What is the single worst decision your team ever made?

[Nemesis Prime]

No. Gretzky didn't want to leave Edmonton.

but Pocklington was broke af.

 

[RJMA]

Arizona Coyotes: exist

Cringe

 

[Rich Nixon]

I love Eric Lindros and Eric Lindros is the reason I am a fan of the team that Eric Lindros played on, but it's possible that the worst decision they ever made was trading for Eric Lindros.

 

[CycloneSweep]

But didn't Gretzky essentially force that trade?

No, Edmontons owner was broke so he sold Gretzky for cash basically.

 

[RJMA]

Panthers:

Hiring Bobby Clarke as their first GM

Florida wins '93 entry draft coin toss with Anaheim. Size-queen Clarke, having no interest in drafting Kariya, opts for No.5 overall in '93 (Special Nieds) and No. 1 overall in '94 (Jovo) instead of No.4 overall in '93 (Kariya) and No.2 overall in '94 (Tverdovsky/Bonk).

Minus the 5 minutes Pavel Bure played for Florida, the Panthers have been plagued by garbage offenses until 2 seasons ago.

 

[6ix]

 

[Avs2022]

Ripple effect aside, capping ROR at Duchene’s cap hit wasn’t great. We hitched ourselves to the wrong horse.

Trading the pick that became Filip Forsberg for Varly, letting Varly walk after we acquired Grubauer. Then Grubauer walks and we paid for Kuemper. Then Kuemper walks and having to get Georgiev. We’ve used a lot of assets to get mostly good, but never elite goaltending. Better than having terrible goaltending I guess but it sure would’ve been easier and cheaper to just pick a guy and stick with him.

Even I was in the boat at the time let ROR go and we need to keep Duchene. ROR's leadership abilities and being a solid 2 way forward were developing, but not quite at the level he attained later on. Then Duchene being a whiny cancer who thought he deserved better.

Ironically, we eliminated both players in the way to the Cup. I never blamed ROR for going, but I was so happy when Duchene left.

 

[Kimota]

Habs: Drafting Dough Wickenheiser instead of Denis Savard. Passing over the next big french Canadian mega star and one of the most electrifying players of his generation just cause the other guy was big. That's a % of 7 100 points seasons back to back in his prime.

 

[ORRFForever]

Marrying my first wife.

Oh wait... You want my team's worst decision...

 

[BlueSeal]

You are assuming they demanded Tage or no one else.

I'd give up Tage THREE times for us to win the Cup once. And win one we did ( Sorry Bergy).

I said it earlier and it was mentioned again. For us Blues fans It's Mike f-kin Keenan

 

[Kimota]

I love Eric Lindros and Eric Lindros is the reason I am a fan of the team that Eric Lindros played on, but it's possible that the worst decision they ever made was trading for Eric Lindros.

Yea if you add Hextall, Duchesne, Deadmarch, Ricci, Forsberg to the the team that already had/would get John Leclair, Eric Desjardin and Micheal Renberg, they would have been a juggernaut.

 

[CBJWerenski8]

There's a lot in contention:

HM: Not re-signing Ray Whitney.

HM: Hiring Scott Arniel.

HM: Drafting Gilbert Brule over Anze Kopitar despite the scouts picking Kopitar (MacLean went rogue)

HM: Signing Nathan Horton. (Got a debilitating back injury and was unable to play again. His contract was uninsured and our ownership demanded Jarmo get rid of it for a player who could actually play. Which had us take on David Clarkson. Who also then got a debilitating back injury and was unable to play again. Which forced us to find a way to pawn it off on Vegas during the draft lottery costing us a first round pick.)

1: Trading voracek + 1st (Couturier) for Jeff Carter. (Jeff Carter sulked after the trade happened and had to be privately courted by the Owner, President, GM, and Rick Nash to play. Once he did, he openly quit on the team multiple times and was a bad apple behind the scenes too. Had no interest in being here. Voracek went on to have an all star calibre career and arguably the best center in the draft (at the time) fell to the pick they would have had.

