What is the single worst decision your team ever made?

[adsfan]

For Nashville: Hiring John Hynes as the HC. He has been awful for the team and development of the players.

 

[BigEezyE22]

The 2003 draft. It ended up haunting the Rangers a decade later. Imagine adding any of Brown, Richards, Parise, Kesler, Pavelski or Backes on the low end or Perry, Getzlaf, Bergeron. Or Seabrook or Weber.. we probably come away with 2 Cups in 2012-15.

I'm also told the Rangers cut Gordie Howe

None of those get NY a cup.

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

It's also not a sure thing that Thompson ever becomes who he is today with Don Granato's coaching in Buffalo

Sabres weren't even confident seeing as they were trying to deal him before his breakout season.

 

[BigEezyE22]

View attachment 660920

This was Janet's decision.

 

[rojac]

however Harold Ballard gained control of the team.

Of roster moves, Raycroft for Rask off the top of my head.

I was going to go for Ballard bringing back Punch Imlach. Since that is definitely a decision made by the team whereas yours is a little fuzzier in whether it meets the criteria.

I won’t argue with you on the Rask-Raycroft deal.

 

[kingsfan28]

Barry Melrose not checking the curves of the sticks before the 93' SCF.

 

[Chinaski89]

signing aging vets to ridiculously long contracts with NTC or whatever it’s called last one being Hertl.

 

[DekeyPete]

Trading cam neely to the bruins. The canucks have been pushed around ever since.

 

[Aaaaaaaaaaaaa]

This was Janet's decision.

Wrong. It was Pocklington's decision. This is well documented. Going to LA was the decision Gretz made AFTER he heard Pocklington was shopping him around because his meat and pet food company was going to the dogs.

 

[PocketNines]

Blues is tough.

Trading Pronger to EDM from Brewer?
Trading our entire 2nd line for Garth Butcher & Dan Quinn?
Letting Pietrangelo walk as UFA over a NMC, and responding by giving Torey Krug $45M instead?
Hiring Mike Keenan and watching him dismantle the Blues AND simultaneously push Gretzky out of town?
Transitioning from Hitchcock to Yeo as 'coach in waiting' and thinking that wasn't a terrible idea?( Giving Yeo the head-coaching job proved to be even worse!)

I'll go with passing up the opportunity to draft Cam Neely, Pat Lafontaine, Steve Yzerman, Kevin Stevens, Claude Lemieux, Rick Tocchet, John MacLean, Esa Tikkanen, Viacheslav Fetisov or Bob Probert by simply skipping the 1983 draft during the most memorable (of many) franchise ownership fiascos.

First workable Blues answer. I am on page 8 and I've seen Keenan cited repeatedly but that's not a legitimate answer. Yes he pushed Gretzky out ... after making the Gretzky trade happen. Keenan was and is one of the worst people involved in hockey and I despised him before during and after, but he is not the Blues answer or even a legitimate finalist IMO. He also acquired Pronger.

The finalists are:

1. Pronger to Edmonton because Garbage Bill Laurie is a pure loser
2. Brian Sutter insisting on the unreal 1991 deadline trade and Ron Caron executing it
3. The 1983 draft no-show

Pietrangelo NMC decision is easily a contender among this top three. Armstrong stated that NMCs make the player "more powerful than the owner" and it's a red line, then offered him two years of more power than the owner. Armstrong inexcusably and cataclysmically shat the bed on this legacy-defining decision. It's top two IMO.

Honorable mention to the overmatched Ken Hitchcock for starting Allen in 2015 over Elliott and throwing away the 14-15 season. A smaller scale decision but surreally pathetic.

 

[thewave]

Last 20 years? Kyle Dubas.

 

[Sol]

I’m not sure but I think not buying out Richards before the recapture penalty was moronic when he was already on the Kings fourth line and looked completely terrible

 

[HFpapi]

Im not going to get into anything not directly hockey related for the Flyers, I don’t think that’s entirely fair to hypothesize about, but including Peter Forsberg in the Lindros trade is way up there, if there was a way to keep him out of it. If not, signing John Vanbiesbrouck over Curtis Joseph in 1998. Beezer was half-cooked, Joseph was in his prime, and I don’t know where I read it, but I’ve seen comments from Cujo that he was so ready to sign he had gotten his kids some Flyers gear already, before Clarke pulled the rug out.

