Which GM hire was most damaging for their team?

[Brodeur]

Mike Milbury. Could you imagine the teams the Islanders could have fielded had he not traded them all away?
(As a Rangers fan, I enjoyed seeing him work his 'magic' lol)

View attachment 980253

Redden was essentially traded for Berard so it seems a little unfair to list them both. Kasparaitis was dealt for Bryan Smolinski who might have had the better career after the trade but was part of the 1999 salary purge; Given how much D the Islanders had at the time, that was arguably a good trade. J.P. Dumont was a salary issue, although they definitely misjudged Dmitri Nabokov. Brewer was traded for Roman Hamrlik who was pretty good.

Definitely an interesting 'what if' had DiPietro remained in the 2001 Draft pool instead of declaring for 2000 just six weeks before.

The first sentence in the pic seems to minimize how bad Islanders ownership was in the 90's.

 

[madmike77]

Why? When that trade went down, I was told that Florida lost that trade.

It wasn’t so much the trade at the end. It was his failure to lock up Tkachuk to a max-term extension to try and save cap room (to keep Kotalik I believe) combined with his failure to extend Gaudreau the year before he left. And the litany of coaching failures. And giving away Bennett.

That said, there was some good to go with the bad as far as Treliving’s time with the Flames. He wasn’t a great GM but he wasn’t an all-time disaster either.

 

[nturn06]

The Oilers hat trick of Chiarelli, Holland, and now Stan Bowman has done immeasurable damage. They would have at least one Cup by now if the team was properly run, but here we are in Year 10 of Connor McDavid wondering if John Klingberg’s bionic hips and a goalie with a .902 save percentage are the solutions on defence and in goal. Just complete idiocy from a group of has beens every season.

I don't get why people think that Holland was a disaster.

The took over a team who had Chiasson-Kassian-Lucic in the top 6, no goalie and only 2 good D-men, one who retired soon.

Here is the Oilers roster when he took over:

Edmonton Oilers 2018-19 roster and scoring statistics at hockeydb.com

The roster, scoring and goaltender statistics for the 2018-19 Edmonton Oilers playing in the NHL.

www.hockeydb.com

There was not an accident that that team, with McD and Drai missed the playoffs for two consecutive seasons.

On top of those roster issues, between the Lucic contract and some buyouts, the team had no cap left, and the prospect pool was pretty weak.

 

[ManByng]

The fact that people are saying Dubas instead of Harold Ballard shows that the Leafs fans on here are (fortunately) too young to be around for that ass****.

NSFW video that talks about the Ballard era



I know he wasn’t GM most of his time owning the team, but he did more damage as one than any other GM who oversaw Toronto.

Ballard interfered a lot as though he were the GM ! I have never in my life seen a worse NHL owner than him !! By the early 80’s he had all but destroyed the Leafs!!

 

[Amorgus]

I'm not the right person to properly make the argument, but I really want the guy from the Flyers board who wholeheartedly believes the answer is Bobby Clarke to come here and lay out all the pieces. There's at least an interesting case that everything wrong with the Flyers today comes back to the decision to bring Clarke back as GM after Russ Farwell got fired (and more importantly to hire only people Clarkie approved of as GM, ever since), and that despite his own personal success over that time period, Clarke might be the best GM to do that level of damage to his team.

Of the more obvious answers for the Flyers, the question is what do you think does the most damage? A good plan, but poor talent evaluation and poor follow-through (Hextall), not much of a plan, but also not taking radical swings (Fletcher), or not really having the authority to overrule the dinosaur behind the bench and the meddling of the Foundational Titans (Brière)?

Overall, Milbury's the memetic answer, though there are good arguments for Chiarelli, Benning, anyone dumb enough to trade with Sam Pollock, and a few others.

You know how people don't die directly from AIDS but by whatever ailment that is complicated by having no immune system left? Clarke is like Hockey AIDS.

 

[Omni Owl]

Blake, Bergevin, and Robitaille is the 3 headed dragon that keeps perpetually ruining the Kings. Its bad enough to have Bergevin, who wrecked the Canadiens future, but to add Blake on top is just a f***ing disaster. The whole future of the franchise has been compromised because they couldn't follow thru with the rebuild/re-tool and sold off our good young assets in lop sided harmful trades. Faber + a 2nd for Fiala and Vilardi, Iafallo, Kupari, and a 2nd for PLD are both atrocious trades. Singlehandedly f***ed us for at least a good 10 years.

 

[LiveLongandProspal]

Right now? Chris Drury. AINEC.


All-time? Mike Milbury f***ed up the Islanders pretty badly