The WORST Trades For All 32 NHL Teams 

the thornton trade actually helped the bruins, it allowed bergeron to become the 1st center and krejci to become the 2nd center, allowed them to sign chara and then they won the cup after that.

Seems a bit crazy to not have the Patrick Roy trade for the Habs as the worst in franchise history. They probably could’ve won another cup without making that trade

There is NOTHING worse for Montreal than trading away Patrik Roy. Gomez and Mcdunnah was a nonsense side show

Honestly the Fleury trade wasn't that bad in hindsight and made a lot of sense. We traded him for cap space not for nothing. Vegas won't have their Cup without that trade. Their worst trade imo, is trading a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd for Tomas Tatar

If you're going put the Gretzky deal as a trade and not a sale, then for Pittsburgh their worst would have to be the Jagr deal to the Caps for prospects and a little cash, which was made to keep the team from going bankrupt, being sold, and possibly moved out of Pittsburgh. It was both a franchise saving move and the worst trade in their history.

There is a far worse Blackhawks trade. Phil Esposito to the Bruins for Pit Martin and a.couple other pieces. Pretty much the Chicago version of trading away Joe Thornton, with the added pain of Boston getting a couple of cups out of it.

The Neely trade is no longer the worst trade by Vancouver. The trade for Ekman-Larson is, and it's not even close.

Completely disagree about the Capitals -- 2004 was a fire sale year once they fired Bruce Cassidy. It yielded Alex Ovechkin. The worst trade the Capitals made was in 2013 with the Nashville Predators: Martin Erat for Filip Forsberg.

Gretzky was not traded. He was sold

the kings traded Gabriel Vilardi he's going to be huge in a few years massive talent

Chicago trading Phil Esposito away to Boston is their worst trade. Rangers trading Rick Middleton to Boston thats their worst

A little befuddled that any Canadiens trade would get the nod over Patrick Roy. That trade was so devastating, that no team residing in Canada has won a Stanley Cup since. Don't be surprised if they name a Cup-drought curse after him 30 years from now.

Arizona's worst trade has to have been when they were the OG Jets. Draper for $1.

You completely missed THE WORST trade in NHL history. Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge, and Fred Stanfield to Boston for Pit Martin and a couple of guys you've never heard of. One of the top 5 scorers of all time, along with two all-stars, in return for one all-star.

Drafting Corey Perry as a direct result of a trade, instantly makes that trade decent. If that's actually Anaheim's worst ever trade, they've done great overall.

The Rangers trading Rick Middleton For Ken Hodge was brutal.

The Fleury trade, while controversial at the time, was the best thing for the team. 2023 Stanley Cup Champions.

Bruins trading Ken Dryden to Montreal for two players who never played a game in the NHL is a much worse trade than the Thornton trade

The worst “trade” in Blues history is anything in the 1990s involving Vancouver. In the span of 2 years, the Blues traded Geoff Courtnall, Sergio Momesso, Cliff Ronning, Robert Dirk, Jeff Brown, Bret Hetican and Nathan LaFayette to the Canucks in exchange for Petr Nedved, Dan Quinn and Garth Butcher. Pat Quinn had to have had pictures of Bob Berry with a goat or something.

I still say the Oilers sold Gretzky for $15M. And even though Pocklington didn't want to go through with trading Gretzky, his businesses were in desperate need of money. There is a documentary where McNall and Pocklington were interviewed and they discussed the process of the sale and accompanying trade. So Gretzky was not traded, but he asked for McSorley and Krush to join him in LA, which led to the trade for the package of players and prospects. Luongo would ultimately return to Florida for the final years of his playing career, bringing it full circle. Not only did Columbus acquiring Jeff Carter backfire on them, but so did their decision to trade him to LA and how the return didn't work out for them. The Sittler trade was the final step in Harold Ballard's master plan to finally get rid of him. Not only did the Islanders give up on Chara too soon, but so did Ottawa, as they sent him to Boston not long after acquiring him.

