A European league goalie, a minor leaguer, and a late 1st (who probably won't even crack the NHL for another year or two, if ever) for a top pairing defenseman in his prime with one year left on his contract. That is ****ing brutal. I have no idea how so many Flames fans were happy with that return. That rivals the Savard trade for the 2nd worst in franchise history
Edit: And iirc Feaster pedalled this idea that the Bouwmeester trade would give us added flexibility with our cap space which we could put to good use. Didn't even end up happening. His retool/rebuild on the fly was embarrassing
There were also rumors floating around that Detroit offered Tatar + Nyquist for Bouwmeester, but Feaster said no because he was adamant about getting a 1st round pick.
Absolutely brutal. Tatar and Nyquist were essentially developed prospects about to bloom and Feaster preferred a late 1st rounder, who was/is years away from ever playing.
The Bouwmeester trade was miles worse than the Iginla trade. Iggy was old, had a NTC and basically told Feaster where he wanted to go. Bouwmeester didn't have a NTC and had an extra year and was a top pairing d-man. Horrendous return for Bouwmeester.
It's like we learned nothing from trading Phaneuf away a couple years before. We traded 2 top pairing d-men away (Phaneuf could be argued top pairing, but he had the pedigree at the time) for a late first, and scrubs upon scrubs.
Thank the hockey Gods we now have Treliving who almost never loses trades and most of the time comes out on top by a large margin. We went from trading 2 top d-men away for a 1st, a 3rd line center (Stajan) and rubbish, to getting Hamilton and Hamonic for 2 1st's and 4 2nd's.
I hope Tre is the Flames GM for a long long time, especially now that he has full autonomy.