Was Rejean Houle the worst GM in NHL history?

[Ward Cornell]

Irving Grundman!

 

[sr edler]

Roy should have landed Forsberg

that would have made pierre lacroix the worst gm ever [ok, perhaps not really] and not one of the best

every gm makes a move or two that's not excellent, but that move would have made the avalanche a worser team by far

 

[jkrx]

Then you don't trade him, it's as simple as that. Try to fix the situation and if it doesn't work, just scratch him, until his contract expires or someone makes you a decent and acceptable offer. The offers WILL become better over time. If no one wants to pay the price, then they will not get Patrick Roy. Roy should have landed Forsberg and Thibeault, period.

hahaha.. Roy would never had land Forsberg straight up. Keeping Roy around would certainly have had a negative effect on the team. What would waiting had done for them? They would've had to pay Roy's contract and got nothing back and then lose him to free agency instead. Keane was traded because he refused to learn french by the way which was unacceptable of a captain according to fans.

The blame is on Corey for hiring Tremblay (Roys worst critic) as head coach.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

the roy trade... i agree that forsberg + thibault would have been pretty unlikely. but it was still a horrible trade. very much like the thornton trade, it was a panic move on houle's part.

at that point, you could have swapped roy straight up for any goalie in the world other than hasek. it was a huge mistake to go with a young and highly touted french goalie who hadn't passed any mental toughness tests. thibault was supposed to have a fantastic career, and he wasn't bad, especially in chicago. but even if you had thrown a superior french goalie, like, say, marc-andre fleury into montreal to replace roy, game over. luongo, game over. the two extra scoring forwards don't make up for the fact that roy was never replaced.

we already knew in the winter of '95 that brodeur wouldn't have wilted under the pressure (in two seasons in the league, he had the calder, a conference finals, and a cup). you think lou wouldn't have made that trade in a heartbeat? he loved habs-- he patterned his entire organization after the '86 habs. he traded his captain for stephane richer. his coach was jacques lemaire and larry robinson was an assistant, and he would later pick up jacques laperriere (defensive legend/habs asst. coach in the 80s and most of the 90s). claude lemieux had just won a conn smythe under him. plus, he had the leadership core in place to handle roy, unlike the sideshow in montreal.

and even if he didn't go after brodeur, you had to get a franchise player for him. and the market would surely have thrown him two or three great offers, if he'd had the patience. could he have gotten forsberg straight up, or forsberg and fiset for roy, keane, and a pick? given that lacroix gave up sundin for clark and nolan for ozo, and that he still had mike ricci at center, it was definitely possible. roy and turgeon for belfour, roenick, amonte/suter/daze, and a vet with a big contract? i can't imagine chicago saying no to that, especially since they ended up giving belfour and roenick away the next year anyway.

houle took a big gamble on thibault and it failed. a smart GM would have known better.

 

[jkrx]

the roy trade... i agree that forsberg + thibault would have been pretty unlikely. but it was still a horrible trade. very much like the thornton trade, it was a panic move on houle's part.

at that point, you could have swapped roy straight up for any goalie in the world other than hasek. it was a huge mistake to go with a young and highly touted french goalie who hadn't passed any mental toughness tests. thibault was supposed to have a fantastic career, and he wasn't bad, especially in chicago. but even if you had thrown a superior french goalie, like, say, marc-andre fleury into montreal to replace roy, game over. luongo, game over. the two extra scoring forwards don't make up for the fact that roy was never replaced.

we already knew in the winter of '95 that brodeur wouldn't have wilted under the pressure (in two seasons in the league, he had the calder, a conference finals, and a cup). you think lou wouldn't have made that trade in a heartbeat? he loved habs-- he patterned his entire organization after the '86 habs. he traded his captain for stephane richer. his coach was jacques lemaire and larry robinson was an assistant, and he would later pick up jacques laperriere (defensive legend/habs asst. coach in the 80s and most of the 90s). claude lemieux had just won a conn smythe under him. plus, he had the leadership core in place to handle roy, unlike the sideshow in montreal.

and even if he didn't go after brodeur, you had to get a franchise player for him. and the market would surely have thrown him two or three great offers, if he'd had the patience. could he have gotten forsberg straight up, or forsberg and fiset for roy, keane, and a pick? given that lacroix gave up sundin for clark and nolan for ozo, and that he still had mike ricci at center, it was definitely possible. roy and turgeon for belfour, roenick, amonte/suter/daze, and a vet with a big contract? i can't imagine chicago saying no to that, especially since they ended up giving belfour and roenick away the next year anyway.

houle took a big gamble on thibault and it failed. a smart GM would have known better.

