What is the single worst decision your team ever made?

[LevelingSolo]

Redden over Chara

 

[x Tame Impala]

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

Doubtful. The Hawks and Kings would still have been better IMHO

 

[sabremike]

The trade that killed my Whalers:
Ron Francis, Ulfie and Grant Jennings for John Cullen, ZZ and Jeff Parker. The single most disastrous trade in hockey history as it was THE move that permanently severed the bond the team had with fans as the beloved local institution and sent it on course for an inevitable demise.

 

[ICanMotteBelieveIt]

Oilers:

As a Rangers fan, I can relate.

 

[Coffey]

As a Rangers fan, I can relate.

 

[markymarc1215]

Rangers: trade a young Rick Middleton for aging Ken Hodge, supposedly because Middleton partied too much. OTOH Don Murdoch had cocaine problems that derailed his career and Middleton straightened out under Don Cherry

2nd worst…and maybe even worse. Drafting Lucien DeBlois and/or Ron Duguay instead of Mike Bossy because Bossy wouldn’t join in a team fight.

We can really pack a lunch when it comes to awful decisions the Rangers made, be it trades, drafting, FA signings, coaches, GMs, you name it. But as far as awful trade in recent memory.......

Mike Ridley and Kelly Miller for Bob Carpenter.

Mattias Norstrom, Ray Ferraro, Ian Laperriere, Nathan Lafayette, and a 4th for Jari Kurri, Marty McSorley, and Shane Churla

Sergei Zubov and Petr Nedved for Luc Robitaille and Ulf Samuelsson

Mike Gartner for Glenn Anderson

Dan Cloutier, Niklas Sundstrom, 2000 1st, 2000 3rd for Pavel Brendl

Luc Robitaille for Kevin Stevens

Dave Gagner and Jay Caufield for Jari Gronstrand and Paul Boutilier

Todd Marchant for Craig MacTavish

Pavel Buchnevich for Sammy Blais and a 2nd

 

[PavelBure10]

Since there are so many blunders in the Vancouver Canucks history. I'll just go with the 3 most recent. The above poster got it right with the Jim Benning hiring, but these are some of Benning's most moronic moves in recent times.

1. Trading for Ekman-Larsson at a point where the team should of been rebuilding. Now the Canucks have one of the worst contracts in the league and a player who is shell of his former self. While the Yotes deepen their prospect pool with Dylan Guenther.

2. Treating Chris Tanev like trash and leaving him hang while Jim Benning actively pursued Ekman-Larsson a year before. Then only to come back at the last minute when the Larsson talks fell through. The Canucks D has been in shambles ever since and Tanev should of retired a Canuck.

3. Drafting Olli Juolevi over Matthew Tkachuck. Enough said.

 

[Steve Zissou]

Realistically, probably drafting Brian Lee instead of Anze Kopitar.

A team’s bad decision may be another team’s best decision.

If you makes you feel any better, here’s this:

Blue Jackets do-over: Drafting Gilbert Brule, not Anze Kopitar, in 2005

“Walking to the draft (that morning) I said to Boydy, and I’ll never forget these words: ‘How do we go with the Slovenian ahead of the Canadian?'”

And this:


“I’ve had nightmares over this!”

 

[SenzZen]

Redden over Chara

You could trace this back to the Hossa sign-and-trade for the actual mistake. Redden vs Chara was a distraction narrative since Chara was upset over the way Muckler did Hossa dirty, and was going to market regardless.

 

[Roof Daddy]

There’s a lot to chose from for the Oilers but the obvious one has to be trading Wayne Gretzky. With that said, the league likely wouldn’t have grown the way it did without that trade taking place. Overall, it was good for hockey, but it’s painful wondering what could have been if god damn Peter Pocklington would have just been an owner of a hockey team instead of a megalomaniac that made horrible business decisions and covered those bad bets by trading off superstars for cash. I think it’s fair to say they could have won 8 or 9 cups in a 12-14 year span if they keep the gang together (this includes keeping Coffey in 87).

 

[Barry Tallackson]

Devils: Getting rid of Lou Lamoriello

Literally set the franchise back so many years. We proceeded to be a bottom dweller for the next 10 years with only 1 playoff appearance (and a first round loss at that). We lucked out by getting the first overall twice with Hischier and Hughes but the reality is that Lou continued his success with other franchises without missing the playoffs.

Lou was the reason.. mortgaged the future to bring in the likes of Michael Ryder and Damien Brunner

 

[forever1922]

Anaheim Ducks

Vegas expansion draft debacle. You could sense something was off then.

