Yeah, it turned out to be a bad trade... but there was justification. Previous to his surgery, Pederson had proven himself a top offensive performer. And he was still young. His surgery wasn’t something that should have rung too many alarm bells... it wasn’t knee surgery or anything.
Cam, at that point hadn’t shown much more than Virtanen has. Would you trade him and a 1st for, say, Draisaitl (if he’d missed time last year with a hand injury)?
And no, I wasn’t a fan of the Gudbranson trade from the get go. What had Realgud ever done?
I had more concerns than you about Pederson's health and was much higher on Neely than you.
Pederson had two shoulder surgeries for the removal of a tumour. The first surgery wasn't considered too serious and he returned, played 22 games with greatly decreased production (dropping from 1.45 ppg to 0.55 ppg) and had a second, more serious shoulder surgery that included removing muscle.
He returned apparently healthy for 1985-6 and scored 0.95 ppg. I remember at the time of the trade figuring that was a reasonable expectation going forward. (League scoring was higher in those days.)
It seemed to me that the Canucks failed to allow for the contingency that Pederson was not going to return to being a top center after his shoulder surgery. In fact, for two seasons Pederson was exactly what he had been for the Bruins in 1985-86, but that was 40 pts per season less than his production before his shoulder surgeries.
As for Neely, you're comparing him with Virtanen and saying he hadn't shown much more than Virtanen had. I strongly disagree. To compare Neely in his three Canuck years with Virtanen's first three seasons:
18 YO
Neely NHL 56 games, 16 goals, 15 assists, 31 pts, 57 PIM
Virtanen Junior-52 pts in 50 games, a slight improvement on his ppg rate in his draft year
19 YO
Neely NHL 72 games 21 goals 18 assists 39 pts 137 PIM
Virtanen NHL 55 games 7 goals 6 assists 13 pts 45 PIM
20 YO
Neely NHL 73 games 14 goals 20 assists 34 pts 126 PIM
Virtanen AHL 65 games 9 goals 10 assists 19 pts 48 PIM (and 1 assist in 10 NHL games)
It was a different league then. Not only was scoring much higher but fighting was much more a part of the game, with in 1985-6 20 players having more than 200 PIM and 57 players having at least 150. Neely had already shown himself to be a willing combatant and good at it. Neely's performance in his 3 NHL seasons with the Canucks far exceeded Virtanen's year of junior, 1 NHL season with 13 pts in 55 games and his poor AHL season as a 20 year old, even taking into account that NHL scoring was higher in those days. At the end of his D + 3 season Neely had played 3 NHL seasons and scored over 20 goals in one of them while showing toughness. At the end of his D + 3 season Virtanen had spent a season in junior and in his most recent season was disappointing in the minors. They were worlds apart.
Even as a 21 year old, Virtanen was well behind what Neely was as a 19 and 20 year old.
Further, the fact that the 1987 pick the Canucks gave up turned into the 3rd overall pick shouldn't have been a surprise. They had the 4th worst record in the league in the season in 1985-6, the trade then being made in June, 1986.
So the Canucks were giving up what figured to be a high 1st round pick and a very young winger who had already scored over 20 goals in a season and was tough in what was a league that depended on intimidation for a former star center who had had serious health issues and hadn't returned to anything near his previous level of production.
The trade looks worse in retrospect than it did at the time, but it looked really bad to me the day the trade was announced.
The argument that the Canucks were going to lose Neely as compensation anyway for signing Pederson doesn't make any sense when there was an option not to overpay for Pederson by not signing him. It wasn't as if this was a good team about to get over the hump by signing a top-notch center. They had been 4th worst in the league and last in the Smythe Division before obtaining Pederson, then in the two years he produced as he had his last season in Boston the Canucks came last in the Smythe Division and 3rd worst in the league both seasons.