Ofcourse it failed thats not what we are arguing. Atleast not me. By the way how many times have you seen a trade being extremely good for franchise when the player makes it official that he wants out? I can tell you its rare.

However Corey should never have put Houle in either position. He shouldnt have been GM and he certainly shouldnt been GM when the Roy incident. I believe most new GMs would have cracked under that enourmous pressure. Corey hired Tremblay as coach. That was the absolutely biggest mistake and far worse than the trade. Tremblay had been notoriously critical of Roy and was a complete eye sore when he was made coach of the team.

They did however get to playoffs to face a team with another panic button pressing GM (that season) the NY Rangers Neil Smith who traded one of the teams best PK player Wayne Presley (and Kypreos) for Momesso and Berg and the blockbuster deal that sent their future shut down defense man Norström, Laperriere, Lafayette and Ray Ferraro to LA to get Kurri, McSorley and Churla.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

I was fairly young at the time so my memories are a little vague. But I think the value Roy had at the time is being over-estimated. I can't imagine Lacroix (or anyone) expected that he was going to get nearly 8 high quality years out of Roy. This was still an era where a 10-year career was considered typical, even for very good goaltenders. Roy had already been in the league that long, so it's not unreasonable if people felt that he was getting near his decline phase. Of course by today's standards, he would not have been considered aging at all, but in 1995...? I dunno, but I can't see many GMs willing to part with Roenick+Belfour or Brodeur (who had just won a Cup) for a goalie that may have been perceived as a short-term fix.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

i'm not saying that you have to get equal value for your superstar, but you have to get a difference maker back. colorado was a team full of difference makers, and houle didn't get any of them. houle gambled that thibault would have the stones to follow patrick in montreal-- it looked like as much of a hail mary, low-percentage/high reward move then as it does now in hindsight. if that's your best piece in a trade for a guy who won two conn smythes, that's not a gamble worth making.

some examples of decent or acceptable returns for stars who wanted out or who every other GM in the league knew had to be dealt: dany heatley for marian hossa and greg de vries; alexei yashin for a 2nd overall pick, zdeno chara, and bill muckalt; brendan shanahan for keith primeau and paul coffey (holdouts on both sides, worked great for detroit, decently for hartford); rod brind'amour for keith primeau (ditto); even paul coffey, etc. for craig simpson, etc. was at least an okay return.

you know the reason why sergei kostitsyn is still a hab? because they learned their lesson from the mike ribeiro debacle. you don't just give away a talented player to get him away from the room (e.g., ribeiro, marc savard, dion phaneuf). you can just make him stay the hell away from the team unless injuries mount and you absolutely need him.

I was fairly young at the time so my memories are a little vague. But I think the value Roy had at the time is being over-estimated. I can't imagine Lacroix (or anyone) expected that he was going to get nearly 8 high quality years out of Roy. This was still an era where a 10-year career was considered typical, even for very good goaltenders. Roy had already been in the league that long, so it's not unreasonable if people felt that he was getting near his decline phase. Of course by today's standards, he would not have been considered aging at all, but in 1995...? I dunno, but I can't see many GMs willing to part with Roenick+Belfour or Brodeur (who had just won a Cup) for a goalie that may have been perceived as a short-term fix.

roy just seemed old because he broke into the league so young. remember, he was the same age as belfour and hasek, younger than vanbiesbrouck, only a year or two older than joseph and richter. those were the best goalies in the league and most were considered to be solidly in their primes (which they mostly were).

roy's durability, commitment to conditioning, etc. were all well known. i don't remember too many people thinking he would soon be washed up.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Context of the Roy Trade

The following have to be considered in context:

1.) Ronald Corey wanted the trade done quickly and Roy had to be moved out of the East. If The Avalanche were still the Nordiques the trade does not happen unless an incredible package would be coming back.

