What is the single worst decision your team ever made?

[NewtJorden]

Choosing Karlsson over Pavelski.

 

[hamzarocks]

To many to count

Lindros pick given up and it became Scottie N, to the devils

Rask dealt for trash

Kessel for unprotected 1sts which hurt us back to back years as we needed to add young talent (if we had kept rask then 2011 team prob is in the playoffs which is funny to think about)

Dubas hiring and all the mistakes and poor decisions made afterwards

 

[Morpheus]

For the Oilers they switched from Boston Pizza to Pizza 73 in the arena, and I thought BP’s kinda sucked! Boy was I wrong…

 

[Axel Sandy Pelikan]

Honestly, I was looking through this topic and the biggest demonstrable "worst thing" has been how the Wings have treated some players and then traded them. Kelly, Sawchuk, Fedorov, Joseph.

But a behind the scenes one was letting Ken Holland rot the carcass from the inside by letting the S&C team go to pot, sitting on his laurels thinking that the Red Wings name was gonna bring him players then being shocked when it didn't (see 2012 and 2014 FA periods).

 

[carjackmalone]

Bellringer calling Gretzky middle of the night with take it or leave it offer

 

[Bounces R Way]

Flames have had some real colossal cock ups.

Trevor Kidd over Martin Brodeur.
Trading Brett Hull for Rob Ramage and Rick Wamsley.
Waiving Martin St Louis.
Rushing and ruining the development of Sam Bennett.
Most things Jay Feaster.
Refusing to acknowledge a rebuild that's staring you right in the face.

Awful coaching hires, too many horrendous UFA signings to count, not extending Gaudreau and Tkachuk long term when given the opportunity. Hard to just pick one. Their one crime I doubt I'll ever truly forgive is not finding a proper top line 200ft franchise center to play with Iggy and Kipper. But that's not as much a singular decision as a long string of failings.

 

[Schennanigans]

The thing about alot of these mistakes I see people posting is that some players we can’t just assume they’d be the players they are if they stayed on their team or if picks were made differently.

 

[KeziaTML]

Harold Ballard

 

[Last Rat Standing]

Panthers. The fact that they won a cup took the sting away, it's easily the 2017 expansion draft with Dale Tallon giving up Reilly Smith and Jonathan Marchesault which really came to haunt us in the 2023 Finals.

Gerard Gallant having to call his own cab because he didn't buy into the computer boys system is a close second

Even in 2018, when they reached the Finals with Gallant as coach and these players leading the way wasn't fun at all to watch. We were constantly reminded for this blunder

 

[triggrman]

John Hynes. He was not a fit for the roster we had at the time.

 

[JPT]

Trying to sell to Jim Balsillie.

 

[Minnesota Knudsens]

Flames have had some real colossal cock ups.

Trevor Kidd over Martin Brodeur.
Trading Brett Hull for Rob Ramage and Rick Wamsley.
Waiving Martin St Louis.
Rushing and ruining the development of Sam Bennett.
Most things Jay Feaster.
Refusing to acknowledge a rebuild that's staring you right in the face.

Awful coaching hires, too many horrendous UFA signings to count, not extending Gaudreau and Tkachuk long term when given the opportunity. Hard to just pick one. Their one crime I doubt I'll ever truly forgive is not finding a proper top line 200ft franchise center to play with Iggy and Kipper. But that's not as much a singular decision as a long string of failings.

A lot of these fall under the category of “hindsight is 20/20” for me. The Ramage trade arguably helped the Flames win their only cup. St. Louis becoming a star was kind of a surprise.
Drafting goalies is a real crap shoot.

The more recent stuff is more awful. Bridging Tkachuk and running Bennett out of town and then watching them compete for the cup 2 years in a row is so painful. Plus watching Treliving panic his way into the terrible Huberdeau contract. It was just a chain reaction of terrible.

The period in which they dismantled the cup champion team was also pretty gross (exp. Gilmour trade) but can be semi-explained by the fact that small market Canadian teams almost died out in the mid 90s.

 

[carjackmalone]

The canucks building their team around Jim Sandlak over Cam Neely

Canucks firing Roger Nielsen

Trading Rick Vaive and Bill Derlago for Tiger Williams

Drafting oil Jolevi over Matt Tkachuk

Letting Igor Larionov Go

 

[Enga Olly]

To many to count

Lindros pick given up and it became Scottie N, to the devils

Rask dealt for trash

Kessel for unprotected 1sts which hurt us back to back years as we needed to add young talent (if we had kept rask then 2011 team prob is in the playoffs which is funny to think about)

Dubas hiring and all the mistakes and poor decisions made afterwards

Dubas wasn't great but why you name him yet leave JFJr, Burke and Nonis un-named is baffling to me but I would go back to 1979 with the return of Punch Imlach. That was an unmitigated disaster that directly threw the entire decade of the eighties into the garbage. Dubas is small taters compared to Imlach and the other disastrous GMs. I know hating Dubas is like hating Nickleback - everyone likes to pile on, but there are demonstrably worse GMs

 

[Maruk moustache]

Washington Capitals: not paying Scott Stevens

Second this, though trading Filip Forsberg for Erat and Latta comes to mind.

 

[Frank Drebin]

Besides yesterday, Nurse contract

HMs: Second Pronger trade, Smyth trade, MacT hire as GM, handling of Souray, asking Comrie to return his bonus, hiring Eakins, trading down and drafting MA Pouliot in the first round in 2003, hiring Chia

How long are we going to be that dramatic about the Bowman hiring? I'm guessing 12-18 months before everyone starts to forget about it

 

[The Great Mighty Poo]

Drafting, developing, and giving a job to Shane Endicott.

 

[DamonDRW]

Red Wings fan here. I actually don't know. There are few bad decisions made such as keeping Franzen instead of Hossa, holding on Kenny for too long, but those are minor as compared to what lets say Sabres did.

 

[Michel Beauchamp]

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

Times two.

 

[BostonBob]

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

Times two.

As a Bruin fan I always thought those were great decisions.

 

[Laus723]

Panthers. The fact that they won a cup took the sting away, it's easily the 2017 expansion draft with Dale Tallon giving up Reilly Smith and Jonathan Marchesault which really came to haunt us in the 2023 Finals.

Gerard Gallant having to call his own cab because he didn't buy into the computer boys system is a close second

Even in 2018, when they reached the Finals with Gallant as coach and these players leading the way wasn't fun at all to watch. We were constantly reminded for this blunder

Those are bad, but I’m not a Gallant fan. I don’t dislike him, but he’s not at all a favorite of mine.

IMO, the biggest F up was a combo of selling to Cohen and Co, and trading Lou instead of building around him and putting a competitive team on the ice. Instead, Cohen pushed for a casino on adjacent land and acted like a dick when he couldn’t (and was never going to) get his way.

But, whatever. All that led to Zito and the Cup win. Lou raised the Cup still as a Panther and Cohen has been proven to just be a dick.

 

[luiginb]

Trading Kipper away to the Flames for a second. It made perfect sense at the time, but I'm convinced it's the main reason the Sharks aren't a cup champion by now.

 

[MessierII]

I think it’s still trading Gretzky

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

How long are we going to be that dramatic about the Bowman hiring? I'm guessing 12-18 months before everyone starts to forget about it

People likely will forget about it in 12-18 months because by then some other franchise will have hired the spineless Quenneville to coach their team.

Bettmans been working PR for these guys since they were out of the league so it’s only a matter of time.

 

[RebuildinVan]

I cant even do an all time top 10 list for the Canucks without missing something major