Then that team was gutted when San Jose was granted a franchise, as the Gund brothers, who were the outgoing minority owners of the North Stars, somehow claimed and were granted the right to take a large portion of the roster with them.
North Star fans getting the shaft
it was shady af, but did the north stars really lose much of value here?
looking at the dispersal draft list, the only guys off their 1991 roster that were lost were neil wilkinson and shane churla. churla they immediately got back by trading kelly kisio, whom they got in the expansion draft, to SJ. wilkinson was a good stay at home guy, but in the expansion draft, the north stars got dave babych, whom they swapped in a three way for craig ludwig. even though he was thirty, ludwig went on to play eight seasons with the stars franchise and was key to hatcher and matvichuk's development. wilkinson ran into injury problems and ended up retiring the same year ludwig did.
it does seem weird that the north stars had to give three goalies to san jose. one was a high quality guy, irbe, the other two not so much (brian hayward at the end of his career, and jarmo myllys). but even there, i don't think the north stars really lost much. in the offseason, minny trades a 5th and an 8th to get darcy wakaluk, who was a capable backup. irbe doesn't become anything for another two years, at which point minny has traded jon casey for andy moog, who kept the crease warm for a couple years until they get belfour as a free agent.
in retrospect, i think the north stars actually do better giving away all those bit parts to san jose and replacing them through the expansion draft.
their first pick was rob ramage, who was broken down and not very useful
second pick was babych, who became ludwig
third pick was depth defenceman allen pederson, to replace the other depth defencemen they lost
fourth and sixth picks were charlie huddy and randy gilhen, who were packaged to get todd elik from LA. elik was later traded for brent gilchrist, who gave them half a decade of solid play as a quintessential bob gainey player
fifth pick was kelly kisio, who was swapped out to bring back churla
all to say, the downfall of that '91 north stars team isn't that they lost 24 players out of their system to the sharks so much as that team made its run on the back of a lot of old players that went on to immediately regress: broten, propp, bobby smith, gaetan duchesne, stew gavin. similar to the hurricanes after their cup run: you subtract recchi, weight, and matt cullen, and stillman misses half the year and suddenly you go from a deep three line attack to just an average bubble team.