 

[Duder54]

Oilers:

I‘d laugh if it weren’t so true…

 

[thaman8765678]

Flames:

Signing Huberdeau

 

[HFBS]

Allowing the shmevils to move to New Joisey.

 

[Puckstuff]

The Rask trade was bad. The Jeff Finger signing was bad. Toskala was bad. But all of those leafs teams were bad anyways. The worst move for the leafs because of the timing was moving Kadri (4.25) for Barrie+Kerfoot then taking on Tavares for 11 million which raised the salary bar higher for Matthews+Marner+Nylander. This small over pay triggered an onset of having to pay Matthews, Marner, Nylander more money then doubling down on trading away picks to get rid of other contracts i.e Marleau. I would rank this even worse then Toskala, Jeff Finger and Rask because of the unintended consequences it had. This was suppose to be the golden prime opportunity of having all of Marner, Nylander, Matthews coming of ELC's, it was a unique chance to capitalize. And if this group doesn't win a cup let alone get out of the first round it will be talked and debated for a decade.

 

[Puckstuff]

Marrying my first wife.

Oh wait... You want my team's worst decision...

I hope your not paying alimony buddy

 

[Sniper99]

Could write a book longer than the bible with all the wrong decisions the Leafs made.

 

[Bizz]

DW letting Joe Pavelski walk while resigning Marc Edouard Aging Pylon to an extension.

 

[Grigowski]

Ripple effect aside, capping ROR at Duchene’s cap hit wasn’t great. We hitched ourselves to the wrong horse.

But it was the Duchene-Trade that started the uprise.... So, i don´t see this as a failure... Dont get me wrong, i said it back then that we should´ve kept O-Reilly over Duchene, but in the end, everything went well...Except for Duchene. RoR got his cup, we got ours.

Beside some really dumb decision over the years there is still one signing, that i will never forgive: Brad May.

That we signed this piece of shit after all what had happened and has been said after the Moore-incident is something i cannot believe up to this day... Disgusting.

 

[Elvs]

Going from one of the best and most iconic sets of jerseys (logo, colors, everything) to the crap they have now.

 

[Deen]

Calgary trading up to draft Trevor Kidd over Martin Brodeur.

 

[Voight]

Panthers:

Hiring Bobby Clarke as their first GM

Florida wins '93 entry draft coin toss with Anaheim. Size-queen Clarke, having no interest in drafting Kariya, opts for No.5 overall in '93 (Special Nieds) and No. 1 overall in '94 (Jovo) instead of No.4 overall in '93 (Kariya) and No.2 overall in '94 (Tverdovsky/Bonk).

Minus the 5 minutes Pavel Bure played for Florida, the Panthers have been plagued by garbage offenses until 2 seasons ago.

Jovocop doesn't seem like that bad of a pick in relation to the other two?

The Rask trade was bad. The Jeff Finger signing was bad. Toskala was bad. But all of those leafs teams were bad anyways. The worst move for the leafs because of the timing was moving Kadri (4.25) for Barrie+Kerfoot then taking on Tavares for 11 million which raised the salary bar higher for Matthews+Marner+Nylander. This small over pay triggered an onset of having to pay Matthews, Marner, Nylander more money then doubling down on trading away picks to get rid of other contracts i.e Marleau. I would rank this even worse then Toskala, Jeff Finger and Rask because of the unintended consequences it had. This was suppose to be the golden prime opportunity of having all of Marner, Nylander, Matthews coming of ELC's, it was a unique chance to capitalize. And if this group doesn't win a cup let alone get out of the first round it will be talked and debated for a decade.

It was the McDavid/Eichel contracts that did that. Matthews/Marner were not going to get less than Eichel at $10mil (and obviously not more than McDavid).

 

[NYRfan85]

Way too many to list for the Rangers, but you can pretty much chalk up any decision during the dark ages between 1998-2003 as being the single worst decision the Rangers have made.

 

[GMR]

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

They’d win a few more Cups if not for these moves. Similar to Edmonton with the Gretzky trade.