What is the single worst decision your team ever made?

[Pi]

I am only counting the 21st century because past that it doesn't really matter.

Rask for Raycroft has to be up there. Traded him to a divisional rival, he goes on to break records for that team and beats you in the playoffs 2 times they met (the other time Tim Thomas was in net) all while Raycroft sucked almost immediately and Pogge became a bust.

 

[patnyrnyg]

Not trading Kovalev for Shanahan when he was available (Not sure if it was St Louis or Hartford who wanted Kovalev. Probably St Louis with Keenan).

Not signing Niuwendyk in 1996 when he was a UFA. He was staying in Ithaca working out with Cornell's women's team and it was known he was VERY interested in joining the Rangers.

 

[fahad203]

I am only counting the 21st century because past that it doesn't really matter.

Rask for Raycroft has to be up there. Traded him to a divisional rival, he goes on to break records for that team and beats you in the playoffs 3 out of 4 times they met all while Raycroft sucked almost immediately and Pogge became a bust.

Hands down one of the biggest setback. Not only you traded a potential franchise goalie, but you traded him to a rival

On that note, draft pick that became Seguin will also be up there had he stayed in Boston. Chirrelli did the Leafs a favor by trading him

But as a Leafs fan, no way can you say any decision set the franchise back other than Harold Ballard taking over as. the owner

Dude was a scumbag in every sense of the word. This franchise will never recover from Ballard's decisions. Especially in the 70s with the type of players we had, we should have been up there with the Islanders and the Canadians

 

[Ianturnedbull]

They did draft 5th overall and took defenseman Luke Schenn ahead of Erik Karlsson and Roman Josi. I wonder how they would have used their other picks.

Fletcher did that. JFJ did the pre-mess.

 

[Pyrophorus]

however Harold Ballard gained control of the team.

Its 100% this.

 

[fahad203]

They did draft 5th overall and took defenseman Luke Schenn ahead of Erik Karlsson and Roman Josi. I wonder how they would have used their other picks.

To be fair though, Luke Schenn hype train created by McGuire and TSN was just too much not to pass
Schenn did have the making of a very tough stay home type of player.

Filatov was second best option. Karlsson was a great pick by Sens, but 13 other teams passed on him. He looked like a 12 year old girl in his pre-scouting. Turned out great by so did Shea Webber in later rounds

I'll always hate McGuire for his "monster" comments. Human Eraser .... dude got a hard on every time he mentioned Schenn, which was all the time

 

[Pyrophorus]

They did draft 5th overall and took defenseman Luke Schenn ahead of Erik Karlsson and Roman Josi. I wonder how they would have used their other picks.

EK65 was drafted exactly, where he was ranked.
You can never find another 10-20th picks, who rocketed up once in the show, as he did.

The Sens drafted a bolt of lightning

 

[Hasbro]

Colorado Rockies?

Tie for everything, but trading for Lanny McDonald.

If there was one thing they could have done to save the franchise, it would have been drafting Ray Bourque instead of Rob Ramage with the #1 pick in 1979. (Ray went 8th so it’s total hindsight). David Thomason’s drug problems had taken hold and this was before the Elway trade, so Ray would have been the biggest star in town for a few years (seriously Craig Morton was a big deal then).

 

[Pens x]

Penguins:

Jagr trade
Naslund trade
Kovalev trade
Drafting Pouliot so early
Hiring Hextall

 

[Cursed Lemon]

Oates
Dionne
Pete Mahovlich
Foligno
Sawchuk
Letting Hossa go

 

[Goalie_Bob]

I'm sure there is severe recency bias in this thread.

For the Pens:

- Starting the franchise without a stable owner. That greatly hampered the team for its first 30 years.
- Late 70's, the Pens GM traded the the 7th overall pick for Rod Schutt because he thought he was getting Steve Shutt.
- Not including Milan Kraft in a trade for Rob Blake or Keith Tkachuk during the 2000-2001 season, instead of going for it one last time with Mario. Blake especially would have greatly solidified the defensive core and given them a true #1 defenseman at a time when #1 D played like 30-35 minutes a night in the playoffs.

But as others have mentioned, it's gone pretty well since 1984.

 

[Ianturnedbull]

Penguins:

Jagr trade
Naslund trade
Kovalev trade
Drafting Pouliot so early
Hiring Hextall

No mention of Burke?

 

[Pyrophorus]

Filatov was second best option. Karlsson was a great pick by Sens, but 13 other teams passed on him. He looked like a 12 year old girl in his pre-scouting. Turned out great by so did Shea Webber in later rounds

CM Punk said the same about WNylander at his draft.

 

[patnyrnyg]

Penguins:

Jagr trade
Naslund trade
Kovalev trade
Drafting Pouliot so early
Hiring Hextall

Without trading Jagr team would not have been bad enough to draft Fleury, Malkin, and Staal. Probably still win lottery for Crosby.

 

[fahad203]

CM Punk said the same about WNylander at his draft.

You can't deny he has great lucious hair
Or did. lately he's been losing some like his old man

 

[Pens x]

No mention of Burke?

