The Gilmour-Leeman Trade

discostu

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Nov 12, 2002
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This trade has to go down as

a) One of the biggest deals of all time, involving 10 players on only a two team deal.

b) One of the more lopsided deals. Leeman disappointed, while Gilmour became a phenomenal player for the Leafs, and guys like Macoun and Natress became valuable players for them as well.

I wonder:

1) What lead to the need for Calgary to trade Gilmour for Leeman. I know his 50 goal season gave Leeman trade value, but, the Flames were coming off a season where they were the highest scoring team anyways. What did they see Leeman providing them that Gilmour wasn't. They were strong at centre, so I can kind of see that being a reason, but, they were strong on the wings as well. Even in the year they were traded, Gilmour, the better two-way player, was still putting up a point per game, while Leeman was far off that pace.

2) What lead to the deal being so large. It's so uncommon to see a deal expand to include so many players. Even weirder was that positionally, the deal was identical. Both teams gave up two forwards, two defenceman and a goalie. No draft picks were exchanged, and, every player played for their new team that season. If it was just a shake-up, why wouldn't Calgary just focus on one player, rather than so much of their roster.

Was the deal made from Calgary's end strictly for a shake-up? If so, it seems drastic. As a deal, it slants so heavily towards the Leafs, who managed to translate it from being a horrible, perrenially poor team, into a couple of years where Gilmour carried them to some of the best playoff performance of the franchise post-expansion. The Flames, on the other hand, if they were trying to turn their team around, failed miserably. They didn't make the playoffs that year, and while the Leafs were having some good post-seasons, they were stuck with first round exits for the next few years.
 

mooseOAK*

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From the Calgary side I think that financial considerations played a big part, specifically the money that veterans like Gilmour and Macoun wanted. They had to know they weren't getting equal value in return.
 

God Bless Canada

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Jul 11, 2004
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I believe that Gilmour was embroiled in some form of a contract dispute with the Flames at the time, and I think he might have even walked away from the team a day or two before the trade took place. It was pretty clear that his days with the Flames were numbered.

Cliff Fletcher made a lot of great trades to build up the Flames into an NHL power from 1985 to 1991. Yet the move that he will be best remembered for is the Gilmour fleecing, which took place in 1992, several months after Fletcher left the Flames and accepted the daunting challenge of rebuilding the Leafs.

Meanwhile, no matter what Doug Risebrough does as a GM, he will always be remembered by fans who watched hockey in the early 90s as the buffoon who pulled the trigger on this trade. There are a lot of Flames fans who have never forgiven him.
 

reckoning

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According to Dowbiggin's Money Players book, Gilmour looked up at the owners box during a game before his scheduled arbitration hearing and saw the "impartial" arbitrator sitting there as a guest of the club, laughing and joking with team management. Gilmour flipped out and said he was finished with Calgary.
 

discostu

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Thanks for the feedback. I was fairly young then, and, wasn't paying attention to the salary side.

How did they deal balloon to a 10 player swap. If you're trying to sweep a problem under the rug, why make it a deal that was sure to ener the history books, by making it so large?
 

Hoser

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Aug 7, 2005
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Gilmour, Nattress and Macoun wanted substantial raises. In '92-'93 each made almost double what they had in '91-'92.

Wamsley was having a mediocre season and was nearer the end of his career: he only played 15 more games of pro hockey before retiring a season and a half after the trade.
 

mcphee

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I heard the following Gilmour story. Risebrough, deeply embroiled in negotiation with Gilmour, ranted quite voiciferously aboutr what a sonuva--- Gilmour was, called him every name under the sun. No harm right ? Just venting. Somehow Gilmour was in the next room and heard the whole rant.

I remember Red Fisher interviewing Gilmour before a New Year's Eve game against Mtl. Gilmour said everything was fine and would soon be worked out. He left the team the next day.
 

albertGQ

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Jul 1, 2005
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People get on Yashin's case for not showing up before the season when he has a signed contract, but nobody mentions how Gilmour walked out on his team mid season (a couple days into the new year) when he had a signed contract as well.

IMO what Doug did was far worse the Alexie
 

discostu

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People get on Yashin's case for not showing up before the season when he has a signed contract, but nobody mentions how Gilmour walked out on his team mid season (a couple days into the new year) when he had a signed contract as well.

IMO what Doug did was far worse the Alexie

The level of players rights though during that era make it somewhat understandable from Gilmour's perspective. If what is said is true in reckoning's post, I think many people would have reacted the same way.

If it was indeed true, and with arbitration being the only avenue that Gilmour had to get a fair salary, his options were limited. Given that it was at around the time of Eagleson's indiscretions becoming public, I imagine that players weren't willing to bide their time for the sake of integrity, when the owners were really putting it to them.
 

Psycho Papa Joe

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I believe that Gilmour was embroiled in some form of a contract dispute with the Flames at the time, and I think he might have even walked away from the team a day or two before the trade took place. It was pretty clear that his days with the Flames were numbered.

Cliff Fletcher made a lot of great trades to build up the Flames into an NHL power from 1985 to 1991. Yet the move that he will be best remembered for is the Gilmour fleecing, which took place in 1992, several months after Fletcher left the Flames and accepted the daunting challenge of rebuilding the Leafs.

Meanwhile, no matter what Doug Risebrough does as a GM, he will always be remembered by fans who watched hockey in the early 90s as the buffoon who pulled the trigger on this trade. There are a lot of Flames fans who have never forgiven him.

On a side note, I believe Fletcher stole Gilmour twice. The first time, trading Mike Bullard to the Blues and bringing Gilmour to Calgary.
 

saskganesh

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Jun 19, 2006
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Thanks for the feedback. I was fairly young then, and, wasn't paying attention to the salary side.

How did they deal balloon to a 10 player swap. If you're trying to sweep a problem under the rug, why make it a deal that was sure to ener the history books, by making it so large?

Speculations below!

I suspect its case of a teacher outsmarting the student. Riseborough had replaced Fletcher, who had moved on to Toronto. Fletcher took advantage, and made the deal larger and more complicated, appearing to give ground to Risborough on certain players and so sweeten the pot.

Riseborough had also played with most of the Flames roster, and I suspect that he wanted to send a message that the Flames were his team now and he was the boss. The Gilmour tiff was a manifestation of this. Fletcher figured this out of course, and offered an easy solution to GM Doug.
 

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