30th Anniversary of The Trade™

[calgaryred]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

We were up 3-0 in the 1st period of game 7.

Sorry thought you meant up 3-0 in best of seven not the score

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[Sylvanfan]

The thing with those 90's trades is that unless you are as old or older than myself which is mid 40's you might not appreciate just how different economics and demographics played into this sort of thing.

First off players were not the full time athletes they are today, so to think guys who were 33 were going to keep up a high level of play was generally not common. Likley GM's didn't realize that they were at the backend of the Baby Boom that occurred from 1947 to 1966 and had peaked in 1960. Basically for about 15 years there had a been an abnormally abundant supply of young players to supplant veteran players which largely resulted in the NHL being a younger league. Which is a main reason why the era was so high scoring. Lot's of teams making the playoffs, and a lot of younger players who did not have a lot of NHL coaching, so more prone to make mistakes.

This had also been supplemented with talent coming in from Europe mostly Finland and Sweden in the 70's and 80's. The early to mid 90's saw a surge of Eastern European players come over that previously had not been available, that helped keep up the idea that there was abundant talent coming to supplant the known veterans. But with expansion and shortly after Eastern Europe had opened up, the league started to get older as the previous supply of young players was just not there, and no more hidden markets to pull players from. So deals and habits of the early to mid 80's that had paid off, didn't have the same effect. Hence trades like Mullen and MaCrimmon both made by Cliff Fletcher. Even a guy like Macoun ended up playing a lot longer than what Fletcher or Risebrough ever would have thought.

Than there is the economic aspect where players really were owned by the teams who held there rights. Free Agency was non existent. The NFL went thru a couple of labour disputes in the 80's to achieve some form of free agency. The NHL was late to follow suit, but around the early 90's people are starting to figure out Allan Eagleson and players slowly start to get some rights, and salary's start to move upwards.

When you look at the difference of Gilmour getting 625 vs 400 today, it looks laughable. But in those days it would be like Mangipane going to arbitration and the Flames thinking he's going to be awarded about 5 million, and than he gets 8.5 from the arbitrator. So if that happened today, that would absolutely shock a team.

Thru the late 80's as Oil Prices came up and the Canadian dollar strengthened the Flames were able to outmuscle teams and buy talent to supplement their drafting. But when Oil fell off after the Gulf War, and the Canadian dollar went into a nose dive at a time when NHL salary's were increasing at a rate that was unthinkable. It can't be stressed enough how hard this was on the Canadian teams at the time. Go back to 1988 what was an Engineer making, like 45k a year, which is about 1/4 of what an average hockey player was making. Lots of Engineers on this board...are you guys making 1/4 or the 3.5 million dollar salary of the average hockey player?

So when you take a lot of that into account, yes a lot of poor deals. But also pretty tricky conditions to try and wade thru as well.

Still even with all that...Gary Leeman...

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

This is a really interesting question.

The caveats with the Hull and Phaneuf trades mitigate them a bit.

Selanne, Roy, Neely, Messier are all pretty brutal (though I'd need to freshen up on contract statuses and the other considerations there)

Phil Esposito on both sides of two great trades for the Bruins, horrible trades for the other side.

They acquired Espo, Hodge and Stanfield from Chicago. Esposito then goes on to have a HHOF career, one of the very best of all time.

Then towards the latter part of his career, Bruins trade him for Jean Ratelle and Brad Park. Two future HHOFers.

Talk about managing your assets.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by calgaryred

Hull was a nobody in 1988, he was the son of All Star Demi God other than that he had the potential to become a great player. Rob Ramage was a great defenseman, at the time the trade was good. Give it two years that trade never happens.

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Kinda
Hull had scored 50 points in 52 games in 87/88 so he was already showing he was going to be a pretty productive NHLer.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by calgaryred

Hull was a nobody in 1988, he was the son of All Star Demi God other than that he had the potential to become a great player. Rob Ramage was a great defenseman, at the time the trade was good. Give it two years that trade never happens.

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Yes, I discount the analysis of that as a bad trade because it relies on a lot of hindsight. Hull also had a rep as being lazy and out of shape. He was drafted 117. And that wasn’t even his first year of eligibility. He did light it up as a minor pro, and looked good as a rookie, but TBF there wasn’t a lot of room at wing on the 88 Flames and he may have stagnated a bit.

[cannon7]

Remember the rumour that the reason the Leafs were so eager to be rid of Gary Leeman (other than his rapidly deteriorating play) was that he had been involved in an extra marital affair with Al Iafrate's wife?

Just makes this trade all the more baffling.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by calgaryred

Sorry thought you meant up 3-0 in best of seven not the score

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If the Flames blew a 3-0 lead to the Oilers in a playoff series.... it would have ended me.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by cannon7

Remember the rumour that the reason the Leafs were so eager to be rid of Gary Leeman (other than his rapidly deteriorating play) was that he had been involved in an extra marital affair with Al Iafrate's wife?

Just makes this trade all the more baffling.

And the Leafs were the 3rd worst team in the NHL (and one of the teams that’s as worse was first year SJ, the other was Quebec). Why you make a trade for a large chunk of that roster is beyond me.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Yes, I discount the analysis of that as a bad trade because it relies on a lot of hindsight. Hull also had a rep as being lazy and out of shape. He was drafted 117. And that wasn’t even his first year of eligibility. He did light it up as a minor pro, and looked good as a rookie, but TBF there wasn’t a lot of room at wing on the 88 Flames and he may have stagnated a bit.

