So you ask a question that has a sample size of 3, and again you use circular reasoning to prove your point.
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/begging-the-question.html
As I said earlier, "How does anyone know if the outcome is positive or negative?" If there are so few examples, then it's an unknown and not necessarily proof that it can't work.
Again, as I said earlier, regarding Gretzky, Roy and Messier:
"And how many times was that done because a crappy, small market team couldn't afford the star player they tanked into anymore or because the franchise was mismanaged to begin with?"
Edmonton and Montreal had real problems at the times of those trades. You can't compare salary dumps and a player walking out on the team and demanding a trade in his prime due to mismanagement to a calculated rebuild move.
Did you also forget this post by someone else:
http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=81596805&postcount=106
Those trades don't happen much not because they're idiotic for the trading team, but because they're usually very expensive in general, and by sheer law of averages RARE due to the RARITY of such players.
So again, it's an "absurd" question to begin with. I am not arguing for or against trading Ovechkin, just the facts regarding the notion that it's 'asinine' to even consider it for hockey reasons.