Burke gets paid to appear on Podcasts. He’s a piece of trash that brings nothing to the team, but he isn’t driving it off a cliff like Hextall.

 

[Patdud]

Im sure there are plenty to list for a team that has come second a bazillion times (B is the second letter in the alphabet after all, but wtf C is the third!) and so many couple be considered hindsight 20/20.

But as far as recently, they really really REALLY should have gotten more for Tyler f***ing Seguin. The asset management for the spare parts they received ended up even worse.

 

[Cams]

As bad as the Rask trade was (Pogge was projected as the better goaltender I believe), I still think Russ Courtnall to MTL for John Kordic was worse.
Other candidates for the Leafs: Tom Kurvers for a 1st (Scott Nediermayer) has to be right up there.
The trade with the NYI to get Clark and Schneider and DJ Smith cost them Luongo.

A lot of the moves the Leafs made between the mid 90s until the current ownership took over were desperation to try to make the playoffs and had ownership meddling in hockey operations....with Ferguson as GM he wanted to rebuild, but ownership said no. Hard to manage a team properly when your hands are tied. The moves in the Ballard era and into the 80s were again a big result of ownership trying to run a hockey team, and banking on the vast and rabid fan base buying tickets and selling out every game no matter how terrible a product was on the ice. At least Stavro tried and was successful, until his other business venture failed and him selling to the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund (this might be the worst decision the franchise has made non-player wise).

I don't really look at "should have drafted so and so at this spot in the whatever rnd instead of that guy" as you have to look at how many other teams also could have done so.

 

[Goose of Reason]

The ones that come to mind for the Ducks are

1) trading franchise icon Selanne for Jeff f***ing Friesen

2) apparently when Kariya hit free agency in 2003 he expected to remain with the Ducks but he just never got an offer from Bryan Murray, and then took the Avs offer. A similar situation happened with Murray and Daniel Alfredsson in Ottawa a decade later.

3) Giving Bieksa a NMC, not asking him to waive his NMC at the expansion draft when no team in their right mind would have wanted him in that stage in his career, and then losing Theodore because of it

4) Going back to the Bieksa well, bringing him in and then not re-signing Beauchemin who is one of the best defenders (and my personal favourite) in franchise history because "he wanted a third year and the Ducks were concerned about his level of play in that third year." Beauchemin had one more great season in him in Colorado before falling off, but the Ducks brought Beauch back in the third year of that contract anyway, and paid Bieksa and Beauchemin a combined salary of 5.0 mil when instead they could have had Beauchemin for 4.5. Have I mentioned Bieksa in Anaheim was maybe the worst player I've ever seen take a regular shift?

 

[Saskatoon]

I am only counting the 21st century because past that it doesn't really matter.

Rask for Raycroft has to be up there. Traded him to a divisional rival, he goes on to break records for that team and beats you in the playoffs 2 times they met (the other time Tim Thomas was in net) all while Raycroft sucked almost immediately and Pogge became a bust.

Leafs really struggled with goaltending in that time frame

They also traded the pick that became Logan Couture for Vesa Toskala

 

[Ovie's Neighbor]

Caps:

Not keeping Scott Stevens
The Jagr trade
Forsberg for Erat
Not keeping Trotz

 

[donghabs98]

To be fair though, Luke Schenn hype train created by McGuire and TSN was just too much not to pass
Schenn did have the making of a very tough stay home type of player.

Filatov was second best option. Karlsson was a great pick by Sens, but 13 other teams passed on him. He looked like a 12 year old girl in his pre-scouting. Turned out great by so did Shea Webber in later rounds

I'll always hate McGuire for his "monster" comments. Human Eraser .... dude got a hard on every time he mentioned Schenn, which was all the time

Nikita Filatov, now thats a name I havent heard in a long time. Was always a great prospect in NHL 10 at least!

 

[Saskatoon]

It’s either drafting Fat Balloon, or passing on a Pronger deal to keep Michalek.

Sharks also passed on Pronger in the draft

 

[patnyrnyg]

I know the rangers have been around for decades and have plenty of bad decisions to choose from. One ive seen mentioned is not signing gordie howe, since that was so long before I was born im choosing something recent.

My pick is alain vignaults coaching in the 14 conference finals and cup finals. The rangers were a team who won with skating, team contributions, and puck possession. The team wasnt as good at playing a defensive system and trying to trap and shot block compared to torterella. For some stupid reason when the rangers were up they tried keeping shifts short and just dumping the puck into the offensive zone and it started against Montreal. I was worried it was going to cost them in the ECF but Montreal was a bad team and no scoring, it got even worse in the cup finals as the rangers led in 4 of the 5 games. The rangers led were in the lead in period 2 and they started that crap but the kings were too good and too experienced from 2012 not to mention much more talented then Montreal was.

If the rangers play the whole game like they played in period 1 they would have won. The kings werent as fast but the rangers made it easy.

He was only 15. Rules were different back then, but I thought I remember reading he didn't want to sign with them after that try-out/training camp.

 

[KingPuckChoo]

this should be high on Boston's list, I still reflect on this to this day