News Article: 5 Worst Trades in Senators History

[SensontheRush]

I actually don't think the Ryan trade is that bad, especially when we traded Hoffman pretty much straight up for Boedker (except we traded a 5th down to a 6th ).

 

[Ralph Malfredsson]

It doesn't belong in the top-5, but honorable menation for old-timer fans has to go to the Bob Kudelski trade.

When we traded Kudelski, he was a point-per-game winger with 26 goals by the halfway mark of the 1993-94 schedule, and we traded him for... Evgeny Davydov and some late-round picks.

Kudelski was like the ONLY GOOD THING about the first half of the 1993-94 season, it was a truly terrible hockey team, he was our leading goal scorer when he was dealt, and we got nothing for him.

Don't forget Scott Levins.

 

[dumbdick]

The zib and bishop trades only look bad in hindsight. Spezza and Heatley deals looked terrible when they happened but both looked better in hindsight when the players regressed. Judge the deals based on what the gms knew when they happened, not the aftermath.

 

[BonHoonLayneCornell]

The zib and bishop trades only look bad in hindsight. Spezza and Heatley deals looked terrible when they happened but both looked better in hindsight when the players regressed. Judge the deals based on what the gms knew when they happened, not the aftermath.

Isn't hindsight an important tool for judging a GM's work?

A huge part of their job is to predict the outcomes of the moves they make, not just for today but for tomorrow and the next day. Injuries are a fair variable that can't always be predicted of course and maybe they were the best you could do for your asset, but if say someone like Cory Conacher turns out to just suck like he did, then isn't that on the GM for targeting a guy that was no good?

 

[dumbdick]

Isn't hindsight an important tool for judging a GM's work?

A huge part of their job is to predict the outcomes of the moves they make, not just for today but for tomorrow and the next day. Injuries are a fair variable that can't always be predicted of course and maybe they were the best you could do for your asset, but if say someone like Cory Conacher turns out to just suck like he did, then isn't that on the GM for targeting a guy that was no good?

Conacher WAS good though. He was even good for us for a while too. Players change over time and GMs can only forecast so much.

 

[AchtzehnBaby]

Conacher WAS good though. He was even good for us for a while too. Players change over time and GMs can only forecast so much.

There was a good documentary on him on TSN or Sportsnet a couple of years ago. He definitely had his moments that shined.

 

[PoutineSp00nZ]

Tugnut ANd Lauchaunen for Barasso is up there or me.

BUt thats sentimental lol

 

[foggyvisor]

The Havlat trade was God awful.

 

[stempniaksen]

I actually didn't realize how good Havlat was for the first few years after we moved him. I thought he had a Heatley like decline for some reason, but the guy put up another 5 years of real good offence before taking a step back in San Jose.

Makes for a good "what if" to see what would have happened if we had just held onto him for the extra year and had him for the cup run. Preissing was real solid for that entire run and was half of the best 3rd pair we've probably ever had. Scoring depth was an issue that season though, and Havlat could have helped that single handedly.

 

[dumbdick]

Patty Eaves. Feels like we let him go and <BLAM!> next thing you know the guy hits 32 goals 9 years later.

 

[Micklebot]

I actually don't think the Ryan trade is that bad, especially when we traded Hoffman pretty much straight up for Boedker (except we traded a 5th down to a 6th ).

The Ryan trade itself wasn't that bad, we lost it long term, but it wasn't that bad. The issue there was re-signing him to a bloated contract combined with injuries causing his rapid decline.

 

[JD1]

Coming out of the 04 lockout most pundits figured we were the team in the most trouble with the cap. We had to make moves to cap manage

Hey at least we were first at something

 

[JD1]

Isn't hindsight an important tool for judging a GM's work?

A huge part of their job is to predict the outcomes of the moves they make, not just for today but for tomorrow and the next day. Injuries are a fair variable that can't always be predicted of course and maybe they were the best you could do for your asset, but if say someone like Cory Conacher turns out to just suck like he did, then isn't that on the GM for targeting a guy that was no good?

But doesn't that go both ways?

Both Turris and Methot had pretty significant declines after they left here

I agree that hindsight should apply unless there are exceptional circumstances

But it needs to apply both ways....

 

[BonHoonLayneCornell]

Conacher WAS good though. He was even good for us for a while too. Players change over time and GMs can only forecast so much.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. I think its how they should be judged and its fair to call it a fail based on their bodies of work after the trade. GM's cant predict everything, but the good ones are usually able to forecast well and have more hits than misses. Future performance and contract status need to be taken in to account unless it was a rental from the get go.

 

[BonHoonLayneCornell]

But doesn't that go both ways?

Both Turris and Methot had pretty significant declines after they left here

I agree that hindsight should apply unless there are exceptional circumstances

But it needs to apply both ways....

Agree completely. No gm is going to be perfect and injuries are an unpredictable variable most of the time. The good Gm's just have more hits and less misses than the bad ones.

 

[Big Papi]

Heatley trade (to SJ) was under whelming at first, but kinda worked out for Ottawa in the end IMO. Heatley dropped off like crazy, and I think Michalek roughly equaled Heatley's production and was a good pro here.

Other Bad Ottawa Trades:
Trading Sean Hill for Chris Murray
Trading Prospal for a 3rd or 4th Round pick
Dackell for an 8th Rd pick
Havlat Trade

 

[Big Papi]

But doesn't that go both ways?