Never knew CuJo was almost a Flyer in 98. Almost certain those early 2000's Flyers teams win a cup if they had the one thing they lacked, that being steady goaltending. For a year or two, Cechmanek was world class in the RS and then couldn't stop a beach ball in the playoffs.

As a Leafs fan, thank you Clarkey! Cujo gave us many sweet but undeserved series wins over the Senators.

The good old days, childhood memories.

Last 20 years? Kyle Dubas.

One of the best rosters in the league and most of the contracts he was laughed at for (Marner, Nylander) have aged extremely well. If the Leafs don't win a cup in the Matthews/Marner era, that's not on Dubas.

 

[thewave]

Never knew CuJo was almost a Flyer in 98. Almost certain those early 2000's Flyers teams win a cup if they had the one thing they lacked, that being steady goaltending. For a year or two, Cechmanek was world class in the RS and then couldn't stop a beach ball in the playoffs.

As a Leafs fan, thank you Clarkey! Cujo gave us many sweet but undeserved series wins over the Senators.

The good old days, childhood memories.


One of the best rosters in the league and most of the contracts he was laughed at for (Marner, Nylander) have aged extremely well. If the Leafs don't win a cup in the Matthews/Marner era, that's not on Dubas.

If you can assemble one of the best rosters of all time and manage your way out of the playoffs in the first round every year... Something doesn't add up.

 

[Sadekuuro]

To this day, I never understood why we traded Drury away. It made no sense, we didn't upgrade or even get a player close to his skill level.

I think by that point, the thought process was that the Avs could trade for anyone and be successful. They did have some good trades that panned out the years before (Bourque, Blake, etc), but that was probably the end of good Avs trades for quite some time.

It seemed Lacroix was trying to galaxy brain it and set himself up for the long term by bringing in a talented young defenseman, who he clearly expected to grow into a major pillar solidifying his blue line. Obviously Morris never took the next step, but those guys aren't easy to acquire and it's not a bad plan if you pick the right guy. (As someone who was not a fan of those Avalanche teams though, I grinned with delight upon hearing about this trade.)

 

[karltonian]

passing on pronger
passing on kopitar

 

[Deadweight]

Signing Rick Dipietro 15 years

 

[MeinerEiner]

Keeping Sullivan after the loss to the Canadiens in the pre playoffs or whatever that was called.

 

[kranuck]

Jim Benning.

 

[Paulinbc]

Neely trade.

 

[LeighDx59]

For Nashville: Hiring John Hynes as the HC. He has been awful for the team and development of the players.

Absolutely this. I'd have to think a good coach wouldve had Nashville making noise in the Playoffs and Tolvanen would still be a Pred.

 

[666]

Signing Rick Dipietro 15 years

Milbury deserves his own worst decisions thread.

 

[JumpierPegasus]

Calling Gretzky at midnight

Not replacing Cloutier in the early 00s

Not firing Benning for year (I won't say hiring him, because everyone seemed on board with that. It's keeping him for 8 years that was the biggest mistake)

 

[Matty Sundin]

For recent times for leafs pretty much any decision during the JFJ/Burke/Nonis era refusing to do a rebuild and trying find shortcuts did nothing but held us back for over a decade.

 

[Hockeyholic]

For the Habs, IMO, it was the off-season where the Habs decided to not resign Koivu, and to replace him by trading McDonaugh+ for Gomez.

Habs made many playoff runs since then, and I believe if they had McDonaugh, one of those runs results in a cup.

Going to say no to this one.

Montreal still never had great centers. Koivu was starting to decline.

If the Koivu led Habs (With McD) meet Chicago in the 2010 Finals, they get obliterated in four straight imo.

2014: Even with a healthy price, they are not beating LA.

2021: Putting McD on Montreal does not change that series. TB wins.

2015: I believe Montreal probably should have defeated TB in round 2. But...do they get by NYR? If so...Chicago us waiting.

Calling Gretzky at midnight

Not replacing Cloutier in the early 00s

Not firing Benning for year (I won't say hiring him, because everyone seemed on board with that. It's keeping him for 8 years that was the biggest mistake)

One good to great goalie, #1 C, legit # 1 D away imo.

Cloutier single handedly lost them series.