Maple leafs trading away Tuukka Rask to Boston could also be argued to have a place on this list. At least a dishonorable mention.

I can think of a tree that was worse than the Darryl Sittler one…. How about training their 1991 first round pick for Tom Kurvers…. Tom Kurvers ended up being a bum, and that first round pick they traded away, turned into Scott Niedermayer. One of the greatest defencemen of all time.

The Coyotes franchise worst trade by far was when they were the Jets and they traded Selanne for Kilger, Tverdovsky, & a 3rd

Explain to me how anaheims trade was bad? They traded a player and got Corey Perry in the end…and the player returned for a resurgence….that’s a great trade

LOVE this topic. Fairly recent to finding your content regularly and like it all man. Keep up the great work!

lol Johansen trade was good for Nashville, ask any preds fan they will say the same. Preds don't make it to the finals in 2017 and don't win President Trophy in 2018 without Johansen. Look at his playoffs stats in his 3 first season in Nashville. Plus Weber/Subban and Ellis were always better than Seth Jones has ever been

For the Sharks it’s the Karlsson trade bar none. We had already had Burns so it didn’t make sense in the first place. Gave up a good 3C in Chris Tierney, Rudolf Balcers, Dylan Demelo who’s a good depth D-Man, Josh Norris who was the best prospect we had and put up 35 goals his sophomore NHL season with Ottawa even though right now he’s having a third shoulder surgery, and a 2020 1st rounder that after the Sharks fell so hard after signing Karlsson that it ended up being a #3 Overall selection who Ottawa used to select the best player of that draft Tim Stutzle. The San Jose Sharks were never the same. We continued to fall, and have now sold off every player that was tradeable and for the second season in a row are a basement dweller. This wasn’t entirely Karlssons fault but that trade expedited a basement dweller of a team that is stripping everything down to the frame before rebuilding again. Worst trade ever for the Sharks.

I personally think the Ottawa/Colorado/Nashville trade in 2017 was the worst for the Predators. It was clear (and had been for a while) that David Poile wanted to bring in Duchene who had also expressed wanting to play in Nashville, but the best Poile could do was acquire Kyle Turris who was immediately signed to a six year contract in the same day. By the second year into the deal Turris was noticeably struggling, and to make things even murkier, Poile signed Duchene in the 2019 offseason making Turris mostly redundant on a roster that by then included Ryan Johansen, Duchene, and Nick Bonino which effectively made Turris a $6M/year third liner at best or a 4th line center at worst. After just the third year into his contract the Preds bought Turris out. Meanwhile Colorado got a major injection of young talent and prospects into their promising rebuild including Sam Girard from Nashville who has continued to do well and won the cup with them. The Predators are still currently paying Turris $2M a year and will until 2028. I think this trade is worse than the Johansen/Jones trade because while Johansen did not become the true first line center as advertised/hoped, he was still a more-than-serviceable player who made a big impact during their cup window, and I don't think it's fair to factor in the 8x8M contract extension into the choice as that came to pass a year after the trade itself and following the Stanley Cup Final run. That extension could be up for debate as one of the worst contracts that the Predators ever signed though.

The Joe Thorton trade was the Bruins worst trade but it was the key to relieve $$$ to sign Chara. The best move they ever did. Chara changed the identity of the Bruins, to a fierce team with strong work ethic that holds up to this day. Looking back, I am glad they made that trade.

Fleury was not the reason VGK didn't make the playoffs that season, they suffered lots of injuries, and Deboer was not the best coach for the job to take the team to Stanley Cup glory. They needed the cap space and they did what they had to do. Yea it sucks the way they did Fleury dirty, as well as shipping off other big name misfits like Nate Schmidt and the Reilly Smith, but VGK is currently vindicated in their ruthlessness with a cup and an NHL Record for undefeated defending cup champion with its current team. Wouldn't be surprise if they Back to Back this year and other teams start adopting the same ruthlessness of just dumping players to free cap space and get draft picks.

