What is the single worst decision your team ever made?

[ShootIt]

Top ones for me:

Wayne Huizenga selling the team to Cohen.
Trading the eventual 1st overall pick in the 98 draft that turned out to be Vincent Lecavalier

Honorable mentions:
Horton over Staal
Firing Gallant
Hiring Maurice.
Allowing Tallon to sign ex-Hawks to billion year deals

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Tage Thompson (not sure if in history but it hurts today lol)

We won a Cup, the first one in franchise history. It will always be worth it for that alone. Trading away Tage wouldn't crack my top-100 for the Blues.

(No, I'm not doing a top-100 for the Blues. Just yet )

 

[Terrier]

The Mitchell Miller episode, which, putting Miller himself aside, came completely out of the blue and was, frankly, bizarre, given that Don Sweeney and Bruins management, in recent years at least, have made good decisions(switching Cassidy for Montgomery, acquiring and signing Hampus Lindholm at last year's deadline, etc).

 

[King Karl]

Didn't have any impact on performance, but letting Alfie go to FA and sign with Detroit is one that still doesn't sit right with me.

 

[Bluesish]

Tage Thompson (not sure if in history but it hurts today lol)

Oh no, no, no. Blues don't win the cup without ROR.

Mine would be when we gave Mike Kennan the keys to the kingdom.

 

[The Panther]

Chicago Blackhawks.

Trading Hasek is the first that leaps to mind.

In fact, before they traded him, they put him on waivers.

He cleared.

 

[RJMA]

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

As a Panthers fan, yes, Jovo was a good pick, but I'd gladly indulge in an alternate universe where Paul Kariya was Florida's first ever selection.

 

[The Panther]

I'm an Oilers' fan whose memory goes back to the mid-80s or earlier, so the "single" worst is a daunting task.

The franchise's worst moments around 1987 to 2004 pretty much all involved salary problems and lack of capital to pay players, which was no fault of the club. So, if I ignore all of that low-hanging fruit (like, losing an entire all star roster in the summer/autumn of 1991 and getting dick in return), I'd go with:

-- Pocklington dangles Gretzky around, like a piece of meat, during the 1987-88 season. What a classy move after all Gretzky had done for the franchise and for Pocklington! Got to pay for that wiener factory.

-- The Press Conference from hell

-- Hiring Peter Chiarelli

 

[HardSeiderShots]

Not canning Ken Holland for Steve Yzerman before he went to Tampa…

 

[FrozenJagrt]

The Leafs traded the pick that became Roberto Luongo for Wendel Clark and Mathieu Schneider. Things would be a lot different if that team had Luongo instead of guys like Raycroft and Toskala

 

[UnSandvich]

Brad Park, Jean Ratelle, Joe Zanussi for Carol Vadnais and Phil Esposito

 

[POVERTY]

Marrying my first wife.

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

*looking back on pictures from your first marriage*

"Shit, at least I didn't trade Gretzky."

 

[Marshall]

Washington Capitals: not paying Scott Stevens

 

[Voight]

As a Panthers fan, yes, Jovo was a good pick, but I'd gladly indulge in an alternate universe where Paul Kariya was Florida's first ever selection.

Of course - I meant RE 1994 draft

 

[HogtownSabresfan]

I'm going with my mistake. Choosing the SABRES about 50 years ago as my team when I was 7. I'd pick Chicago now. Never the hometown Leafs. Hated Ballard.

 

[RJMA]

Of course - I meant RE 1994 draft

Fine, but my point is:

Kariya/Tverdovsky
vs
Niedermayer/Jovanovski

Even without hindsight, Clarke f***ed up as he was/is a size queen and Kariya was being raved about for his play at Maine.

The rest of PK's career just confirmed Clarke's f*** up.

 

[cliffclaven]

Continuing to employ anyone associated with the Kyle beach incident.

 

[JohanFranzenstein]

Not canning Ken Holland for Steve Yzerman before he went to Tampa…

This. Erases the years of mortgaging the future to squeak into the playoffs to get bounced in the first two rounds.

 

[Tkachuk4MVP]

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

 

[HardSeiderShots]

This. Erases the years of mortgaging the future to squeak into the playoffs to get bounced in the first two rounds.

