Was last year's deadline really that bad?
Everyone talked about how boring last years NHL trade deadline was. But was it really all that bad considering what happened in years previous?
There were two major deals on deadline day in 2006. Sergei Samsonov to Edmonton and Mark Recchi to Carolina. The rest of the years trades included Joe Thornton to the San Jose Sharks, Doug Weight to the Carolina Hurricanes, and Dwayne Roloson to Edmonton.
Now lets look at the 2004 trade deadline.
The biggest deals of that day were the Canucks adding Rucisnky and Sanderson, who didn’t quite work out. Then the Maple Leafs added Ron Francis, who played very well for them for two weeks, but was an end of his career rental player. Tommy Salo then went to back up David Aebischer in Colorado.
Not exactly block busters, and even in the weeks leading up to the deadline, the biggest deals were Brian Leetch and Sergei Gonchar going to Toronto and Boston respectively. Gonchar did nothing for the Bruins, and Leetch ended up heading to the Bruins after his brief stint with the Maple Leafs.
Of course there’s the Jaromir Jagr deal, but that didn’t even really affect anything until last season.
Then there were deals involving Robert Lang and Alex Kovalev, fairly big deals at the time, but didn’t greatly affect their teams until the lockout ended, and in Kovalev’s case, his re-signing was more of a difference maker. Peter Bondra was acquired by the Sens, but didn’t change anything about the team.
Now look at the 2003 trade deadline. The biggest deal of the day was Mathieu Schneider going to the Red Wings, who eventually collapsed against the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. Though Schneider was still a huge acquisition, it hasn’t made the impact of some other deadline deals. The most talked about deal was Doug Gilmour heading to the Toronto Maple Leafs, an experiment that lasted about five minutes.
The lead up included Tony Amonte and Owen Nolan, two teams with early playoff exits.
The deal that ended up being most affective was the Chicago Blackhawks dealing Steve Thomas to the Mighty Ducks. Thomas helped lead the Ducks to a Stanley Cup finals birth.
Not exactly a block buster even still.
In 2002, the biggest deal was really the Glen Murray deal from Los Angeles to Boston, which happened at the start of the season.
2002 was a big deadline though. Adam Oates was dealt from Washington to Philadelphia, Pavel Bure went from Florida to New York, and Joe Nieuwendyk went from Dallas to New Jersey. None of those teams passed the first round of the playoffs though. Jason Arnott, who went to Dallas for Joe Nieuwendyk, didn’t make the playoffs either.
Yes, a few deals in each deadline, Justin Williams to Carolina turned out big, Daniel Briere to Buffalo turned out huge, and Dan Boyle in Tampa is looking very good now.
But the deals in 2006 made an immediate impact. Recchi and Weight won the Stanley Cup for Carolina against two more players dealt, Sergei Samsonov and Dwayne Roloson of the Edmonton Oilers. Each one made an immediate impact. The other big deal of the year?
Well that as I said about, was Joe Thornton, who won the NHL MVP.
You really can’t tell how big a deadline is going to be until you see how the players do in the playoffs.
-L
13 Responses to Was last year's deadline really that bad?
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good article overall.
BUT
Kovalev was HUGE for the Habs in the 1st round against Boston the year they traded for him.
I find deadline day to be way overhyped. The big players you hear about are rarely moved and now with so many teams in the hunt you'll probably see even less.
Well that depends on what you mean by big… Big in terms of team impact then yes you're right.. Big in terms of a lot of movement is another thing…
I would rather see loads of players being moved, but that is because its exciting and would give us a lot more to talk about on here then debating where Forsberg will end up…
I just want something to happen soon, Im not very patient.
Meh, I just hope there's a few more deals with bigger names this year, rather than last year's 4th line players heading to other teams contending looking for depth. Oh, and Francis was injured for half the games he played with Toronto, and was a healthy scratch for the others, lol, so no, he wasn't much of an addition to the team, he was more of a name addition than an actual impact addition.
In 13 games the Maple Leafs played after the deadline, including one that night, Ron Francis played 12, had three goals, ten points. Not bad for a 41 year old. In the playoffs he missed one game with a back injury in the playoffs and had 4 assists in 12 games on the fourth line.
Mogilny-Sundin-Roberts
Nolan-Nieuwendyk-Tucker
Kilger-Reichel-Domi
Renberg-Francis-Stajan
Ponikarovsky-Antropov-Fitzgerald
Leetch-McCabe
Kaberle-Klee
Marchment-Johannson
Pilar-Berg
Belfour
Kidd
I really thought that team had a little bit of destiny to it.
Kovalev was terrible until that series, and lets face it, he half assed in defensively, even once blatantly faking an injury to get out of back checking.
He did have a great playoff overall though, ten points in eleven games.
ahhh… back in the day when antropov wanst in the starting rotation…
yeah, that's right.
Actually the fake injury thing is what sparked him up (or more precisely Souray sparked him up after the game letting him know how what he did was selfish and stupid). He was all over the ice for the next 3 wins against Boston and we went from 1-3 to 4-3.
even though he sucks, there was the theodore/abby swap last yr…right before dday….in the week before!and in 2004,kovy was brought in in the week before also…so, if history repeats itself,we should see the habs trading in about 2 weeks……
Any team with Reichel, Renberg, Domi, Belak and Aki Berg has destiny to it alright… destiny to disappointment.
So baiscally what your saying is that how boring a trade deadline is depends on what happens in the playoffs?
That only makes sens in hindsight. If there was a three team trade like this go down:
To Philadelphia
Martin Havlat
Jack Johnson
1rst Ronder Chicago
To Chicago
Alex Frolov
Joni Pitkanen
Simon Gagne
To Los Angeles
Jeff Carter
Tuomo Ruutu
1rst Rounder Philadelphia
Now forget for one second that this is totaly and absolutely impossible.
Even if this has no effect on the standings, these teams are all still the three lowest seeded teams and all miss the playoff, I say that this trade makes the deadline alot more exciting then edmonton adding samsonov and carolina adding recchi.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that your reasoning is completely irrelevant and the only thing that makes a deadline interesting are the deals that go down on that day, not what happens in the playoffs after, thats what makes the playoffs interesting
Did you hear I love Montreal now Linty?
Ya, since the whole "FAKER" chants at Crosby, and the shit they're giving him, Habs fans are my favorite fans.
Cindy better keep his head up.
Domi was a solid player, and played great on a line with Kilger and Reichel.
Wade Belak and Aki Berg hardly played.
Ya, Reichel and his two forty goal seasons, seven twenty goal seasons, not including one with 18 goal in 45 games in the lockout shortened season. and his rookie year with 19 goals in 66 games. All in eleven seasons. He was a solid twenty goal scorer till he got throw onto the third line in Toronto.
To be honest, the same can pretty much be said for Mikael Renberg.
Why criticize the secondary scoring for not putting up huge numbers.