Zarley Zalapski not Zalipsky may he rest in peace

Lifelong B’s fan here. Thornton was unhappy in Boston and his play showed it. I’m glad he made a soft landing and extended his career in stellar fashion.

Love this channel you really put the work in for the stats and facts for every video

as a hawks fan, im glad seeing someone come up with a worse trade than the panarin trade to pick apart

Why isn't Roy's trade set as the worst for the Canadiens? Even if they were forced to do it, the impact was much worst than the trade with Gomez. Just like Gretzky's trade, they were forced to trade him for financial reasons. Roy was traded for... different reasons!

No Patrick Roy trade here? That was a catastrophe for the Habs

Calgary Flames worse trade is trading away Brett Hull period.

Bruins honorable mention: Tom Fergus (After Boston 437 games 137-208-345) for Bill Derlago (With Boston 39 games 5-16-21)

TY bubba. Well earned new SUB. Keep Hockey Manly!!! Others can play on a field.

You also have to mention that when the Ducks traded Jeff Friesen to the Devils, even though both teams benefited, he was ultimately the one who scored the series winning goals against the Ducks in the 2003 SCF Game 7.

I can't believe you never mentioned the Erat-Forsberg and Jeannot trades. I think these were way worse than the Lang and Richards traded, especially given the circumstances explained in this very video

As a Caps fans I gotta say the Lang trade wasn't even close to being a bad deal (see Dino Ciccarelli or Filip Forsberg for examples of terrible Caps trades) they got a pretty decent return on Lang in picks and a serviceable nhl winger. The Caps were looking to rebuild at that time and front office was pretty certain there was going to be a work stoppage in the near future (turned out to be a whole year) giving them lots of time to get those picks ready for the nhl.

ALL of us in Vegas were pissed about the Fleury trade. His agent got into a pissing match with the coach, so MAF was a casualty of their bad blood. We still miss Flower!

This has to rank as the worst trade in Detroit Red Wings history. Consider this pre-1970 trade between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings. February 10, 1960: Red Kelly was traded by the Detroit Red Wings to the Toronto Maple Leafs for Marc Reaume. Kelly won 4 Stanley Cups with Detroit between 1949 and 1955. He was first team all star 6 times and second team all star twice in the 8 years between 1949-57 as a defenseman. He was the first winner of the Norris Trophy. Montreal won five straight cups between 1956-60. Toronto's GM, Punch Imlach, knew he needed a great center to go against Montreal's Jean Beliveau if Toronto had any chance of winning a cup in the 1960s. Since Kelly was a great skater Imlach convinced Kelly to move from all-star defenseman to Center. Toronto won Stanley Cups in 1962, 63, 64 and 67 with Kelly at Center. Red Kelly won a total of 8 Stanley Cups in his career (tied with Maurice Richard, Serge Savard and Jacques Lemaire). Only Henri Richard (11) Jean Beliveau (10), Yvan Cournoyer (10) and Claude Provost (9) have won more as players.

Pretty rough start to a video when you begin with Anaheim and state, outright, that their worst trade resulted in them acquiring a player who played in parts of 14 seasons for the team and scoring almost 400 goals and winning a Hart and a Richard trophy, in exchange for 4 seasons of a player, during which said player scored a total of 80 goals... sounds like a win for Anaheim.

While the B's trade of Joe Thornton looks horrible from a glance, you have to realize that trade allowed Boston to get Bergeron and Krejci minutes as Top 6 centers, it also cleared the cap space needed to sign Zdeno Chara.

Oh no. Im sorry man but this video needed a bit more research on the Bruins trade. As a Bruins fan I used to think it was a terrible trade too until I found out that we traded away Thornton so that we would have enough to pay Patrice Bergeron when he was , so you were correct that the Bruins wanted to move in a differenr direction. This was a cap dump and we took 3 players that wouldnt take up too much cap space. It was 1000% the correct decision and was not our worst trade. I would argue that honor belongs to Tyler Seguin.

