What is the single worst decision your team ever made?

[MM917]

Hiring Jay Feaster to be the GM

 

[Steerpike]

Hiring Gerard Gallant

.... riiiiiggghhht

 

[psycat]

SHL team but I suspect it might be quite common: Hiring people for jobs in the organization based upon that they were good players and liked by the fans despite them not having any qualifications for the positions they get put at(former player responsible for scouting/recruiting new players etc).

 

[Dr Jan Itor]

You can always point to not taking a guy in the draft pretty easily, but in the 2014 3rd round, Minnesota was going to take Brayden Point, decided to trade back one spot with Tampa Bay because they didn't think that they were a threat to take him, and then Tampa took him. Considering what our team need has been over the years, assuming he would've turned out to similar to what he has been, this has to be right up there.

Or, we can say the Parise/Suter contracts considering hindsight, what the 2013-16 drafts were like at the top, and the ramifications that we're seeing now and for the next 2 years.

 

[Gordievsky]

Good thread.

TLDR summary of serious contenders (overlooking sarcastic answers).

(remember don't shoot the messenger - I've just compiled, I'm not endorsing)

Ana - Randy Caralyle, Dallas Eakins, losing Selanne
Ari -
Bos - 2015 wasted draft; trading Ken Dryden's rights to Montreal;
Buf - Pegula ownership; "we invented decade of darkness before the Oilers"; Drury over Briere/ not prioritizing player who wanted to be there;
Cgy - underwhelming return on Phaneuf tradel losing Martin St. Louis; prioritizing Trevor Kidd over Martin Brodeur; Gilmour trade; how did nobody mention losing overweight little kid called Brett Hull?; Jay Feaster hire;
Car - wrongfooting themselves with new fanbase by starting out in Greensboro
Chi - trading Hasek; overpaying Seabrook; trading away unproven Phil Esposito
Col - general drafting missed opportunities; not building around ROR
Cbs - Gilbert Brule flop
Dal -
Det - trading away HOFers Hall, Bucyk, Lindsay, Kelly
Edm - trading Gretzky/ allowing Pocklington to use franchise as ATM; Peter Chiarelli era (still paying dividends even today!)
Fla - Paul Maurice; ownership meddling during Tallon era; Tom Rowe episode; losing Marchessault for nothing
Hfd - killing the franchise (allegedly) by trading Ronnie Francis
LA - Lucic trade; losing Cernak; trading away too many picks to chase short term returns;
Min -
Mon - Houle/ Tremblay era; not tanking; the way Roy left town; moving on from Koivu, McDonaugh; Marc Bergevin (really? worse than Houle/ Tremblay?); Ron Corey
Nas -
NJ - losing Lou Lamoriello (rebutted by subsequent posters - bigger error is allowing Lou never to tank)
NYI - losing Tavares for nothing, Spano debacle or Mike Milbury, not sure which;
NYR - 2003 draft missed opportunities; trading Rick Middleton; not drafting Mike Bossy; multiple crippling trades; not capitalizing on 1994 window;
Ott - Brian Lee busted home draft; Redden over Chara
Phi - couldn't Lindros trade be reworked to not lose Forsberg; not signing Curtis Joseph; Nolan Patrick over Makar, Pettersson
Pit -
SJ -
Sea - you're not old enough to have bad moves yet.
StL -
TB -
Tor - trade for Kessel; trading Rask; trading Niedermayer pick; Harold Ballard multiple disgraces; losing Lanny McDonald; Brian Burke era;
Van - Jim Benning hire (OEL, Loui Eriksson, Tanev etc are all subsets of this); Aquilini using franchise as plaything; Mike Keenan; Mark Messier; not drafting Kopitar;
VGK - loss of Suzuki/ prospects to chase a championship which didn't come
Was -
Wpg - too much faith in Pavelec; too much faith in Maurice;

 

[miscs75]

SHL team but I suspect it might be quite common: Hiring people for jobs in the organization based upon that they were good players and liked by the fans despite them not having any qualifications for the positions they get put at(former player responsible for scouting/recruiting new players etc).

What about hiring your backup goalie as GM immediately after he retires from playing?

 

[Nemesis Prime]

Swapping firsts with Arizona to get rid of Datsyuk's contract, and drafting Cholowski instead of drafting Chychrun.

Trading a 1st (Vasilevskiy) to Tampa for Kyle Quincey.

Dan f***ing Cleary being resigned every God damn year.

And the Abdelkader contract.

 

[Frank Drebin]

Its absurd to suggest that Bergevin is worse than Houle but those with a flair for the dramatic can't help themselves.

 

[McShogun99]

It isn't the worst, but one of the ones that still sticks out to me since I've been old enough to be an adult fan was the Phaneuf trade. The fact we traded him in a time in the NHL when defensemen like him were still very effective and hadn't been rendered obsolete yet, for that package just for the sake of trading him still blows my mind. We didn't even get good depth up front from the deal. We got a solid bottom 6 centre out of the deal in Stajan and a bunch of spare parts for a top 3 defender in his prime.

