Best/Worst trades in Bruins history

[yave1964]

   Gonna start a new one in here, beginning with the bears for no particular reason. I am going to list some of the best and Worst trades in club history. If there is interest, I will work my way through all thirty teams.

  Obviously there will be some repeats, you cannot have someones best trade without it being another clubs worst. But anyway, starting with the Bruins, here are what I feel are some of their best and worst deals ever:

BEST:

 

TERRY SAWCHUK TRADED TO THE RED WINGS FOR JOHNNY BUCYK. Sawchuk was a bust in Beantown, the Wings had traded him and put Glen Hall in net and while Hall was brilliant they quit winning cups when Sawchuk and his mental disorders left town. The Wings decided to trade to reaquire him and gave up Johnny 'Chief' Bucyk as the return. Sawchuk was a bust in his return to Detroit as his demons battled him more than opposing shooters, while Bucyk went on to play a 21 year hall of fame career in Boston that included 2 Stanley Cups and 545 goals in a Bruin sweater.

 

TUUKA RASK TRADED FROM THE LEAFS FOR ANDREW RAYCROFT: The Leafs were faced with a decision, who was the future in net, Rask or young Vesa Toskala. They banked on Toskala as the future and traded Rask to Boston for Andrew Raycroft who they hoped would bridge the net until Toskala was ready.

  Instead, Toskala had a couple of good years and then faded, Raycroft was an unmitigated disaster and Rask has turned into one of the leagues best after serving as an understudy to Tim Thomas, he has won a Vezina and is a well established presence in net.

 

PHILL ESPOSITO, KENNY HODGE AND FRED STANFIELD FROM THE HAWKS IN EXCHANGE FOR PIT MARTIN AND GIL MAROTTE.

 Not saying that Marotte and Martin were bad players, far from it, but they were spear carriers at best. The Hawks made the trade because Espo was a pain in the ass for management.

  Stanfield went on to become a point a game winger for half a dozen years, Kenny Hodge set a record (since broken) for points in a year by a right winger and starred for 11 years in Beantown. Espo became a superstar among superstars, setting an all time record with 76 goals and 152 points in a season, becoming the spiritual leader of the Summit series team and winning two Stanley Cups. An all time great trade.

  A side note, Hodge was traded late in his career when he had little left to the Rangers for Rick Middleton. Hodge was done, scoring 22 goals before hanging them up, Middleton scored 402 goals and 900 points for Boston.

 

WORST TRADES IN BRUINS HISTORY:

 

 JOE THORNTON TO THE SHARKS FOR A BRAD STUART, WAYNE PRIMEAU AND MARCO STURM. Inexcusable. Just an awful deal giving up a future hall of famer who will rank as one of the ten greatest centers ever at career end for a rugged defender, a bottom line center, and a middle six winger. The Bruins with Thornton, Bergeron and Krejci down the middle would have had one of the greatest trios down the middle of all time.

 

 AL IAFRATE ACQUIRED FROM THE CAPITALS FOR JOE JUNEAU.

Early in his career Iafrate was a brilliant point man and star defenseman who looked like a stud but could not stay healthy. The Bruins gave up the talented winger Juneau for Iafrate who played 13 games before getting hurt and missing twoa nd a half seasons, never playing another game in Boston. Juneau went on to have a solid, sometimes brilliant career in Washington for a decade.

 

TYLER SEGUIN AND RICH PEVERLY TRADED TO THE STARS FOR LOUI ERIKSSON, JOE MORROW, MATT FRASER AND REILLY SMITH.

  This may end up the granddaddy of them all. Eriksson has been mostly a bust in Boston, but had a good year this last season. Reilly Smith is a 50 point scorer-in Florida after an inadvisable trade sent him south for Jimmy Hayes who was awful last year. Joe Morrow is still trying to establish himself as a 7th defenseman at best, and Fraser is long gone. To add insult to injury, Eriksson is an UFA this offseason.

  Seguin has been brilliant, he is truly one of the top ten forwards in the game today and may even rank higher. He has scored 37,37 and 33 goals in the past three season and combines with Jamie Benn to give the Stars one of the games best one-two punches.

  Eriksson is a free agent coming off his only good year in the past three. The Bruins are faced with the dilemma of overpaying to justify the seguin trade or winding up with Morrow, a 7th defenseman who is not very good as the sole return for Seguin. Oof.

 

  that is that. Best and Worst in Boston as I see it. I left Kessel off the list but it was a lose call, so was Blake Wheeler who deserves mention. Please feel free to share thoughts or any you feel I may have missed. I may continue this with other teams. Thanks.

[flyercanuck]

Wheeler was a bad trade. Kessel was a great trade for Boston...then they sent away two really good young players they got in the deal. Thornton trade was brutal.