2.) Patrick Roy was 30 and the history of players from the early/mid 1980's was that they declined shortly after thirty with little longevity past thirty. Fuhr, Peeters, Liut,Ranford to name just a few goalies.

3.) The Canadiens had Pat Jablonski and Patrick Labrecque as back-ups with Jose Theodore a prospect still a few seasons away.

 

[Big Phil]

I was fairly young at the time so my memories are a little vague. But I think the value Roy had at the time is being over-estimated. I can't imagine Lacroix (or anyone) expected that he was going to get nearly 8 high quality years out of Roy. This was still an era where a 10-year career was considered typical, even for very good goaltenders. Roy had already been in the league that long, so it's not unreasonable if people felt that he was getting near his decline phase. Of course by today's standards, he would not have been considered aging at all, but in 1995...? I dunno, but I can't see many GMs willing to part with Roenick+Belfour or Brodeur (who had just won a Cup) for a goalie that may have been perceived as a short-term fix.

You're not too far off on that one. Roy had come off his worst season ever in 1995 which was the first and only time he never made the playoffs. I don't think he was washed up for sure but fans in Montreal had a way of using the "what have you done for me lately" mentality with Roy. In January of 1993 there was a poll in Montreal done about whether or not he had wore out his welcome with the team. The guy just won the Vezina the year before and then had a Conn Smythe winning Cup run 5 months later. Blame the Habs fans for bein so spoiled with him.

So yeah he was constantly getting underrated at that time. By December of 1995 it had been a "while" since he did anything magical. But Roy had a knack for getting underrated at times in his career. How in the world he was left off the World Cup team in 1996 is a prime example. It's foolish now, but yeah I don't think anyone thought he would win two more Cups in his career. At that time there were goalies like Hasek, Belfour, maybe Brodeur who would have been considered superior. Roy was on the back burner at that time, except he shouldn't have been and again I blame the city of Montreal for portraying him that way.

 

[MS]

Quite a few comments to make here :

- he was already mentioned, but the worst GM in NHL history was Mel Bridgeman, bar none. No-one else is even close.

- Cliff Fletcher was a great GM pre-1994 who lost the plot following the 1994 lockout in the new-era NHL. Belongs nowhere near this discussion. From the mid-70s until 1994, he was one of the top 2 or 3 GMs in the sport.

- Mike Milbury is nowhere near as bad as most people claim. He made two *horrible* trades - the Luongo deal and the Yashin/Chara deal. No argument there. But he also made a bunch of excellent trades, including heisting the pick used to select Luongo from Toronto in the first place (which everyone conveniently forgets). Built a hell of a strong defense in his last few years there with Hamrlik/Aucoin/Niinimaa/Jonsson. Many of Milbury's poorer moves were forced by wild swings in ownership philosophy whereby he was told to cut all kinds of salary one year and then told to 'win now' the next. He wasn't a very good GM, but he was nowhere near as bad as people seem to think.

- Jocelyn Thibault was the best goalie prospect in the game when he was traded for Patrick Roy. Hell, at the time he was probably the best young goalie the NHL had seen since Tom Barrasso a decade earlier. People forget how good he was at that point. Hell, he went into Montreal after the Roy trade and put up substantially better numbers for the team than Roy did that season ... at age 20. Unfortunately, he was very slightly built and ended up breaking down by the age of 26-27. He was also brilliant for some terrible Hawk teams for a few years, much better than his W-L record would indicate. In terms of a pure asset return given the situation, Houle did not bad. But the trade tore the heart out of the franchise.

 

[Sens Rule]

The following have to be considered in context:

1.) Ronald Corey wanted the trade done quickly and Roy had to be moved out of the East. If The Avalanche were still the Nordiques the trade does not happen unless an incredible package would be coming back.

2.) Patrick Roy was 30 and the history of players from the early/mid 1980's was that they declined shortly after thirty with little longevity past thirty. Fuhr, Peeters, Liut,Ranford to name just a few goalies.