It might be recency bias but worst for the caps would be trading away Filip Forsberg for Martin Erat. At least the Lang trade brought back good players in Fleischmann and Green.

I think Vegas looked down it's pipeline and saw some future gems to man the net. Keeping Fleury would have stalled that and it was a good move all around

The Blues to me made a lot of the worst trades ever. Having Mike Keenan as coach who his own players despised, turned a franchise that made the playoffs EVERY YEAR and could have won many stanley cups, into a unmotivated underperforming team that would always lose by round 2. They should have had it all, I mean they had Pronger AND Macinnis who won back to back Norris, and barely made the conference finals 1 time in a decade.... the Shanahan Janney thing hurt them a lot too but, Hull wanting to leave hurt them more. Adam Oates and Rod Brind'Amour being there long term, man. That franchise reeeeaaallllyyy should have many stanley cups.... 25 years in the playoffs in a row and I believe ONLY 2 conference finals, that's it.

I’m not even a Bruins fan and I can tell this is done by someone that just noticed Thornton was drafted by Boston and thought …”wow huge mistake moving him”

As a Vegas fan, I was all for the Fleury trade. If it wasn't for it, we probably wouldn't have won the Cup. Most importantly, it got rid of that hack agent of his being associated with this team, with all connections cut the year after when they booted Max Injur-etty.

Im not sure why jumbo gettin traded from boston was bad looking back since the bruins made 3 appearances in the final after parting ways with him in 2011, 2013 and 2019 and the sharks eventually did in 2016 along with conference final runs in 2010, 2011 and 2019 as well?

I’d honestly say that the Kunitz trade for the Ducks was way worse as he became a very good role player for the penguins in 2009 and 2017. Maybe if the Ducks kept him around they might’ve been in the 2017 Stanley Cup finals instead of the Predators.

Friesen won the cup in '03 with the Devils. They beat the Ducks in the finals and was credited with the game winning goal in game 7

What a second.... You mean to tell me Future Considerations has a name and that name is Kent Strong??? Does THG know about this lol Great video. Enjoying your channel. Best of luck to you in the New Year

As much as I hated to see Sittler go (and McDonald for that matter due to awful and vindictive ownership and management) I think two trades are worse. Giving up the draft pick that turned into Scott Niedermeyer and trading Rask for Rycroft

100% correct choice for the Avs. That Drury trade still haunts my dreams

Part 2 on Nashville: RyJo was later traded to Colorado at 50% retention in exchange for an older, beat up Alex Galchenyuk, who Nashville never signed. Meanwhile, Johansen became a key player on Colorado's power play and scored 4 goals in his first 6 games with his new team.

How exactly is the caps trading Lang a bad move? Lang was 34 on a bad team, the capitals wanted to rebuild, so they got a decent return for him in a 1st that ended up being Mike Green in the same year they won the draft lottery and got Ovi. That’s a pretty great trade off if you ask me especially with the hindsight of the regular season domination that would come in the Ovechkin-Bäckström era and eventual first cup in franchise history.

I was anticipating for the infamous Poegge for Rask trade..

What has Fleury done for the teams he's been traded, got vegas to the finals than choked in a must win game 4 where he should've been almost impossible to beat. Then the following year he gave up 4 goals in the span of 10 minutes blowing a 3 goal lead and letting in one in ot losing the game and series, everyone makes the excuse that it was because of the sharks powerplay, but it's common knowledge that your goalie is supposed to be your 1 penalty killer, then he followed that up with that horrible turnover in a game that they were under 1 minute away from winning, and gave Montreal all the confidence they needed to eliminate them. What did he do before the trade, won 1 cup then lead the pens to four 1st round exits in 6 years, then got pulled after a game and a half of the first rd so Murray could go in and lead the pens to a cup destroying Fleurys best numbers in the process, than Fleury got pulled the next year and Murray again lead the pens to another cup. Fleury is the most overrated goalie in the nhl, 3 separate head coaches have lost complete confidence in him for the playoffs, he's lost his starting role numerous times, his atrocious puck handling skills has cost teams plsyoff series and Canada gold at the WJC, and his rebound control is absolutely horrible. Very strong pens and Vegas teams have made him look better than he is, and it'll be a sad day if he passes a true legend in the pre shootout era Patrick Roy