The Adam Oates connection is pretty crazy.

Hull was right around 0.5 g/gp in the 2 seasons before Oates joined STL.

Then 72 and 86 game seasons, and 54 goals in 54 games before Oates was traded...Hull had exactly 158 goals in 158 games with Oates (though each guy missed some games in this time...wouldn't be surprised if their together rate was actually >1.0).

Hull still managed 19 goals in the 16 games after Oates and was around 0.70 g/gp for the three seasons after, which is of course nothing to sneeze at.


Neely had .72 and .74 seasons before Oates (and 1 year with 9 goals in 9 games).

11 goals in 13 games in another injury riddled season with Oates, and then 50g in 49gp in 93-94. Pretty remarkable to come back after missing so many games the previous two years - league scoring also dropped from 3.63 to 3.24 in that year, the lowest since 1973.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by calgaryred

Hull was a nobody in 1988, he was the son of All Star Demi God other than that he had the potential to become a great player. Rob Ramage was a great defenseman, at the time the trade was good. Give it two years that trade never happens.

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The Flames already had three 50 goal scorers on the right wing and they needed help on defence and in goal. That trade helped the Flames win a Cup. Fletcher has said he has no regrets about trading Hull,

[CSharp]

Originally Posted by Ashartus

Why the heck do people keep re-opening those wounds?

To remind every one, including management, that the Flames got raped and slapped sideways when you have an incompetent GM. Flames should not be trading with the Leafs ever. It's not like that's the first and last time that they got fleeced when dealing with the Leafs.

[Badgers Nose]

#### I miss 1992

[dirk diggler]

one other sort of trade is the Flames trading up to get Trevor Kidd and the Devils then taking Martin Brodeur. i cant actually blames the flames on that one, Trevor Kidd was by far the highest ranked goalie in that draft. just kind of fitting

[SutterBrother]

Originally Posted by TheChief

Looking back on the dismantling of the great 89 team you can clearly see how the dark days of the franchise became...


Mullen -Nicolas Perreault
Loob - Retired to Sweden
Gilmour - ...
Nieuwendyk - Iginla/Millen
MacInnis - Phil Housley/Steve Begin/John Tripp
Suter - Patrick /Zalapski /Nylander
Hrdina - Jim Kyte
Otto - UFA
Roberts - Cassels/Giguere
Patterson - Future Considerations
Fleury - Regehr/Corbet/Belak
Hunter - Carey Wilson
McCrimmon - David Harlock
Macoun - ...
Nattress - ...
Berezan - MacLellan / Reichel
Murzyn - Kevin Guy/Ron Stern
Ramage - Kent Manderville
Tim Hunter - Expansion
Vernon - Chaisson

Perry Berezan was traded in March of 89, so wasn’t part of the Cup winning team. Otherwise your list looks correct to me FWIW.

Correct, and abysmal. Whoever decided lunkhead Reiser should take over as GM from Cliff Fletcher(who had spent almost 20 years in the job) is way more guilty than anyone else.

36 months after you hang up the blades, you’re in the GM’s chair. No prior management experience. Of course he got fleeced over and over. He was totally unqualified.

It would be like making Iggy GM of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Sheer lunacy.

[browna]

The local press, a lot more vocal and entitled back then, demanded blood after the Denis Morel screw job in game 6 in LA.

The overreaction by the owners placating that press unhappiness, and firing Crisp right away and forcing Fletcher to trade Mullen (who played 7 more seasons, became the all time leading goal,scorer a ongst US players and won 2 Cups) a few weeks later, set the stage for the spiral of the franchise.

The overreaction at the top caused Fletcher to start to ponder and be planning his exit, which he did the next offseason.

That took the owners by surprise and rushed Risebrough into the role. Add a bad Canadian dollar (and Bettman years away from providing a salary cap), the first publishing of players salaries also in 1992 and the economics were going against small market Flames, and then you had the Nieuwendyk holdout. Unexpected R1 losses to Vancouver in 1994 and San Jose in 1995 with better talent than their opponents was the last straw and the window shut, and the Young Gun era came to light.

But if some sanity and calmness were exercised after the 1990 loss, or if they held onto the 1991 Game 7 3-0 first period lead and beat the Oilers in R1, and the stabilizing Fletcher was not chased out of town after the 91 season, that team may win those 94 and 95 rounds and maybe the late 90s didn’t end as dark as they did overall.

But of course then they maybe they didn’t get Iginla in 1995, and/or he doesn’t develop the same as he did being on a sad sack team the first 6 years of his career etc etc and 2004 never happens, because things didn’t get as bad between 1997 and 2003? Too many variables.

But back to Gilmour, he had some rumoured off ice situations as well which didn’t endear him to the executive in the Flames on top of the contract squabbles. I was at his last game a few days prior, NYe vs Mtl where I think he was first star. Verbeek would’ve been a better option in a 1 for a trade scenario.

[dirk diggler]

i hate when Risebrough makes the excuse of "being a young GM". Any fan at that time could see that was a terrible trade right away, even if he had to get rid of Gilmour, a trade doesn't need to happen within 24 hours.

[TheChief]

Thank to the posters who had seen and been following the team since back in the 80's for providing their insight. I love this type of information and its why I frequent the forum.