The idea that trades had a direct affect on everything following

[tarheelhockey]

Fair enough. I do think this website sometimes tends to have crossing topics without the ability to separate the arguments being discussed using the underlying topic, as is evident by some folks coming in and trying to kill my attempt at a conversation all because it may relate in some shape or form to a previous discussion they had. I also dont think it should be a problem to cross-reference a previous topic. Now, if I started it with Matthews and Toronto and yada yada in the OP, then sure maybe I could see people being upset. But noticing a correlation and then immediately trying to berate me for it (not saying you did) is silly IMO.

And that Hartnell example would be a great one, what was the trade at the time?

In a nutshell, the Flyers traded Hartnell to Columbus for RJ Umberger (who did next to nothing for Philly) and a 4th (which has close to zero value). But the aftermath was that the Flyers traded the 4th for a pick that became Mikhail Vorobyev, a promising young player, and the Flyers were able to buy out Umberger for relatively cheap compared to what Hartnell’s buyout cost Columbus. So even though the trade was awful on the surface, subsequent events made it sting less for the Flyers. That’s when we got the old-thread bump.

In that thread I actually took your position — you can’t go back and say it was a “good trade” based on how the organization managed to later turn chicken **** into chicken salad.