mccabe got us a sedin, so don't sell him short either. we traded 27 year old linden for two young guys who were projects with question-marks but upside. neither of them were expected to be as good as the guy we traded for them.
butcher was trading a top pair defensive dman in his prime (a better gudbranson) plus our best centre for four guys who with the possible exception of courtnall were not considered as good at their position at the time as either of the guys we traded, and of which the youngest was 26. the trade transformed us into a playoff team and cemented the 94 core.
this is just one team but we are talking about the best trades we ever made being the ones that contradict your rule. you should keep an open mind.
Although MS' explanation above seems sound, I'll concede that there can be situations as you describe. But more often than not the best player rule applies, and certainly in the context of prospects it becomes more clear because we're comparing superstars to players that will mostly amount to be fringe NHLers.
again no. ricci, chris simon, duchene were great players and hextall was still good. they drafted thibeault with the draft pick. they turned hextall into a first round pick who was adam deadmarsh. if you dig deeper, they got more as well, but that's enough.
sometimes quantity outweighs quality.
In the season after the trade, 1992-93, this is what things looked like:
Lindros - 41G, 34A, 75P
Ricci - 27G, 51A, 78P
Duchesne - 20G, 62A, 82P
Hextall - 29-16-5, .888sv% (at a time when league average was .885)
So yes, for a time Colorado did okay even without Forsberg included. But just because they got good value at first doesn't mean that they got full value over Lindros' career (including the 115 point season in '96) without taking into consideration Forsberg's career and the 116 points he had that year. Forsberg is still the instrumental piece to that trade. You also ignored that I'm referring to middle of the roster players when calling out "quantity." Yes, trading a top player for a really good center, a starting goalie, and a PPG defenseman is not a bad haul without the other top player included.