Click here to send us your all-time least favorite roster move, which we might use in future "Say It Ain't So."
Sports fans love to reminisce over the days that it all went wrong: the wasted draft pick, the tragic trade or the defecting hero. These may not be, by definition, the worst roster moves ever made, but they were the ones that affected us on a personal level. These are the events that caused -- and still cause -- us to sit on our bar stools and lament the cruel twists of life.
It's hard to argue with Craig Patrick's resume as a hockey general manager, the first line of which reads "1980 Olympics, Miracle on Ice" then goes on to detail a pair of Stanley Cups in Pittsburgh. But look at any gem of a GM and you'll find a few flaws, so here are some deals over which Penguins fans might take issue with Patrick: trading Jaromir Jagr and getting zero NHL experience in return, the Petr Nedved fiasco, the Marty McSorley fiasco, the lack of faith in Markus Naslund and the trading of Glen Murray for sentimental favorite Eddie Olczyk.
July 11, 2001
Penguins trade RW Jaromir Jagr and D Frantisek Kucera, to Washington for C Kris Beech, C Michal Sivek and D Ross Lupaschuk
They'll try to put a brave face on it, but you don't trade one of the world's premier players without a modicum of regret. Sure, Jaromir Jagr's occasional poutiness was becoming far too frequent for anybody's taste, but it's hard to argue with 52 goals and 121 points as he led the league for the fourth consecutive year and fifth overall.
Jaromir Jagr has led the NHL in scoring five times. Jamie Squire /Allsport
Even if they won't miss his attitude, they'll miss the points. A lot.
Pens fans will have to reserve judgment until they get a look at Kris Beech, Michal Sivek and Ross Lupaschuk for themselves. It would be easy to blast Patrick for not getting any proven quantities for Jagr, but his track record of assessing talent has bought him some time.
It's unfortunate, too, that Jagr begged his way out of Pittsburgh, not appreciating what it would have meant to play his entire career there. But that's just another way that he and Mario Lemieux are different people.
We Knew It Would Happen, But Not This Way Pittsburgh Tribune-Review -- July 12, 2001 By Bill Modoono
We knew it was coming, and still we were stunned. We knew it had to happen, and still it surprised us.
He wanted out of here, and after all his carping and complaining, maybe we even wanted him to leave. Now that he's left, there's a void.
The Penguins always were all about Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr. That was the combination that defined this team for a decade, the combination that made Pittsburgh a hockey town.
When you thought of the Penguins, you thought of Mario and Jaromir, much as you once thought of the Boston Bruins as Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito, or the Edmonton Oilers as Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier. All four of those guys eventually got traded, too, so we had to know it could happen. Still, we felt the shock.
"It's been a nice run for 11 years with Jaromir," general manager Craig Patrick said Wednesday, a couple of hours after he agreed to the deal that sent Jagr to the Washington Capitals and changed hockey in this city forever. "He gave us an awful lot."
That he did. Two Stanley Cups. Eleven consecutive trips to the playoffs. Five Art Ross trophies. Spectacular goals of highlight-reel quality. Big goals at big moments in big games.
He also gave us an awful lot of grief, too. He had to grow up in a strange country while playing the game at the highest level. Patrick even made a joking reference yesterday to the forgotten speeding tickets of his youth.
But once the trade was announced, those things had less significance. Jagr was "a good captain" who led by example, said Patrick. He predicted Jagr would become "his old, inspired self" when he gets to his new team.
Mario, Pittsburgh, Pa. Jagr had to be traded for prospects because the Penguins can't afford quality NHL players. The only reason Mario came back was to sell tickets. He knew the Penguins are gonna be doormats next year and he had to sell tickets somehow. Now Jagr will be on a team that will appreciate what talents he has and won't have a owner blaming him for all the team's failures. Jagr now has a chance of winning another Cup before he retires, something the Penguins will never do again.
November 25, 1998
Penguins trade C Petr Nedved, D Chris Tamer and F Sean Pronger to the Rangers for RW Alexei Kovalev and F Harry York
It wouldn't be a Petr Nedved transaction without some kind of controversy.
He defected from Czechoslovakia at age 17 and became the highest-drafted Czech player when Vancouver took him No. 2 overall in 1990 (he has since been topped by No. 1's Roman Hamrlik and Patrik Stefan.)
Say what you want about Petr Nedved, but he's always done it his way. Glenn Cratty/Allsport
His free-agent contract with St. Louis in 1994 led to an arbitrator mandating a trade that cost the Blues three young players.
When the Blues hired Mike Keenan as head coach later that year, the league mandated a trade that sent Nedved to the Rangers after only 19 games in St. Louis.
One season later, he was traded to Pittsburgh, where he outscored the player he was traded for, Luc Robitaille, 78-47 over the next two seasons.