3.) The Canadiens had Pat Jablonski and Patrick Labrecque as back-ups with Jose Theodore a prospect still a few seasons away.

Sawchuk, Bower, Plante, Hall. Seems like there had been a large precedent of top echlon goalies playing well into their later 30's for more than a generation.

I remember the trade. I also remember Roy had a couple of weaker years. before this year, including 1993 where in the season he was off his game but come playoffs...Not so much. I think the Habs believed that his best years were behind him. They thought he MIGHT be close to being done. But they were far from sure.

To me the Roy mid-season trade is the worst I can remember. Of all trades of the last 25 years. It was the stupidiest.

 

[jkrx]

Quite a few comments to make here :

- he was already mentioned, but the worst GM in NHL history was Mel Bridgeman, bar none. No-one else is even close.

- Cliff Fletcher was a great GM pre-1994 who lost the plot following the 1994 lockout in the new-era NHL. Belongs nowhere near this discussion. From the mid-70s until 1994, he was one of the top 2 or 3 GMs in the sport.

- Mike Milbury is nowhere near as bad as most people claim. He made two *horrible* trades - the Luongo deal and the Yashin/Chara deal. No argument there. But he also made a bunch of excellent trades, including heisting the pick used to select Luongo from Toronto in the first place (which everyone conveniently forgets). Built a hell of a strong defense in his last few years there with Hamrlik/Aucoin/Niinimaa/Jonsson. Many of Milbury's poorer moves were forced by wild swings in ownership philosophy whereby he was told to cut all kinds of salary one year and then told to 'win now' the next. He wasn't a very good GM, but he was nowhere near as bad as people seem to think.

- Jocelyn Thibault was the best goalie prospect in the game when he was traded for Patrick Roy. Hell, at the time he was probably the best young goalie the NHL had seen since Tom Barrasso a decade earlier. People forget how good he was at that point. Hell, he went into Montreal after the Roy trade and put up substantially better numbers for the team than Roy did that season ... at age 20. Unfortunately, he was very slightly built and ended up breaking down by the age of 26-27. He was also brilliant for some terrible Hawk teams for a few years, much better than his W-L record would indicate. In terms of a pure asset return given the situation, Houle did not bad. But the trade tore the heart out of the franchise.

What made Milbury even worse were his constant remarks of the players he traded. I agree that management had alot to do with the trades but Milbury didnt really need to insult all the players he traded away. It was ridiculous.

 

[GNick42]

Montreal made the trade because they over rated Thibault. They thought he was going to be the next great QMJHL goalie. If Thibault would have turned out like they projected it would have been a decent trade.

 

[optimus2861]

Roys trade value was rather small because all GMs knew he wanted out of Montreal.

Savard was trying to move him, yes (in fact he had nearly finished a trade with Lacroix the day he was fired), but Roy's biography makes no mention of Roy wanting to leave Montreal. Admittedly the biography's written by Roy's father so the source isn't unbiased.

 

[jkrx]

Savard was trying to move him, yes (in fact he had nearly finished a trade with Lacroix the day he was fired), but Roy's biography makes no mention of Roy wanting to leave Montreal. Admittedly the biography's written by Roy's father so the source isn't unbiased.

Let me rephrase. He didnt want to play for Montreal as long a tremblay were a coach. Corey couldve fired the coach but that wouldve sent a bad message so the only option was to trade.

 

[optimus2861]

Let me rephrase. He didn't want to play for Montreal as long a tremblay were a coach.

Again, no mention of this in Roy's biography. According to that, he felt things could be worked out between he & Tremblay given time, and initially hoped the day after the Red Wings game that everything would cool down.

He did tell Tremblay he was finished being treated like an ******* after the game though; the book also describes a couple of incidents between Tremblay & Roy that came across as outright petty on Tremblay's part.

I'd bottom line it as, Roy was getting frustrated with the organization's direction and had a strained relationship with Tremblay but until that game hadn't thought about leaving.

 

[Psycho Papa Joe]

Savard was trying to move him, yes (in fact he had nearly finished a trade with Lacroix the day he was fired), ....

