Quote:
Originally Posted by codynw
Is this the dumbest trade of all time? I just can't believe a real life NHL GM made this deal.
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There was an ESPN Insider article that went behind the scenes of how much of an organizational fail that trade was.
To sum up the article, the Capitals were taken by surprise when Forsberg fell to them. Organizationally they had not much internal debate or discussion on Forsberg but they took him because they knew the consensus by everyone else was that he was the BPA, but there were immediately people in the organization who thought he was too slow and lazy for the NHL.
When the Capitals development camp happened, Forsberg's detractors in the organization appeared to be proven right. Forsberg had a pretty bad camp. You could argue that they pretty much had given up on Forsberg at that point.
Then combine this with a GM who's job was on the line and who was under pressure for a struggling Caps team to make noise in the playoffs. He decided to use an asset that he thought he made a mistake on.
So in summary:
1. They didn't prepare for the draft well enough.
2. They gave up on a prospect way too early.
3. Desperate GM.