WASHINGTON — The only way this NHL trade deadline could be more dramatic and entertaining is if the league and the Players’ Association would agree to allow teams to expressly trade cap space instead of the wink-nod bartering of it by dealing long-retired legends inhabiting long-term injury lists across the league.
Be serious, were you even as remotely shocked as I that Shea Weber waived his no-move to go to Arizona?
Amending the collective bargaining agreement to allow pay-for-play deals would promote and provoke a veritable orgy at the marketplace. It would also increase the escrow calculation, however, which is pretty likely a nonstarter position to endorse for an executive director just assuming office, as is the PA’s Marty Walsh. The rule also likely protects big-market contenders from themselves.
But it sure would produce a lot more fun and a fair amount of additional chaos into the period that defines the deadline.
I get a chuckle watching those individuals who attempt to contort themselves into anatomically impossible positions in order to explain why the Islanders’ 1980 acquisition of Butch Goring from the Kings in exchange for Billy Harris and Dave Lewis is not the greatest deadline deal in NHL history.
Right, the Islanders had been upset the previous two playoffs in large measure because the team did not have a legitimate second-line center to support Bryan Trottier, and after getting that center from Los Angeles, they won four straight Stanley Cups and 19 consecutive playoff rounds, but no, there was something better than this landmark trade pulled by Bill Torrey.
There seems to be this subsection of folks dedicated to the proposition that anything the Penguins do, they do better than anyone ever, so this band elevates the 1991 deal with Hartford in which Pittsburgh acquired Ron Francis, Ulf Samuelsson and Grant Jennings for John Cullen, Zarley Zalapski and Jeff Parker to the top of the list.
Yes indeed, Craig Patrick’s deal is one of the best in NHL annals, leading directly to the first of two straight Cups and eight straight playoff round victories … but 2 versus 4, and 8 versus 19? Why, obviously … Pittsburgh!
There was neither free agency nor a salary cap back in those days. Rental deals did not come into vogue until 1996, when the Devils leased Phil Housley from Calgary in an attempt not to become the first defending Cup champion to miss the playoffs in a quarter century. (P.S.: They failed.)
And the deadline was, well, effectively dead. In the 11-year gap between Goring and Francis-Samuelsson, there were maybe three headliners. It was not like now. Blockbusters might come at any time during the season.
Jean Ratelle and Brad Park for Phil Esposito and Carol Vadnais came in early November 1975. Andy Bathgate was traded to Toronto in late February 1964. The Maple Leafs traded Frank Mahovlich to the Red Wings as part of a blockbuster in early March 1968 before the Canadiens then in turn acquired the Big M in mid-January 1971.
In 1981, the Islanders acquired Mike McEwen from Colorado for Glenn Resch and Steve Tambellini after third-pair defenseman Gord Lane sustained a broken thumb in the club’s previous match. Teams traded whenever a mutual need existed or Sam Pollock felt the need to fleece someone, whichever came first.
The last-second deal was stunning. A year earlier, Resch had requested to be traded after the Islanders had elevated longtime partner Billy Smith to the unambiguous No. 1 role following his landmark 15-4 performance in the 1980 playoffs, but that was not his desire at this time. A need was created upon Lane’s injury. Sentiment to also the Islanders’ first folk hero was not about to interfere with Torrey’s responsibility and mission, Of course not.
By the way, that is quite the special distinction for Resch, whose ongoing, longstanding association with the Devils more generally identifies him with the New Jersey franchise for which he became its original folk hero.
To be the first hero for two franchises that won multiple Stanley Cup championships is an achievement of which to be especially proud.
In 1988, the Blues acquired Brett Hull and Steve Bozek from the Flames in exchange for Rob Ramage and Rick Wamsley. Yes, substantial.
Then in 1989, the Capitals sent future Hall of Famers Mike Gartner and Larry Murphy, ages 29 and 28, respectively, to Minnesota for future Hall of Famer Dino Ciccarelli, age 29, and Bob Rouse, a 24-year-old defenseman who later was an important piece of Detroit’s 1998 Stanley Cup championship team.
Here’s what I remember about 1989, when I was operating in the dual role as VP of communications and the Devils color commentator with my buddy and play-by-play man, Chris Moore, on our WABC radio broadcasts.
Yes, I recognize that it was my and our good fortune not to have a watchdog like The Clicker around. I was, however, balanced more than enough for my boss, Lou Lamoriello. More than once did Moore field calls from Lamoriello in which he would say, “Ah, tell Larry….”
Good times.
Regardless, a year after advancing to Game 7 of the Cup semifinals following John MacLean’s tying and winning goals in the Game 82 overtime finale in Chicago, the 1988-89 Devils were massive underachievers. Apparently unable to handle such unanticipated success, the young core often seemed uninterested and poorly prepared, reeling into the deadline on an 0-6-2 slide and an irredeemable 21-32-12 overall record. Rumors were rampant. Pretty much everyone was supposedly available.
Lamoriello was then in his second year as an NHL GM. His players did not want to be traded. They did not want the group broken up. The Devils won two straight before the club traveled to St. Louis for a match on March 7, hours after the 1989 deadline. That would be the first of a back-to-back concluding in Chicago. Lamoriello stayed behind.
And he essentially stood pat. There was, as I recall, a collective sigh of good fortune among the players as they took the ice against the Blues.
Before the Blues scored four times within the first 10:12 of the match, as described by Moore and I.
Before I was summoned to the press box phone at the end of the 4-0 St. Louis first period (en route to a 6-2 final) only to be greeted by Lamoriello, demanding to know exactly what was going on and how the team could react in this manner after he had kept the team together.
After a few more minutes, he asked me to call him when I had gotten back to the hotel.
I called Lamoriello when I got back to the hotel.
Read More
Larry Brooks