You are correct. The trade was Nolan and Fiset for Roy. A better trade than the one Houle eventually made but too be honest, not that great considering Roy's resume. Reports are that Roy knew of the trade rumours and was already upset with the Habs. Getting rid of his friend Demers and replacing him with Tremblay made matters worse. Roy's was a steaming volcano those first couple of months that season and Corey/Tremblay/Houle quite simply did nothing to alleviate it and actually made it much worse.

 

[jkrx]

Again, no mention of this in Roy's biography. According to that, he felt things could be worked out between he & Tremblay given time, and initially hoped the day after the Red Wings game that everything would cool down.

He did tell Tremblay he was finished being treated like an ******* after the game though; the book also describes a couple of incidents between Tremblay & Roy that came across as outright petty on Tremblay's part.

I'd bottom line it as, Roy was getting frustrated with the organization's direction and had a strained relationship with Tremblay but until that game hadn't thought about leaving.

You should realize that there is a big difference between what was official and what was not. Officially Roy wanted out and he didnt make any statements that he wanted to stay nor that he felt they could work things out.

Other teams GMs had the bargaining chips as they knew Roy "wanted out".

----------------------------------------------

Nolan and Fiset for Roy sounds worse that Kovalenko, Rucinsky and Thibault btw.

 

[sr edler]

about roy, even if he initially wasn't happy with being out of montreal perhaps he needed that change of scenery to boost his spirit post 30, and he came to a really good team in colorado that was competative which also helped him a bit

he never won a vezina post 1992, and what says he would have won two more cups and a smythe staying in montreal?

 

[Axxellien]

Houle:

Thibault= Hackett..Seen as a stupid dead end move by the Montreal public at large at the time, turned out very well...the Valiant Hackett saved Montreal`s bacon so many times...

 

[Scott1980]

How about Kovalenko and Rucinsky became fairly good players. They were okay...but they needed a better goalie to replace Roy!

 

[Fish on The Sand]

Thibault= Hackett..Seen as a stupid dead end move by the Montreal public at large at the time, turned out very well...the Valiant Hackett saved Montreal`s bacon so many times...

We never once made the playoffs with Hackett in net. Also, when your best move is aquiring Hackett, you know you did lousy.

 

[MS]

How about Kovalenko and Rucinsky became fairly good players. They were okay...but they needed a better goalie to replace Roy!

Actually, the interesting thing about the Roy trade is that goaltending actually continued to be Montreal's strongest position for nearly the next decade after the Roy trade. Unfortunately, they stunk everywhere else.

Thibault was great for the Habs for the first two seasons after trade. Then he burned out from the pressure of playing in Montreal and was traded for Hackett, who was heroic for *terrible* Montreal clubs from 1998-2000. Then when Hackett started to battle injury problems, he was replaced by Theodore who had several excellent seasons and won an MVP.

The problem for Montreal was that by 1999 or 2000, they had a near-expansion level set of position players filling their roster. Honestly, compare the 1999 Habs and the 1999 Nashville Predators. Expansion fodder like Zholtok, Petrov, Darby, Poulin filling the roster. Eric Weinrich as the team's #1 defender. Just terrible teams - three straight years with not a single player scoring more than 50 points.

__________

Roy leaving Monreal was going to be inevitable. With the Canadian dollar where it was in the late 1990s, and Montreal's club so uncompetitive, he was going elsewhere the second he hit UFA status in 1997 or 1998.

As much as Roy leaving Montreal was a huge blow for the franchise, you can't really look at it and say that he finishes his career there if not for Houle/Tremblay. There was just no way for a team like Montreal to keep an elite player under the NHL labour conditions of that time given how poor they were on the ice.

 

[Blades of Glory]

While I won't argue that management played a role in forcing Houle to trade Montreal's best players, Milbury REALLY had his hands tied by Islanders management. That still is the worst ownership situation in the league, and it was even worse during Milbury's tenure. The turmoil involving ownership of that team was unparalleled. For God's sake, one guy bought the team with money that he didn't have, and went to prison for it. After that, Milbury had to deal with the Milstein-Gluckstein duo, who forced him to deal core players like Palffy, Berard, Pilon, and Linden so that they could make a profit. Then, Charles Wang and Sanjay Kumar came along. Sanjay Kumar was convicted of securities fraud in 2007, thus joining John Spano as felons who were involved with buying the Islanders.