Both Turris and Methot had pretty significant declines after they left here

I agree that hindsight should apply unless there are exceptional circumstances

But it needs to apply both ways....

the hard task for a GM is they have to use where they think a player will be down the trek when they make the trade right? I don't think I forsaw the Turris drop off to be honest, but Methot's injuries were a concern for sure. Same with Brassard's sudden drop. At teh saem time, I always saw Zibby as a streaky player, and was 'ok' with the trade, as opposed to when Bishop was traded for a guy that was riding a hot line, or the Demitra trade which made no sense at the time or know.

 

[danielpalfredsson]

I actually don't think the Ryan trade is that bad, especially when we traded Hoffman pretty much straight up for Boedker (except we traded a 5th down to a 6th ).

If we're purely looking in hindsight, the Ryan trade is only really made terrible by the extension.

We gave up a lot, but none ended up being franchise changing pieces or anything like that. (Yes, Silfverberg is a really solid NHLer who had some great playoffs for ANA). It's not on the level of what the Islanders gave up for Yashin or potentially with Byram maybe being a potential top 2 defender what we gave up for Duchene.

It really stinks because Ryan was awesome in his first year here. Looked like a legit superstar until he got hurt. The only other time he looked that good was in the 2017 playoffs. (Good timing on his part...) If we got that Ryan for a longer period of time, we would have easily "won" that trade.

 

[danielpalfredsson]

I was about to propose the Vermette for Leclaire trade, but amazingly after re-checking what was involved, we might have won that one.

Even know Leclaire never worked out, we got the pick that became Lehner, which has now become Colin White (and also become a few million in salary space via BUF taking Legwand).

White probably has not surpassed prime Vermette, but it's just funny to look back on a bad trade and see that at least in hindsight, it was turned into something.

What about the Radek Bonk trade? Can anybody give some context to that one? Was it a planned 3 way trade, or did LAK pull a Doug Wilson on us when he flipped Bonk to MTL? Wasn't Garon a big piece at that point? Didn't he get more for Bonk than we did? (Even know he gave up Huet.)

 

[stempniaksen]

What about the Radek Bonk trade? Can anybody give some context to that one? Was it a planned 3 way trade, or did LAK pull a Doug Wilson on us when he flipped Bonk to MTL? Wasn't Garon a big piece at that point? Didn't he get more for Bonk than we did? (Even know he gave up Huet.)

Bonk played 4 more seasons and never topped 29 points while never being a "positive" player again. The return obviously wasn't great given that a 3rd isn't guaranteed to be anything and Weller "busted" but it would be hard to put it in a top-five (in hindsight) given what happened the way Bonk finished his career.

Interesting side note to this, but I don't know what the hell Bonk was doing in 07-08, but he finished -31 on a team with a winning record, that made the playoffs. The next closest player on the team was Jared Smithson at -9. I'm not even sure how the heck that happens.

 

[FunkySeeFunkyDoo]

Of course you use hindsight to judge a trade, just as you use hindsight to judge draft picks.

The skill of being a good GM is projecting how a player will perform in the future. They often have to make trade-offs of a short term performance vs a long term player performance, and in those cases it's completely valid to factor in whether the short term benefit was worth it.

For me the 5 worst are:

1. Spezza for a bag of hammers.
2. Havlat & Smolinski, also for a bag of hammers.
3. Demitra for Olsson.
4. Zibanejad for Brassard.
5. Bishop for Conacher.

Now if I'm allowed to push the boundaries a bit, I'll add in "5b":

5b. Dahlen for Alex Burrows.

 

[stempniaksen]

I was too young at the time to know the full context around this, and it obviously doesn't deserve a spot in this thread based on the fact the deal netted us Redden/Rhodes, but does anyone remember if Martin Straka was seen as a throw-in to Berard/Redden?

Berard/Redden was a wash (very slight edge to Berard since he went 1st)
Rhodes/Beaupre is obviously in Ottawa's favour since Rhodes was a decade younger

Maybe "throw-in" is strong, but Straka always seemed like overkill in that deal considering he went on to put up 717 points in 954 games.

 

[Big Papi]

5b. Dahlen for Alex Burrows.

Not sure if you've followed, but at this point, Dahlen seems to be nothing special, already traded from Vancouver and hints of attitude issues.

 

[Big Papi]

I was too young at the time to know the full context around this, and it obviously doesn't deserve a spot in this thread based on the fact the deal netted us Redden/Rhodes, but does anyone remember if Martin Straka was seen as a throw-in to Berard/Redden?

Berard/Redden was a wash (very slight edge to Berard since he went 1st)
Rhodes/Beaupre is obviously in Ottawa's favour since Rhodes was a decade younger

Maybe "throw-in" is strong, but Straka always seemed like overkill in that deal considering he went on to put up 717 points in 954 games.

I guess with Berard not wanting to play here, Ottawa had their backs to the wall? Berard did win ROY, and was for sure the #1 pick vs. Redden.
I'm guessing the over payment was for Rhodes, as you suggested. Ottawa had had no luck with goalies to that point. When it happened, it wasn't really explained why we were overpaying. Not sure if we had Tugnutt yet, but maybe we just trying to get as many goalies as possible in hopes that one would pan out.

 

[robsenz]

Tugnut ANd Lauchaunen for Barasso is up there or me.

BUt thats sentimental lol

Barasso was the worst, don't think there was a player I disliked more while they were here.