Lamoriello in 1987.

October 1989: Slava Fetisov (and eventually Alexei Kasatonov) was finally permitted to leave the USSR to play in the NHL. As a result the Devils could trade one of their other D. Meanwhile the Devils scouts told Lou that he ought to try to get an extra 1991 1st rounder because of this Eric Lindros kid. Lou would trade Tom Kurvers to Toronto for their 1991 1st which would end up being 3rd overall (Scott Niedermayer).

September 1990: Claude Lemieux wanted out of Montreal for personal reasons. A blockbuster deal at the draft nearly sent Lemieux to Toronto for Wendel Clark but that fell through. New Jersey then got Claude for Sylvain Turgeon.

July/September 1991: Brendan Shanahan signed a Group I offer sheet with St. Louis. By the odd CBA rules, New Jersey wasn't allowed to match but was due compensation. Unlike Group II offer sheets that had predefined compensation based on the salary, Group I was a bit of chaos. The two teams had a short window to hammer out a de facto trade or else they'd present their offer/request before an independent arbitrator.

New Jersey requested Scott Stevens while St. Louis offered Rod Brind'Amour, (a young unproven) Curtis Joseph, and a couple mid-round picks. The arbitrator ruled in favor for New Jersey.

Also that summer, Detroit signed enforcer Troy Crowder to a Group I offer sheet. Crowder had a series of memorable bouts with Bob Probert the previous season. Perhaps emboldened by the Stevens decision, Lou had the nerve to request Probert (an enforcer who could play a regular shift) as compensation. The arbitrator ruled in favor of Detroit who was offering Dave Barr and Randy McKay. Crowder would have some back injuries and didn't play much after. Meanwhile McKay would be a useful bottom six forward on a couple Cup teams.

Lou would swap a disgruntled Kirk Muller for Stephane Richer. This was before my time, so I'm not sure how hockey world felt about that one.

August 1992: With Stevens on board, the Devils still had a glut on D. Lou would trade Eric Weinrich and Sean Burke to Hartford for Bobby Holik and a 1993 2nd (Jay Pandolfo). Burke had been a season long hold out and the Devils had depth in net to absorb that loss. Holik was in consideration to be the top pick in 1989 but had only moderate success in two seasons with Hartford. Eventually Holik would become a very useful 50-60 point 2nd line center.

Mix in drafting Bill Guerin, Marty Brodeur, Brian Rolston, Brendan Morrison, and Patrik Elias in the late 80's / early 90's.

 

[Saskatoon]

San Jose did make the Conference Finals in 2004 and had made the playoffs in six of the previous seven seasons. Granted making the playoffs in the West in the mid-90s was a bit easier when there were only 13 teams and several teams were really bad. Thornton maybe helped them go from playoff team to perennial contender.

-------------

Anaheim only made the playoffs twice between 1994-2002. Part of their problem was Disney not opening up the budget and not being able to field a complete roster with Kariya/Selanne taking up a significant chunk of their payroll.

June 2000: Anaheim gets J.S. Giguere for a 2nd round pick. The final round of expansion was happening and teams had the dilemma of protecting 2 goalies - 3 D - 7 forwards or 1 goalie - 5 D - 9 forwards. Calgary chose the latter and to protect incumbent starter Freddie Brathwaite instead of Giguere. Calgary figured Giguere would be taken by Columbus/Minnesota, so they traded him to Anaheim. It would take Giguere a couple years to establish himself as the starter.

March 2001: Anaheim trades Teemu Selanne to San Jose for Jeff Friesen, Steve Shields, and a 2003 2nd round pick. This was mostly a budgetary move for the Ducks and wouldn't pay immediate dividends as Friesen would struggle in Anaheim. The draft pick would unexpectedly be huge as the Sharks cratered in 2002-03 and would be relatively high at #36. Anaheim would trade up from that spot to land Corey Perry.

July 2002: Anaheim trades Jeff Friesen, Oleg Tverdovsky, and Maxim Balmochynyk for Petr Sykora, Mike Commodore, J.F. Damphousse, and Igor Pohanka. Anaheim freed up some salary by selling high on Tverdovsky. Sykora was a better fit to fill Selanne's spot at half the price. At the deadline, Anaheim flipped Commodore/Damphousse for Rob Niedermayer. Niedermayer had turned into a good role player winger in their 2003 run and obviously a big recruiting tool to lure Scott Niedermayer in free agency in 2005.

True but they were last place in the Pacific and on a ten game losing streak at the time.

 

[MadLuke]

Hard to say if they were a a bad team or a good team on a terrible streak that was magnified by being early during the season, true they just had lost 10 games in a row before the trade), but they were a 104 pts team (in a league with ties) that reached the conference final the previous season that was played.

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They outshoot the opposition 31.4 SF to 24.9 SA before the trade, net PP% of 13.2 and an overall 8.4% shooting percentage were probably not sustainable and made them look worst the they were.

Nabokov-Toskala had a .865 and .815 run, obviously looking at a bad team after a loosing streak stat early in the season we would also look at unsustainable bad numbers, so it is not telling us much that they would have got better over the rest of the year, but they would have.