[yave1964]

2 hours ago, flyercanuck said:

Wheeler was a bad trade. Kessel was a great trade for Boston...then they sent away two really good young players they got in the deal. Thornton trade was brutal.

Exactly my thoughts. I came close to mentioning them but thought the ones I listed were more apropos.

  The Kessel deal especially would have been listed if the Bruins had not more or less given the two primary pieces, Seguin and Dougie Hamilton away. Hamilton to Calgary for a used jockstrap was one I considered as well. Boston seems to have a history of swinging for the fences and either hitting it out of the park or striking out badly.

[J0e Th0rnton]

The Thornton trade was the last straw for a longtime Bruins fan who watched for like 10 years as they shipped out anyone who wanted any sort of money for the most part.

 

People talk like the Thornton trade somehow won the Bruins the cup a few years later, but it is absolute BS. Quite frankly, the GM who traded him was a DUMB sob who signed all kinds of big clunky players for the new era.

 

Seriously. The Bruins should have been in the most prime position of any team after that lockout. They had like 3 players total under contract and could build any way they wanted.

 

here is a post I made about it in 2008

Quote

I don't see how Thornton "Hit a wall" in Boston. He was scoring on pace for 123 points(33 points in 22 games)and the whole team minus him was doing absolutely nothing.

The team had hit a wall primarily because of MOC, Sinden and Jacobs retardedness. They cheapskated out several marquee players and replaced them with bums.

Rolston(34 goals, 79 points), Nylander(79 points) and Knuble(34 goals, 65 points) all had career years that year because they let them go via free agency not to mention Sergei Gonchar, who just had his best 3 year scoring streak ever. Replacing them were bums like Brad Isbister, Dave Scatchard, Tom Fitgerald,  Shawn McEachern and an over the hill Alexei Zhamnov who they only got because they failed on Modano and had promised the fans a big free agent name via Newspapers.
Raycroft, who had just won the calder, was playing hurt, and his confidence became shattered.

They built to be "The big bad bruins" when the entire format of the game just changed back to speed and skill. Epic failure. Boston dropped from just outside a playoff spot in 9th to 13th and went from top 20 to bottom 6 in the league just like that, meanwhile a second last place San Jose squad boomed up into 5th place in the west.

 

[yave1964]

2 minutes ago, J0e Th0rnton said:

The Thornton trade was the last straw for a longtime Bruins fan who watched for like 10 years as they shipped out anyone who wanted any sort of money for the most part.

 

People talk like the Thornton trade somehow won the Bruins the cup a few years later, but it is absolute BS. Quite frankly, the GM who traded him was a DUMB sob who signed all kinds of big clunky players for the new era.

 

Seriously. The Bruins should have been in the most prime position of any team after that lockout. They had like 3 players total under contract and could build any way they wanted.

 

here is a post I made about it in 2008

 

I would rank the trade of Thornton as the worst which is saying something what with the trade of Seguin hanging over their head, kind of a 'Thornton 2' type of deal.

 I know from previous conversations that you are not a huge Espo fan, but he could play, he was Gretzky before the great one came alone. 152 points in a year, yeah Orr had a hellova lot to do with it, but year in and out he was a star of the first order. Throw in Hodge who for a long time held the record for points in a season among all RWers and the underrated Stanfield and this is the steal of steals for this club.

[J0e Th0rnton]

Seguin is the current flavor of perspective for stupid I know. But consider that Thornton is 37 years old and just outscored Seguin by 9 points this season.  Even if you round up for the 10 games Seguin missed, their PPG was nearly identical.

 

Also think about this. In 11 years with the Sharks, Thornton has missed 10 games for the sharks TOTAL. 2 for suspension and 1 because he could not fly in quick enough after the trade. So 7 games in 11 seasons. Seguin has missed more than that each season for Dallas already.

 

Talk about getting your money's worth. Thornton also signed wonderful hometown discounts for San Jose right after he won the Hart, taking near or less than guys like freaking Gomez and Drury were making and equal to Patrick Marleau just so the team could afford depth(how Wilson spent the depth money other seasons before this is another story)

[J0e Th0rnton]

4 minutes ago, yave1964 said:

I would rank the trade of Thornton as the worst which is saying something what with the trade of Seguin hanging over their head, kind of a 'Thornton 2' type of deal.

 I know from previous conversations that you are not a huge Espo fan, but he could play, he was Gretzky before the great one came alone. 152 points in a year, yeah Orr had a hellova lot to do with it, but year in and out he was a star of the first order. Throw in Hodge who for a long time held the record for points in a season among all RWers and the underrated Stanfield and this is the steal of steals for this club.

Heh. I guess you could be right. I just hate how his numbers were "Ok" before or and "ok" after Orr.

 

Reminds me of how Thornton elevated guys stats. I assume with a guy like Orr he would get even more elevation

[OccamsRazor]

Yeah let's not forget Zac Rinaldo for a 3rd pick....bad bad trade.