I mean, ownership could’ve instructed Yzerman to keep buying, but we likely wouldn’t have had mind numbing moves like trading a 1st for Kyle Quincey.

 

[pld459666]

Kelly Miller and Mike Ridley for Bobby Carpenter.

IMHO, one of the worst trades the Rangers have ever made

 

[Stealth JD]

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.

 

[bert]

Hire Pierre Dorion.

Realistically, probably drafting Brian Lee instead of Anze Kopitar.

Daigle over Pronger was worse. Letting Chara walk as a UFA instead of Redden. I still maintain Dorion is the worst decision though. 6 Straight seasons of losing. Empty prospect pool very few picks. Some nice players that fell into his lap but 3 of the 6 years they finished bottom 10 he didnt use the pick. Its a gong show he needs to go.

 

[Sharkbomb]

I don't think anything will ever compare to the absurdity of the Oilers trading away Wayne Gretzky in his prime. Whatever the causes were, when you have a dominant, iconic player like that you do whatever needs to be done to keep him happy. The fact that Gretzky played more seasons outside of Edmonton than in Edmonton is criminal from the Oilers' perspective.

Tage Thompson (not sure if in history but it hurts today lol)

I disagree. The goal of all franchises is winning a Stanley Cup, that's the whole purpose of building a team. When you win a Stanley Cup, your GM can rest in peace knowing all moves leading to it were worth it. The problem is when you trade away assets and fall short, that's when regret kicks in.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Single worst decision in Blues history ... well, let's go through the list of contenders.

Yes, Mike Keenan is in here. Yes, his tenure was checkered. He also swung the deals that got us Pavol Demitra for Christer Olsson, and Chris Pronger for Brendan Shanahan (who, if anyone knows the backstory here - and I can't imagine anyone doesn't, as often as the main piece of it has been alluded to over time - Shanahan had to be shipped out). Is his tenure all-in-all bad? Yes. Worst move ever by the team, though? No. Especially since he kept the Blues from having to wear this all-time atrocity.

Yes, there's really bad trades over time. Adam Oates - though if he could have just shut his mouth and played out a contract, he wouldn't have been dealt. Doug Gilmour - yes, there were the rumors he'd molested a 15-year old. The return we got, though, was beyond dismal. Joey Mullen. Oof. Rod Brind'Amour, who got dealt because then-head coach Brian Sutter hated him. Chris Pronger. f***ing oof.

Yes, there was even missing the 1983 draft entirely - though for all the talk of who the Blues could have picked, they had long before traded their 1st and 2nd round picks so they weren't getting any of those guys, and then we're talking about maybe they would have hit a home run with one of the later picks - something that, given their draft history to that point, seems really unlikely.

I might even mention tampering with Scott Stevens as an RFA, because (a) it was intentional, (b) all the evidence was sent to the NHL office and/or to Devils GM Lou Lamoriello, and (c) it cost the Blues a 1st-round pick, a swap of 1sts and $1.5 million on top of the 5 1st-round picks the Blues had spent on Stevens back in 1990. Oh, and that whole "Shanahan for Stevens" thing, too.

My vote, though? Bill Laurie owning the team. Laurie plucked the team with great fanfare in 1999 and set about trying to buy the Cup, joining the annual arms race in the West with Detroit, Colorado and Dallas. He also decided to go off on diversions like trying to buy an NBA team and move it to St. Louis - one of the worst kept secrets ever in the NBA. After ~6 years, having not won the Cup and the team trending down out of the top ranks of the Western Conference and with the league moving into the salary cap era, Laurie decided he was tired of losing money (which he didn't have an issue with in the years prior, where there was no salary cap) and turned into the sore loser who decides everyone must suffer, and announced he was selling the team But it wasn't just that. He decided to sell the team and trash it on the way out, unloading assets for cheap to make it "easier to sell" and "more attractive" for any potential buyer.

In his tenure as owner, he also allowed trusted lackey Dick Thomas to oversee the team in an unofficial capacity, and Thomas helped scuttle and/or orchestrate moves repeatedly with his interference. [See: not trading for Hasek, trading Pronger for relative pittance, et. al.] The Bill Laurie Reign of Terror set the franchise back several years and required a largely ground-up rebuild, and broke the trust of a number of Blues fans along the way.