The remnants of the Chris Pronger trade

[Terry Yake]

It doesn't look great, but there was a good bit of bad luck involved in this one (obviously for both sides). I'm not even talking about the picks not developing, I'm talking more about Lupul, who was a major part of this deal who turned into a guy with next to no value. We all know Lupul now as a guy who can't stay healthy, but that really wasn't the case at the time. He had two separate semi-serious injuries at that point of his career, a concussion and a sprained ankle, neither of which were that bad. Then he came here, had the whole back dilemma, and was never the same.

Lupul himself turns this entire deal around. I mean, that's a semi-expensive(at the time) 20+ goal winger entering his prime, and if not for the injuries he'd be a good first line left wing.

Philly making the playoffs by a goal and going to the finals didn't exactly help, either. A lot of possibilities on how that could have changed things.

this is true

at the time i really hated this trade but there's really nothing murray could have done. he got the best deal possible for a guy who wanted a big extension and murray was not ready to give him that

if sbisa pans out like he was supposed to and lupul stays healthy and plays to his true potential, this is a win-win for both sides. just like if pronger was to never have suffered those injuries, he would more than likely still have been playing now. philly at least got a finals appearance out of him as well as sam gagner. like someone said earlier, if we keep pronger past '09 that probably means we don't get lindholm and fowler

 

[Sojourn]

I kind of feel like Sbisa was rushed, but even with a more patient approach I'm just not sure it would have mattered. He just isn't a smart player, and he doesn't know how to fully utilize his skillset. I'm just not confident a different developmental path would change that. He was always going to be hindered by that.