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A Mulligan! The One Trade You Would Undo


JGC21

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As we enter the summer of ‘18 and no doubt wait for MB to pull off the trade of the century to fix the current Habs team, I got to thinking of other big trades that have happened in this team’s history that didn’t pan out.  Hindsight is 20-20 so, if you could do a mulligan and erase a trade from the Habs, which one would it be?

 

My pick:

 

Roy & Keane for Thibault, Kovalenko & Rucinsky

 

Roy/Keane went on to win multiple cups while the 3 newcomers from Colorado never lasted or had any of the success when compared to the players they were traded for.  Awful trade that makes me wonder all the time “what if?”

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Quickly gonna say, Subban Weber is overexplored. Let’s leave it!

 

The one trade besides this one. I honestly think it’ll be a more interesting discussion not to bring this one into it. Let’s leave it?

 

and now I’ll think about my own answer 

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2 minutes ago, Meller93 said:

Quickly gonna say, Subban Weber is overexplored. Let’s leave it!

 

The one trade besides this one. I honestly think it’ll be a more interesting discussion not to bring this one into it. Let’s leave it?

 

and now I’ll think about my own answer 

 

No. 

 

Subban for Weber.

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10 minutes ago, Trizzak said:

 

No. 

 

Subban for Weber.

Hahahahaha

 

I’m gonna go ahead and award you funniest poster of the 2015-2020 meller awards. 

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The Gomez trade because others have noted the worst ones already 

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Probably the Cammalleri trade. I think that was the first time I stopped loving the Habs. I was still a kid in the 90s so the Roy and Turgeon trades only hurt in hindsight. The Cammalleri trade mid game because a guy tried to be honest made me embarrassed to be a fan of this club. It felt like I was cheering for the bad guys and didn't know it until now. Without that trade I would be a little less cynical. 

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Come on. The Roy trade is one of the worst trades in the history of the NHL and *the* worst in Habs history. That one by a mile.

 

Chelios for Savard is #2 on my list.

 

The Gomez deal might be #3. 

 

Only then does the Subban deal enter into my calculations. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Machine of Loving Grace said:

Probably the Cammalleri trade. I think that was the first time I stopped loving the Habs. I was still a kid in the 90s so the Roy and Turgeon trades only hurt in hindsight. The Cammalleri trade mid game because a guy tried to be honest made me embarrassed to be a fan of this club. It felt like I was cheering for the bad guys and didn't know it until now. Without that trade I would be a little less cynical. 

 

That was quite an interesting night here on the site - we set quite a few records in terms of hits, people online at any given time, etc.  That was a very unique moment with the way that whole situation went down.

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25 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

Come on. The Roy trade is one of the worst trades in the history of the NHL and *the* worst in Habs history. That one by a mile.

 

Chelios for Savard is #2 on my list.

 

The Gomez deal might be #3. 

 

Only then does the Subban deal enter into my calculations. 

 

 

 

It really is the Roy deal, and everything else after. There can be no debate about that.

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1 hour ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

Come on. The Roy trade is one of the worst trades in the history of the NHL and *the* worst in Habs history. That one by a mile.

 

Chelios for Savard is #2 on my list.

 

The Gomez deal might be #3. 

 

Only then does the Subban deal enter into my calculations. 

 

 

1. Roy trade

2. Chelios 

3. Mcdonagh

4. Leclair Dejardains

5. Langway

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1 hour ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

Come on. The Roy trade is one of the worst trades in the history of the NHL and *the* worst in Habs history. That one by a mile.

 

Chelios for Savard is #2 on my list.

 

The Gomez deal might be #3. 

 

Only then does the Subban deal enter into my calculations. 

 

It's kind of interesting to think what happens if they aren't made.

 

So they don't trade Roy after the Red Wings game, but they still want to move him. So maybe they wait a bit, cooler heads prevail, but the Molson's still wanted to cut costs so when his contract was up next year, he was probably walking to free agency. So maybe the Habs lose him for nothing. I know that doesn't make it any better but the organization back then was all about cutting costs. They traded Damphousse without even negotiating with him convinced he wouldn't take $3M per season.

 

Chelios for Savard should have never happened. Keep Chelios, keep Cassels, team still wins in 93, maybe goes further in 94, and maybe the team doesn't dismantle for finances with those extra playoff wins.

 

Gomez deal should have never included McDonaugh, as Sather had no idea who he was and it was said to be Gauthier who was low on him. Gainey should have consulted Timmins and Karpan. But I've heard that bringing in Gomez, Gionta, Mara, and Gill had a big effect on players opinions of the Canadiens as a destination. So Gomez was a bad trade, and he regressed fast, but we likely needed a guy like him with a strong reputation around the league.

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I wasn’t going to post in this thread but I thought about the Cammalleri trade as well. It’s probably not the worst but when we talk about playoff performers, I haven’t seen better than what he and Halak put together for us. Some people on here didn’t like him, but he could be counted on in the “clutch” (playoffs) during his brief stint with us. He was the best playoff point getter at the time, and has not seen the playoffs again since being traded. 