The summer of Treviling will end up being the worst in a few more years.

 

[ThatGuy22]

Not having a scout move in next to Kaprizov to ensure he knew how much we wanted him do he didn't sign an extension with CSKA.

 

[CamPopplestone]

The summer of Treviling will end up being the worst in a few more years.

But at the moment it looked impressive. Dealt a bad hand with two franchise players leaving in one go, and at least turning it into something. It's gonna crush us. But lots of people thought it was good when it happened. And you can at least see why it was done.

Nobody thought the Flames made a good trade with moving Phaneuf. Nobody

 

[Bring Bak Damphousse]

Even if that trade happens, it would have been better handled by Savard/Demers OR any person with reasonable experience. I wasn't opposed to moving him in general.

It's not like there weren't rumours from early in the 90s that involved trading Roy. One was a one-for-one deal for Yzerman.

Under Demers things had become a country club. Corey wanted to clean house and tighten things up. Roy was seen as the ringleader. Tremblay thought, "if I can break him I'll control the room." That's what the 9-1 drubbing was all about.

Fine. Trade him. But not for quantity over quality - even if the pieces were well thought of at the time. And for heaven's sake don't take a young goalie back in the deal. Thibault was destined to crack under the pressure of trying to replace Roy. Do a superstar for superstar deal. Let him sit until you find the right one. Get your goalie in another deal.

Whole thing was a series of examples of what NOT to do.

Yeah I agree, my issue was with the return, not the fact Roy was traded.

 

[McShogun99]

But at the moment it looked impressive. Dealt a bad hand with two franchise players leaving in one go, and at least turning it into something. It's gonna crush us. But lots of people thought it was good when it happened. And you can at least see why it was done.

Nobody thought the Flames made a good trade with moving Phaneuf. Nobody

I thought the Flames were going to end up as one of the top teams in the league for the next 2-3 years before age related declines started happening. Didn’t think Huberdeau and Weegar would be this bad in year 1. Kadri is a fair cap hit, just to many years.

 

[Old Boys Club]

Any decisions Pistol Pete and Holland have made. 8 f***ing years of this

 

[HisIceness]

I see Greensboro has been mentioned but their only other option was Fayetteville. Dorton Arena, yeah the stories today would be great but I'm not even sure if Dorton has locker rooms, if they do I've never seen where they might be. Also, not to go too off-topic here but I was in Dorton once when really bad weather (possible tornado?) came through and it was pretty damn scary in a glass building. Everyone had to huddle towards the rink. Not a place to be in under those conditions.

I'd probably say letting Seidenberg leave in 2009, that kind of started JR doing a bargin bin of shopping for blue-liners. There's also drafting Boychuk over Karlsson.

 

[BLNY]

Yeah I agree, my issue was with the return, not the fact Roy was traded.

If it had to be the Avs, the only return I'm accepting is Sakic or Forsberg. IIRC, I think the Habs wanted Nolan as part of the deal and the Avs wouldn't do it.

 

[Neutrinos]

Hiring Jim Benning

 

[Terry Yake]

trading selanne for jeff friesen (who hated playing in anaheim and then beat the ducks in the SCF a couple years later) and steve shields (worst goalie i've ever watched)

bringing carlyle back as HC in 2016

 

[valet]

sabres letting briere and drury walk over the thomas vanek offer sheet. people will argue against this, but that move was the genesis of the abjectly bad 10-15 years that followed. no offense to van, love the guy, but we basically traded our 2 best players + four 1st round picks for him. it never made any sense and i’m still smgdh over it even after all these years

 

[psycat]

What about hiring your backup goalie as GM immediately after he retires from playing?

Sounds about the same.

 

[miscs75]

Sounds about the same.

Add that one to the Islanders list too. Garth did draft some solid players in his tenure though.

 

[M88K]

Drafting Gurianov over Connor/Barzal has to be near the top.

 

[ricky0034]

Trading away Glenn Hall, Johnny Bucyk, Ted Lindsay, and Red Kelly over a few seasons.

for such cartoonish reasons too

Lindsay and Hall because they were trying to unionize, Kelly because the team got mad that he mentioned an ankle injury they were trying to keep a secret, and Bucyk because they traded Sawchuk because they had Hall then wanted him back when they dumped Hall

 

[Bfan14]

Benning is obvious answer but ill go with Drafting bourdon over Kopitar. Probably win the cup at some point with Sedin Kesler and Kopitar down the middle. Also would've kept him from a main rival in those contending years. I also think if we draft Kopitar that Gillis doesn't get fired and Benning never gets the opportunity to nuke this franchise.

I don't thunk drafting a guy who tragically died at 20 is a blunder.

Is it likely Bourbon ever became as good as Kopitar? No, but you also never know.

 

[Mav3rick07]

There's so many to choose from but trading Barzal for Griffin Reinhart was an absolute disaster.