Meh, I'd argue, and usually do, the burnsie trade isn't the worst trade in the history of the franchise. Got a serviceable Coyle, Seto (who was a good potential forward, but never amounted to much) and Zack Phillips, who, as a late 1st rounder, couldn't be expected to be much as most NHL draftees amount to nothing. Should have done the Barker trade for Leddy/Johansson. That one hurt deep for Wild fans, especially since Leddy was part of team that won the cup. This was just the start to fletcher fucking the team over for years to come, outside a certain 5th round draft pick. An alternative would have been Nino for Rask or even the Martin Hanzal and Ryan White trade deadline deal that was so fucking stupid and a waste of draft picks to, yet again, lose in the 1st round.

Seguin trade was way worse for bruins. Stuart and primeau were traded in same deal to Calgary for ference and kobasew, kobasew was later flipped to Minnesota for picks and minor leaguers, they then flipped some of those assets to Florida for seidenberg, ference and seidenberg were massive pieces to the 2011 cup. In the Seguin deal they basically got nothing, lost all assets for nothing.

Well I was more upset about the Tyler Seguin deal rather than Joe Thornton

Amazing video mate as always, for the Senators (although it was via free agency) I think that choosing Redden over Chara backfired in a massive way lol!

An honorable mention needs to be the old Winnipeg Jets franchise trading Kris Draper to the Wings for $1.

When Joe Thornton got traded it was a shock around the league because nobody knew he was available, that part of the trade was bad. Its level of bad is blunted by 2011.

No argument from me, a Penguins fan regarding the Naslund for Stojanov trade… but there was another trade that deserved to get the gong: George Ferguson to the Minnesota North Stars for Anders Hakansson and an exchange of first round draft picks. The Penguins finished dead last that season, but could not capitalize on draft day as Baz Bastien traded away the number one overall draft pick. They had to wait until 15th to draft Bob Errey. Bastien died in March 1983, Hakansson was traded to the LA Kings that September for the rights to Kevin Stevens.

Maybe you should do a best deals/trades . I would think one of if not the top of the list for best deal would be Detroit getting Selke trophy winning Kris Draper from Winnipeg for $1 !

I would say Toronto trading Tukka Rask to Boston for Andrew Raycroft.... totally turned out lopsided

The Ducks worse trade is one that saw them eventually get the player back plus a Hart/Richard Trophy winner AND a Stanley Cup. Every team should be so unfortunate.

Your unfamiliarity with the Hasek trade shows. He was not going to play for Buffalo anymore and would not let Detroit get stripped to be uncompetitive. He brokered the deal. And why are you showing Lanny McDonald when talking about Darryl Sittler?

Trading Killer was inexcusable. The Flames were brutal for more than a decade afterwards

Flyers trading a first rounder to the Caps for Steve Eminger was worse than the Hartnell trade. Add in the fact the Caps used it to draft John Carlson and it's even worse.

Spot on for the Devils. Never got to see Verbeek, but from what I've heard from the old timer Devils fans/seen from old games is that he was really solid for us. Numbers don't lie, he's 7th all time in goals for the franchise. In general, he had 522 G/540 A/1062 P for his career. I think he would've been a great offensive piece on the cup teams for sure.