 

That’s not to mention that we got lovely Team Canada caliber Bourque back as the return. 

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5 hours ago, BCHabnut said:

1. Roy trade

2. Chelios 

3. Mcdonagh

4. Leclair Dejardains

5. Langway

 

Holy crow, how could I forget about that one? OUCH

 

The Langway trade was pretty bad as well. Funny how that one gets overlooked, even though it surely contributed to the then-unimaginable mediocrity of the early 1980s for the Habs. Our history of trading defencemen does seem to be remarkably bad. I also suspect that the Habs have been involved in an unusually high percentage of questionable-to-awful blockbusters. Maybe Boston can give us a run for the money, but we just might be league leaders in 'dodgy blockbuster trades.'

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56 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

Holy crow, how could I forget about that one? OUCH

 

The Langway trade was pretty bad as well. Funny how that one gets overlooked, even though it surely contributed to the then-unimaginable mediocrity of the early 1980s for the Habs. Our history of trading defencemen does seem to be remarkably bad. I also suspect that the Habs have been involved in an unusually high percentage of questionable-to-awful blockbusters. Maybe Boston can give us a run for the money, but we just might be league leaders in 'dodgy blockbuster trades.'

 

Boston traded a likely HOF centre in Joe Thornton for a package worse than what we got back for Roy and still won a Cup six years later because they drafted Krejci and Bergeron in second round picks and signed Marc Savard when he was healthy. It was good evidence that no one trade cripples your team. Bad management does. Same goes with the Seguin trade. Was it terrible? Yup. Did it derail the Bruins? Nope.

 

The worst trade Boston ever made though is probably giving up Ken Dryden for nothing to the Canadiens at the draft and watching him stop them again and again from winning a Cup after his debut. After Dryden retired, they were in the clear. Then another goalie they traded ended up stopping them from the Cup: Bill Ranford.

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The Roy trade is the obvious one

 

 

But man would I love to have that Gomez trade back, I would have absolutely loved to watch a top 3 of Markov, Subban and McDonaugh play together.

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Can i take back a draft pick. 

 

Can we draft Claude Giroux instead of David Fischer. 

 

Since we now have a #1 centre in 2009, it also means we no longer feel the pressure to make the Gomez trade. 

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14 minutes ago, Commandant said:

Can i take back a draft pick. 

 

Can we draft Claude Giroux instead of David Fischer. 

 

Since we now have a #1 centre in 2009, it also means we no longer feel the pressure to make the Gomez trade. 

 

That's a great one. Central Scouting had him #72 at mid-term and he moved up to #38 in the final but that draft was everywhere for people. Corey Emmerton was ranked #10 and fell to the second round. Fischer was ranked #29 and bombed his interviews so everyone thought he wouldn't make the first round. So he was a reach by Philly but why is Philly scouting a Quebec centre better than the Habs?

 

Mine would be Marian Hossa, since I think I broke an N64 controller when the Habs selected Jason Ward. All I knew from Hossa was the footage TSN showed and people saying he was the best pick for Montreal. And we went with Ward. If it wasn't for Koivu the 90s in the first round were a complete bust, which has more to do with the struggles of the organization than credit goes to. 95-98 we took Terry Ryan (8th overall), Matt Higgins (18th overall), Jason Ward (11th overall), and Eric Choinard (16th overall). We could have taken Iginla (11th overall, Habs thought Terry Ryan was Shane Doan), Briere (24th overall), Hossa (12th overall), and Simon Gagne (22nd overall). Even just two of those changing up and we don't limp into the 2000s.

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It's a great point about draft misses, but I do think that's a whole other category than disastrous trades. Every team has a long list of picks they blew. Not every team can claim to have thrown Chelios, Desjardins, Roy, and Macdonagh basically down the crapper. Blown picks are omnipresent, stink-o trades not so much.

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3 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

It's a great point about draft misses, but I do think that's a whole other category than disastrous trades. Every team has a long list of picks they blew. Not every team can claim to have thrown Chelios, Desjardins, Roy, and Macdonagh basically down the crapper. Blown picks are omnipresent, stink-o trades not so much.

 

That same team has won trades too

acquiring Muller was a win... switching him for Turgeon right before he declined was another win... trading Turgeon was a loss.

acquiring Damphousse was a win

acquiring Courtnall was a win... switching him for Bellows was another win.

acquiring Bobby Smith was a win.
acquiring Kovalev was a win

- Rivet for Pacioretty and Gorges

 

 

Team has good trades too, we just remember the bad ones more.

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3 minutes ago, Commandant said:

 

That same team has won trades too

acquiring Muller was a win... switching him for Turgeon right before he declined was another win... trading Turgeon was a loss.

acquiring Damphousse was a win

acquiring Courtnall was a win... switching him for Bellows was another win.

acquiring Bobby Smith was a win.
acquiring Kovalev was a win

- Rivet for Pacioretty and Gorges

 

 

Team has good trades too, we just remember the bad ones more.

 

Completely agree. But I still think trades are categorically distinct from drafts, and also that the Habs probably have a higher number of disastrous major trades than most clubs.

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