When he became a restricted free agent after the 1996-97 season, Nedved found himself at an impasse with the Penguins, who were still paying the retired Mario Lemieux more than $4 million a year and had just given Jagr a six-year, $48 million extension. Nedved's agent proposed a five-year, $18.5 million deal, then lowered it to $6 million over two years. The Penguins declined, offered him the required $2 million, one-year deal to just to retain his rights and talks broke off.
Nedved sat out the entire 1997-98 season (the only holdout to do so) while the Penguins refused to negotiate and/or trade him. When Patrick finally did work out a trade with the Rangers early in the 1998-99 season, New York signed him for virtually the same money Nedved's agent had proposed to Pittsburgh a season earlier.
Patrick was praised by fellow GMs for his hard-line stance and his attempt to curb the ever-escalating salaries. But Penguins fans saw one of their best offensive players whiling away while their team was flushing out in the first round of the playoffs. Had Patrick traded Nedved during the 1997-98 season, the Penguins might have had the resources to bring in another player or two and go a little further in the playoffs.
Hindsight allows us to see that the emergence of Alexei Kovalev in 2000-01 makes the trade look like a steal for Pittsburgh. But for the effort and aggravation involved, it was like plotting a heist for two years and barely stealing enough to cover expenses.
Nedved's Lost Season: Penguins, Player Agree To Disagree About Contract Calgary Herald -- May 4, 1998 By Eric Duhatschek
In a year of wildly escalating player salaries, even the most hotly contested contract disputes -- Detroit and Sergei Fedorov; Anaheim and Paul Kariya; Vancouver and Alexander Mogilny -- were eventually settled.
Only Nedved, a player who scored 78 goals for the Pittsburgh Penguins between 1995 and 1997, second to Jaromir Jagr, did not play a single shift for his NHL employer.
It was a year in which all the principals in a bitter, public contract dispute lost.
The Penguins lost because they did not get a minute's worth of service out of someone who would have been, arguably, their third-best forward.
Nedved lost because he left more than $ 2 million US on the bargaining table.
Fans lost because in a year when NHL goal-scoring totals dropped significantly, the presence of the flashy Nedved would have enhanced the overall on-ice product.
Nedved does not believe this lost season was, in any way, a learning experience.
It wasn't.
"I'm not going to lie to you and say, 'It was OK,' " said Nedved. "No, I don't think it was OK. But . . . you just have to live with your decisions. As far as I'm concerned, there is no point in making decisions that you can't live with if they don't work out. I knew this could happen. Overall, I'm a very positive person, but you can't go into this blind and say, 'things will work out.'
"If you ask 100 people, maybe 90 or 95 per cent would say I made a wrong decision. I felt at the time I made the right decision. You're just a human being -- and in life, you have to make decisions. I made a decision when I was 16 to stay in Calgary that I knew could backfire on me. From the day I defected, I was striving to do what I wanted to do, and I believed I made the right decision then. I kind of knew that sometime in my life I'm going to make a big decision that isn't going to work out."
In hindsight, it isn't surprising that someone who took on a Communist regime when he was still technically a minor would also challenge an NHL club over a contract.
August 27, 1993
Penguins acquire D Marty McSorley from L.A. for LW Shawn McEachern
February 16, 1994
Penguins trade D Marty McSorley and D Jim Paek to L.A. for LW Shawn McEachern and LW Tomas Sandstrom
GMs are often skewered for living too long with the mistakes they make. But, as in the case with Marty McSorley and the Penguins, a GM can also look just as silly for trying to undo a mistake.
Long before he became the scourge of the NHL, Marty McSorley was one of the league's notable personalities. Gary Kirkland/Allsport
McSorley began his career with two seasons in Pittsburgh before finding his niche as Wayne Gretzky's bodyguard in Edmonton and L.A. After racking up a league-leading 299 penalty minutes in 1992-93, McSorley was among the top enforcers in the league. Thing was, he could also play a little defense and score a goal here and there.
All that added up to was a $2 million a year contract, which the Penguins took on from L.A. in exchange for Shawn McEachern, who had just scored 28 goals in his first full NHL season.
But midway through the next season, neither player was thriving for his new team. So they sent them back. ''It should have been a great fit,'' McSorley would say later. ''To be honest with you -- and a lot of people aren't going to believe me -- when I first got there, I thought that after what happened in Los Angeles, Pittsburgh was ideal.
''I thought I fell into a gold mine, in a sense, because I thought there would be a team that would really die to get back into the Stanley Cup finals. But I'm not sure the fire was there, like I expected.''
McSorley never did regain his previous stature, although he did play a role for five teams over six seasons leading up to his infamous attack on Donald Brashear.
McSorley Trade McStinks Pittsburgh Post-Gazette -- February 17, 1994 By Ron Cook
Craig Patrick couldn't have done a better job sabotaging the Penguins' chances of winning the Stanley Cup if he had tried.
There's no fathomable explanation for trading Marty McSorley and Jim Paek for Tomas Sandstrom and Shawn McEachern, two players the Los Angeles Kings didn't want and the Penguins don't need.
I have to admit this feels strange, disagreeing so vehemently with The Genius G.M. I have liked all of his trades. I loved the one that brought McSorley here in August.