Something I think is lost in this scenarios is the players thriving in other locations isn’t just because the player turned out to be good. The found the right people to bring out their full potential. It’s like talking about guys that left bands right before they became famous. It’s usually that missing piece that is the catalyst to their greatness. It’s not a given that their greatness would’ve been achieved if things didn’t change. Just food for thought.

Drouin trade worse than Mcdonaugh imo

A few Original Six era trades were worse for the Wings. My pick would be losing prime Ted Lindsay and Glenn Hall in one swoop and getting peanuts in return. The fact GM Adams had justified trading away Sawchuk 2 years prior by pointing to the fact the Wings had Hall makes it all the more disastrous.

re: Flames trade Yes, thank you. So many other similar lists will cite the trade of Iginla, which was pretty terrible. But this trade in 1992 set the team back over a decade at least.

Surprisingly, you didn't highlight the Caps Forsberg for Erat in a one-for-one. Another trade the Caps were involved in was for Dale Hunter and Clint Malarchuk from Quebec. In return, the Capitals gave up center Alan Haworth, left-wing Gaetan Duchesne, and their first-round pick of that year. That first round pick was used on drafting none other than Joe Sakic.

that 90s pens team was my fav..stevens, samuelson, jagr, mario....they need to bring back them jerseys with the grey strip tho

Worts Montreal trade was Sergachev for Drouin.

The Ad with Uber Dads Reserving Airport Rides brought me here 😂😂😂

Interesting list, but I still think Anaheim's Selanne trade sounds like a good deal considering they later drafted Perry because of the trade. Then I want to point out that when Chicago traded Alexei Zhamnov, they got several role players who helped win the Stanley Cup with the team :)

San Jose never capitalized on the Thornton trade though. He helped bring them to the playoffs, but never more than that.

19:00 Michael Phelps played hockey too? What an athlete.

Remember with the Edmonton Oilers Wayne Gretzky is the one who asked for the trade so really you guys should dig deeper and try to find a worse trade that that team did because it's not their fault that their star player wants to move on for more money

Id argue the Avs trading for Theodore was their worst. It was a trade and contract that set the Avs back 10 years, and they were only roughly 10 years established at the time.

I think it's amazing that none of original six made their worst trades before the 80's. Maybe that's just as far back as you look?

I'm a Habs fan, Patrick Roy's trade still hurts 30 years later, and is not even mentionned here... Sad for Fleury, but hey, Vegas got the Cup, hard to consider it a bad trade.

kinda funny that Vegas had fleury the first year and went to the cup and lost and now has Hill and won so I'd say no it wasn't a bad trade just wish Fleury would have worked out

Considering how it eventually shaked, out (i.e. the Stanley Cup), that trade was pretty good for the Ducks.

The Avalanche trade of Drury while bad was no where near there worst trade which was Sandin to the Leafs for Clark while they were still the Nordique. That trade was mind blowingly bad for Quebec

25:36 The Ottawa Senators with the Flyers logo haha

35:14 I am still surprised that Kelly Mckrimmon hasn't been fired after the Flurey trade. Showing a GM can get away with these kinds of trades, especially if the team wins the cup the following year.

Boston Trading Joe Thorton was bad but you could easily argue that the Tyler Seguin trade was worse. He was one of the great young stars in the league Bruins got Loui Erickson, Riley Smith Matt Frazier., and first round draft bust Joe Morrow

Joe T was traded and then played his first game against the Sabres and clanked one off the pipe in the first 5 seconds. I was at the game and wanted to leave because I knew he was gonna be unstoppable that night and they crushed.

If you wanted to include Hasek in a worst trade sending him to Buffalo was much worse than the Roenick trade. Hasek would go on to have the best 10 year stretch statistically of any goalie ever. Roenick was already at the end of his career not to mention they got a 1st. Hasek was traded for another goalie.

Flyers should of been trading Bob to C-bus for I think a 3rd rounder. Bum Homer Holmgren traded him after signing Bryz to some ridiculous contract like 9 or 10 years for like $50 mil.