moving on to this week: a double shot poll.
the more goals he scores, the more people talk about mike (michael ??) cammalleri's upcoming free-agency, and what darryl sutter should do about it. with the trade deadline just over a month away, and our GM's penchant to pull the trigger early, everybody's favorite water-cooler conversation these days involves who we'll pick up, and what we'll give up to get him (check out the comments on some of kent's recent posts for a variety of interesting trade predictions)
and, while duncan suggested separating these two polls by a week, i've decided that they truly belong together.....
[info from some guy with far too much time on his hands]
the flames face the colorado avalanche tonight, a team with whom we've made a handful of trades over the years, that didn't quite make the cut for the above polls (even with players like leopold, fleury, regehr, and tanguay all switching sides). i expect nothing short of a win.
[note: uhhh... the flames don't play the 'lanche till tomorrow... which totally explains why i can't find it on the radio or the television !!!!]
:)
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I went with the Lanny trade for best, simply because the guy is an icon. Iginla is an amazing player and an amazing person, but Lanny Macdonald's influence in Calgary extends far past the rink.
For worst I went with the Ference and Kobasew trade. That's a tough one, because neither Ference nor Kobasew will never play at the level of Hull, Gilmour, or Savard. But I'm most familiar with this trade, and I know that it made sense only by looking at the counting stats of the players involved. It was clearly a disaster in the locker room.
obviously there are reasons to choose any of the trades i selected for best or worst, which is why this could be a fascinating pair of polls.
for best i chose the trade that brought gilmour to calgary in '88 because i honestly believe it was the final puzzle piece that led to winning the cup.
for worst i also chose the ference/kobasew deal, because it looked pretty decent on paper and was, as you say, a total disaster in reality.
i think it's the worst (other than the gilmour --> toronto trade, which was also a fiasco) because the hull, giguere & savard trades all occurred when they were prospects, and though they obviously surpassed their tradeday potential, there's no way that potential could have been measured or presumed.
that's my thinking, anyways....
I forgot to include my other reason for picking Lanny over Iggy (since Iggy would be my second choice): Lanny's superior facial hair.
Something I hadn't considered, which you raise in your comment, is that there are two ways to judge trades: how they looked at the time, and how they turned out. For instance, I'm judging the worst trade by the former, the best trade by the latter.
agreed.
i'm pretty sure the lanny trade looked good for the flames on the day it happened, and just looked better every day until his jersey was retired. same with the gilmour trade, though he just needed a quick ride outta the lou and calgary was ready to deal...
on the other hand, kent nilsson for parts (eventually becoming nieuwendyk) probably seemed pretty grim on tradeday, and we all know al coates suffered a hailstorm of scrutiny when he dealt his team's beloved captain (niewy) for some kid (iginla). both of those big deals became franchise-altering (in a good way).
and kipper for a sack of pucks was obviously a no-brainer.
there are two ways to judge trades: how they looked at the time, and how they turned out.
ohyeah, and the ference/kobasew trade gets a prize in both capacities: terrible on tradeday, but turned out kinda awful as well...
;)
I went with the Lanny trade for best, simply because the guy is an icon. Iginla is an amazing player and an amazing person, but Lanny Macdonald's influence in Calgary extends far past the rink.
while i agree completely with what you're saying here, i have a feeling that twenty years after iggy retires, people might say the same about him....
I suspect you're right about Iginla. He's certainly got that "aw, shucks" likeability about him.
Fun fact: Barring injuries or trades, in a 22 game stretch in the middle of next season we'll see Iginla, Langkow and Conroy all play their 1000th regular season NHL game.
in the middle of next season we'll see Iginla, Langkow and Conroy all play their 1000th regular season NHL game.
find a fourth NHL guy that fits this criteria (especially if he's a goaltender !!!) and i swear to god you'll win kent's satellite mp3 playery thing.
So I might be wrong here because I was pretty young when the trade happened but didnt Savard become a little bitch and ask to be traded when he was? I seem to recall hearing he was being all whiney and stuff before he was shipped out. Didnt Bure too?
i dunno. possibly... but in my opinion, just because someone wants a trade doesn't mean you have to ship him out for a player of ruslan zainullin's calibre.
no offense to RZ but his stats are less than noteworthy and the guy never played a single game in the NHL.
at least when bure left calgary, the team at least got a roster player of half decent worth (rob niedermayer). not to mention that bure played his best years in a flaming C and his numbers decline rapidly after the move...
The Gilmour deal wins the "worst trade" one for me, hands down. I don't think I was a teenager yet when it happened and I still remember hearing news of the trade on the radio and gasping in disbelief because it seemed - even to my barely sentient, pre-pubescent brain - that it was a terrible deal for the Flames. And I was right.
Gary Leeman is still a punchline in Calgary thanks to that trade.
BTW - the trade occurred in '91-'92...not 01-02.
Interesting poll. I've always thought the Iginla-Nieuwendyk deal was very unique in NHL history, as it was a great trade for both teams - no losers. I don't even think too many Dallas fans wish they had Iginla instead, since Nieuwendyk led them to a cup (almost two, in fact).
I'm glad to see Ference and the Bruins doing so well this year. I'd love to see Ference hoist ol' Stanley (as long as they're not playing the Flames, but that would actually lessen the sting of another finals loss).
The Gilmour deal wins the "worst trade" one for me, hands down. I don't think I was a teenager yet when it happened and I still remember hearing news of the trade on the radio and gasping in disbelief because it seemed - even to my barely sentient, pre-pubescent brain - that it was a terrible deal for the Flames. And I was right.
I was the same way, and about the same age. I remember getting out a pencil and paper and drawing up lines, and wondering what the hell had happened.
Also picked Gilmour for the best. Talk about getting maximum value for Mike Bullard.
I also went for the Gilmour trades for both best and worst. Best when we got him, because combined with 99 going to LA, it felt like that trade was certainly putting the Flames over the top (although people forget how bad he was in that first-round near loss to the Canucks, bad in fact up until he lucked into an OT goal against LA in round 2, at which time he unexpectedly turned into a monster the rest of the way).
Bad trade, again the Gilmour deal was horrific right from the start. You could match up each of the 5 players in the deal one on one, and the Flames got the worse player (and in Gilmour-Leeman case much worse)...we even lost the backup goalie part of the trade!
The gilmour trade from 1992 was easily the worst trade, as it has never made any sense... most of the players that the Flames got in the deal were gone in a couple of years, the longest lasting guy being Michel Petit... The Kipper trade was actually pretty one-sided in Calgary's favour, as Kipper was not an unknown quantity to Sutter (seriously, the old coach comes to the team wanting to take a guy off their hands and they aren't a little bit sceptical?)...
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