 

[Bring Bak Damphousse]

Firing Savard/Demers and installing Houle/Tremblay to replace them.

I was going to say trading Roy, but your right. The Roy return was bad, but the way that championship team was systematically dismantled was worse.

 

[anezthes]

There's so many. We could've had one of the best defensive cores in the league right now but instead decided to trade 'em all away for nothing.

That said, I absolutely love the original Mighty Ducks logo and jerseys. One of the greatest designs ever IMO. So, replacing that with the eyesore we have today takes the cake.

 

[Nikolajs Sillers]

Maybe that sounds harsh but for Sabres is not showing up for 11 years. Well, there's hope...

 

[Channelcat]

Following the Leafs model

 

[Howboutthempanthers]

The ownership deciding to interfere with the team, starting during the 2015-2016 season, with trying to tell the coach how to coach. And continuing through the next while, with taking over the GM position from Tallon, then making all of the moves they did in the 2016 offseason. And then after all of that went to shit, restoring Tallon to the GM role and giving him one season to not only turn things around, but to win a cup.
The ownership finally learned their lesson after that season, and decided to not interfere anymore. But by that time, the damage had been done.

 

[BlueSeal]

Props to the OP for starting a great thread

 

[AvroArrow]

The Rask for Raycroft trade, that haunted us for a decade. Traded him to a divisional rival and got smoked by him in the playoffs. The Kadri trade is also reallllllllly bad.

Kadri for Barrie and Kerfoot...

The Kessel trade was bad but not as bad, he was still an elite player.

 

[JT Kreider]

Since there are so many blunders in the Vancouver Canucks history. I'll just go with the 3 most recent. The above poster got it right with the Jim Benning hiring, but these are some of Benning's most moronic moves in recent times.

1. Trading for Ekman-Larsson at a point where the team should of been rebuilding. Now the Canucks have one of the worst contracts in the league and a player who is shell of his former self. While the Yotes deepen their prospect pool with Dylan Guenther.

2. Treating Chris Tanev like trash and leaving him hang while Jim Benning actively pursued Ekman-Larsson a year before. Then only to come back at the last minute when the Larsson talks fell through. The Canucks D has been in shambles ever since and Tanev should of retired a Canuck.

3. Drafting Olli Juolevi over Matthew Tkachuck. Enough said.

Ouch. The difference between being one of the best teams in the West.

 

[barkovcanfinnish]

So much that the Panthers did from 2016-2017 haunts the team to this day.

Changing a great main logo to a lesser one.

Tom Rowe grabbing the GM spot from Dale Tallon and signing some crap contracts (Keith Yandle, looking at you buddy).

Firing Gallant abruptly and giving him the taxi treatment.

Tom Rowe making himself head coach.

The Panthers getting rid of Tom Rowe after the season and unbelievably replacing him with Dale Tallon.

And then topping it off by Tallon giving Marchessault and Smith away to Vegas so they could protect Nick Bjugstad and Alex Petrovic.

So, idk how to define it but I guess taking Dale Tallon out of the GM role for a year, shitting the bed for the year he was gone, and then bringing him back so he could totally botch the Vegas expansion draft.

That’s Florida’s biggest collective shitpile of a mistake in my opinion. I’m sure many others compete with it though.

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

@sabremike already mentioned the Whalers answer to the question. For the Hurricanes' side of team history I'd say playing in Greensboro for the first two NC years. Greensboro is an hour away from Raleigh before you factor in rush hour traffic.

Instead, they should have played in Dorton Arena, across the street from PNC. Dorton was rejected because it only held ~7.5k people...but having two lame duck years to start the franchise in NC set the team back in making in roads to the Raleigh market. 25 years in, no doubt in my mind had they gone with Dorton you'd have Hurricanes fans talking about that time like it was Woodstock, "oh yeah, I went to every game!" (esp now that the team is good). No one talks about the Greensboro years except to explain the fun trivia that the team happened to play two years in Greensboro before coming to Raleigh proper. As with Arizona, it's now clear Dorton would have been greenlight (esp since ground had already broken on PNC, it was a done deal).

The team was bad from 2011-12-2017-18, but that wasn't the result of one single decision. Dumbing it down as much as possible, it was the result of two things: the owner was broke, and the team had multiple failed drafts in the late aughts. When players either left in FA or "aged out", the Hurricanes had no replacements immediately available.

 

[Tripledeke333]

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.

 

[Tasteless Beaver]

Jets 2.0: banking on Ondrej Pavelec for more than half a decade

Close 2nd: keeping Maurice well past his expiry date

 

[miscs75]