But this latest deal is a farce.
You just don't trade McSorley, at least not now. I don't care if he never quite fit in with the Penguins. I don't care if he failed to live up to everyone's expectations. I don't care if he's grossly overpaid at $ 2 million a season.
McSorley's value to the Penguins would have increased every day the rest of the season. It would have peaked at playoff time, when the games mean the most, when they are the most intense, when every team needs a tough guy.
McSorley is the toughest. ...
... Patrick clearly still has at least one major deal to make before the March 19 trading deadline. Maybe The Genius G.M. -- who bamboozled Calgary and took Mullen for a second-round draft choice, won the Penguins' first Cup by pilfering Ron Francis and Ulf Samuelsson from Hartford and secured the second by getting Tocchet, Kjell Samuelsson and Ken Wregget from Philadelphia -- will pull another miracle. Maybe he will get the offensive defenseman the Penguins desperately need.
Of course ...
''You're always looking to add toughness in any deal,'' Patrick said.
It's bizarre, isn't it?
Patrick had McSorley. He had the best. He sent him away. It makes no sense.
March 18, 1997
Penguins trade RW Glen Murray to L.A. for C Eddie Olczyk
Sentimentality may have gotten the better of Patrick on this one, sending young Glen Murray to L.A. for the aging, injury-plagued Eddie Olczyk.
Glen Murray has become a consistent scorer in L.A.. Rick Stewart/Allsport
Everybody loved Olczyk, the U.S. Olympian who was taken third overall by the hometown Blackhawks in 1984 and went on to be one of the most prolific U.S. scorers of his time.
But time had taken its toll on Olczyk, who nevertheless was coming off a 27-goal season for Winnipeg in 1995-96. He had 21 in 67 games with L.A. when Pittsburgh picked him up for the playoff drive. But Olczyk scored just one point in five playoff games, then limped through the next season with 11 goals in 56 games. He finished his career back in Chicago, playing parts of the next two seasons.
Murray, meanwhile, has scored 92 goals over the last four seasons with L.A.
King Of The Ice; Ex-Teammate Murray's Goal, Assist Blister Tired Penguins Pittsburgh Post-Gazette -- December 23, 1998 By Dave Molinari
When the Penguins acquired Glen Murray from Boston in 1995, they knew he was big and fairly tough, a strong skater who had flashed a decent scoring touch. And for all those reasons, they believed he had the potential to become a high-impact power forward.
Which is precisely what Murray has done. Unfortunately for the Penguins, it didn't happen until after they had traded him to Los Angeles for Ed Olczyk on March 18, 1997.
He scored the Kings' first goal and set up their second in a 3-0 victory against the Penguins at the Civic Arena last night. Which isn't a particularly unusual evening's work for Murray these days.
While Murray never scored more than 18 during his first four NHL seasons, which he split between Boston and the Penguins, he rang up 29 in 1997-98, his first full season with the Kings. And he's on pace to surpass that total this winter, with 14 goals in his first 33 games.
"When he came to us, we really didn't know what we had," Kings Coach Larry Robinson said. "What we've gotten from him is kind of a diamond in the rough who has really blossomed."
March 20, 1996
Penguins trade RW Markus Naslund to Vancouver for LW Alex Stojanov
Markus Naslund scored 41 goals in 2000-01. Craig Melvin/Allsport
Just file this one under the 'Oops' category.
Patrick grew tired of waiting for Markus Naslund (taken 16th in 1991) to emerge and dealt him to Vancouver for Alex Stojanov (taken seventh overall in 1991).
Oops.
Stojanov, a hard-nosed, hard-hitting enforcer, played 45 games in two seasons for Pittsburgh before becoming a career minor leaguer. Naslund did eventually get the hang of the NHL game, scoring 21 goals in his first season with Vancouver. In the past three seasons, he has scored 36, 27 and a career-high 41 in 2000-01 despite missing 10 games.
Naslund Not Underachieving In Vancouver Pittsburgh Post-Gazette -- January 24, 1999 By Dave Molinari
Markus Naslund was, for the better part of five seasons, viewed in hockey circles a chronic underachiever. A perennial disappointment who was in danger of playing his way right out of North America.
But folks around the NHL aren't sticking disparaging labels on Naslund, the Penguins' first-round draft choice in 1991, anymore.
Now, they simply call him an all-star. And, from at least some perspectives, one of Penguins General Manager Craig Patrick's biggest personnel blunders.
Not because he spent a No. 1 choice in Naslund, a highly regarded prospect during his junior days in Sweden, but because Patrick gave him away to Vancouver for long-forgotten tough guy Alek Stojanov on March 20, 1996.
Today, Stojanov's career is on life-support in the minors, while Naslund will be playing for the World team in the NHL All-Star Game at the Ice Palace today at 4 p.m.
Chris Gmiter, Pittsburgh, Pa. Marcus Naslund for Alek Stojanov. What was Craig Patrick thinking?