Even then, Milbury's deals are often hurt by hindsight more than anything else. At the time, he was lauded for attempting to bring playoff hockey back to New York. He was under tremendous pressure, from ownership, to build a playoff team, and that's what he did. It's easy to criticize the Yashin and Peca deals, but at the time, they made perfect sense. Yashin was a superstar one season removed off a 94 point season, and Peca was THE best defensive forward in the world. No one was complaining about the loss of Chara, Connolly, and Pyatt when Yashin and Peca led the Islanders into the playoffs in 2002, and into a gutsy series with Toronto, a series that they probably win if Tucker doesn't blow Peca's knee out in Game 5.

Yes, there are a few deals of Milbury's that are impossible to defend. Namely Luongo and Jokinen for Kvasha and Parrish, but aside from that one, most of his deals were a result of tremendous pressure from ownership, to either win or to cut salary, and besides, those deals were generally well-regarded at the time. And despite all these deals, the fact is that Milbury brought some pretty good players to Long Island via these trades.

Whether or not he was forced into dealing Roy (obviously was), Turgeon, Damphousse, and Recchi, Rejean Houle still was responsible for what he got for them. Which is nothing. Literally, nothing. The Roy deal actually was the best of the four, because Houle actually got a promising goalie in Thibault, which is more than the collection of draft picks and utter crap he got for the other three. Milbury may have dealt what turned into half of the 2003-04 Eastern Conference All-Star team, but he got some good players in the process. It's not completely his fault that those players faded quickly. Wang wanted to win right away, and Milbury did a solid job of building a playoff team very quickly.

Most of all, I just simply cannot say a GM with Houle's drafting record, especially first round record, is better than a GM with Milbury's record. Milbury is an idiot, especially when he opens his mouth, but whether we like it or not, the man could draft with the best of them. Rejean Houle had no idea what the **** to do when the draft came around.

 

[guyincognito]

the roy trade... i agree that forsberg + thibault would have been pretty unlikely. but it was still a horrible trade. very much like the thornton trade, it was a panic move on houle's part.

at that point, you could have swapped roy straight up for any goalie in the world other than hasek. it was a huge mistake to go with a young and highly touted french goalie who hadn't passed any mental toughness tests. thibault was supposed to have a fantastic career, and he wasn't bad, especially in chicago. but even if you had thrown a superior french goalie, like, say, marc-andre fleury into montreal to replace roy, game over. luongo, game over. the two extra scoring forwards don't make up for the fact that roy was never replaced.

we already knew in the winter of '95 that brodeur wouldn't have wilted under the pressure (in two seasons in the league, he had the calder, a conference finals, and a cup). you think lou wouldn't have made that trade in a heartbeat? he loved habs-- he patterned his entire organization after the '86 habs. he traded his captain for stephane richer. his coach was jacques lemaire and larry robinson was an assistant, and he would later pick up jacques laperriere (defensive legend/habs asst. coach in the 80s and most of the 90s). claude lemieux had just won a conn smythe under him. plus, he had the leadership core in place to handle roy, unlike the sideshow in montreal.

and even if he didn't go after brodeur, you had to get a franchise player for him. and the market would surely have thrown him two or three great offers, if he'd had the patience. could he have gotten forsberg straight up, or forsberg and fiset for roy, keane, and a pick? given that lacroix gave up sundin for clark and nolan for ozo, and that he still had mike ricci at center, it was definitely possible. roy and turgeon for belfour, roenick, amonte/suter/daze, and a vet with a big contract? i can't imagine chicago saying no to that, especially since they ended up giving belfour and roenick away the next year anyway.

houle took a big gamble on thibault and it failed. a smart GM would have known better.

Trading Brodeur for Roy, considering their respective ages at the time, the UFA system, and the Devils habit of gaming that system into a sort of indentured servitude, why in the world would they trade a 23 year old Brodeur for a 30 year old Roy?

at that stage in time, barring a poach, they owned Brodeur until 7/1/2003. his value, given that, would be astronomical. Roy would be a year or two from walking.