The Athletic - Boston Down Goes Brown: What was the single biggest upgrade/downgrade in Bruins history?

[BigGoalBrad]

Dafoe and Kristich for Moger and Stumpel?

Everyone’s listing trades where we gave up something good.

Oates for Janney should count.

We definitely won the Oates trade out of town as well despite the main piece being a historic bust.

 

[BruinDust]

Chiarelli for MOC

 

[PB37]

Dave Lewis - Claude Julien

 

[Ratty]

Hodge for Nifty.

 

[jgatie]

Dave Lewis - Claude Julien

Certainly this is the biggest jump from crap to success, not to mention the biggest jump from passive, turn the other cheek hockey to "11 fights in the first preseason" hockey.

 

[mjhfb]

Dave Lewis - Claude Julien

I was going to say Steve Kasper-Pat Burns, but yes this was better.

 

[TCB]

Cam Neely and a 1st round pick for Barry Pederson

The trade that keeps on giving
Cam Neely Trade Still Benefiting Boston Bruins - Last Word on Hockey

.
An over the hill Ken Hodge for Ricky Middleton was dam sweet as well, but nothing compares to Harrys deal that brought in Neely as the tree continues to branch out.
35 years and counting.

 

[BruinsNetwork]

Ryan Donato -> Charlie Coyle. That’s a good one.

 

[BMC]

Ryan Donato -> Charlie Coyle. That’s a good one.

I love Charlie Coyle. He was having his best season this year.

 

[crimsonace]

Personally I think spotting a young player at a tournament in Gananoque, ON playing for his hometown of Parry Sound in 1961 changed everything.

Down Goes Brown: What was the single biggest upgrade in...
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I normally really like DGB, but didn't Milt Schmidt make the Esposito trade, which was one of the biggest heists in NHL history? Espo wasn't in Boston when Schmidt became GM, but the Bruins had won two Stanley Cups by the time he left.

 

[Fenway]

DGB heard the wrath from many Bruins fans about picking Sinden as the biggest upgrade

This week he writes about a team's biggest downgrade

The downgrade he picks is hard to top - firing Mike Sullivan for Dave Lewis

Down Goes Brown: What was the single worst downgrade in...
Boston Bruins

The answer is apparently Milt Schmidt to Harry Sinden, according to a lot of you.

OK, that’s not the answer, but let’s sidetrack for a second because I got a ton of pushback from Bruins’ fans about picking Sinden as an upgrade last week. I was surprised, but after hearing the arguments I can at least kind of get it. But only kind of, because there seem to be a lot of Bruins fans out there who are convinced that Sinden was a bad GM. No, he never won a Cup, but he made the playoffs almost every year, went to multiple finals, robbed the Kings of a first-round pick and then used it on Ray Bourque, stole Cam Neely from Vancouver and then stole Adam Oates to play with him. If you think that’s doing a bad job, you have some very high standards for your GM, and might want to ask a Leafs or Islanders fan what bad management really looks like.

Was Sinden cheap? Sure, but it wasn’t his money. If a team won’t spend, you blame the owner who cuts the checks, not the GM who has to work with the budget. I can concede that Sinden may have been the wrong pick as the Bruins’ biggest upgrade, but the idea that he did a bad job still seems crazy to me.
Anyway, the correct answer for a Bruins downgrade is new GM Peter Chiarelli firing future Cup-winner Mike Sullivan in 2006 to hire Dave Lewis.

The downgrade: Mike Sullivan to Dave Lewis, 2006 (coaching)

 

[CharasLazyWrister]

I was going to say Steve Kasper-Pat Burns, but yes this was better.

That one doesn’t stand out for obvious reasons, but absolutely worth mentioning. Would have been cool to see what Burns could do with any sort of lineup of the past 10 years rather than incomplete late 90s rosters.

 

[TD Charlie]

Orr is definitely the best because it turned the franchise around and gave us 1b of the best player in history and the best defensemen or all time

Ray slipping to 8 was pretty good

Getting Neely


In the last twenty years I’m going to throw Horton into the ring.

The trade was an absolute win in Boston’s perspective because the assets they lost weren’t working out here and Horton went on to scoring multiple huge goals that same season propelling us to the cup. Remember, Thomas himself said in game 7 against the Bolts that he was more concerned we wouldn’t score on them rather than him letting up a goal.

Campbell was also included in that deal right? Wideman with a 1st for Horton n Campbell. Something like that? Robbery. I was so freaking pumped to land Horton.

 

[LSCII]

Kessel for futures with nothing brought in to bridge the gap while the picks were being chosen and developed was a big downgrade. Literally threw away a season in the midst of the Chara/Bergy/Marchand window...

Thornton trade was a quarter for 3 nickels. Huge downgrade there.

Seguin trade, see Thornton, Joe.

Wheeler trade was also a downgrade over the long run, but did help with a cup run.

In recent times, the Riley Smith trade was a pretty big drop off.

Biggest upgrade to me was Wesley for all those picks, and then the players they got with said picks still bearing fruit.

 

[KrejciMVP]

Thornton, Kessel, Horton, Boychuk, Mcquaid