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Reactions CNNSI.com asked if Canadiens fans had any opinions on the subject. And guess what ... they did. Click here to read a sampling of what CNNSI.com users had to say

Sports fans love to reminisce over the days when 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.

We asked Sports Illustrated's Michael Farber , who lives in Montreal, to name the five darkest days in the long, storied history of Les Habitants. His suggestions: the hiring of GM Rejean Houle, who set the franchise back decades; the trade of Patrick Roy; the trade of Teeder Kennedy; the trade of John LeClair; and the "too-late" acquisition of Denis Savard.

 

October 12, 1995	Montreal names Rejean Houle as Vice-President of Hockey and General Manager

SI Flashback Dec. 6, 1954 March 14, 1994 Nov. 29, 1999 Stanley Cups '55-59 Stanley Cups '60-69 Stanley Cups '70-79

SI's Farber: "Reggie is the nicest man in the world and he can do many things, one of which isn't running the most storied franchise in history. The remnants of the dynasty broke up on his watch. Not only were many of the trades bad, but the scouting and drafting were brutal, too."

CNNSI.com: Houle, along with coach Alain Vigneault, were fired on Nov. 20, 2000, and replaced with Andre Savard as GM and Michel Therrien, the team's fifth coach since 1990.

Can they relight torch? Shakeup is another step back The (Montreal) Gazette -- November 21, 2000 By Jack Todd I will never believe that Alain Vigneault deserved to lose his job. Yes, his team is last in the NHL, but Vigneault is 20 games removed from a season that earned him a coach-of-the-year nomination. He is the victim of a combination of Houle's blunders and the annual plague of injuries which now seem as much a part of Canadiens hockey as the banners hanging from the ceiling of the Molson Cenre. We all know that Rejean Houle is a good man. Honest, straightforward, hard-working, humble. No doubt those qualities kept Houle in the job far too long. Everyone knows about Patrick Roy and Pierre Turgeon, but the truth is that Houle kept making mistakes throughout his tenure, in trades and at the draft table.

Danny Stahl, White Rock, British Columbia "Like most fans, I was absolutely stunned and my heart sank. A beer salesman, a media personality and a restaurant owner were put in charge of hockey's greatest franchise, with predictable results. Quite possibly the worst day and the worst decision in almost 100 years of Montreal Canadiens history."

Paul Attfield, London, England "Much has been made of the effect that former Habs GM Rejean Houle's reign has contributed to the team's current plight. But the wheels were truly put in motion by his predecessor Serge Savard, who showed stunning managerial acumen by shipping Norris trophy-winning defenseman Chris Chelios to Chicago for an aging Denis Savard, along with dumping Claude Lemieux for Sylvain Turgeon. However, my personal favourite has to be the LeClair/Desjardins/Dionne trade for Mark Recchi. In a move designed to put the Habs into the playoffs that year -- it failed -- the real heartache emerged when Houle reunited Recchi with Philly in exchange for Dainius Zubrus. Now the Habs have as much chance of making the playoffs this year as they do of signing LeClair as a free agent this summer. None."

 

December 6, 1995	Montreal trades G Patrick Roy and RW Mike Keane to Colorado for RW Andrei Kovalenko, LW Martin Rucinsky and G Jocelyn Thibault

Who knew that two years after this picture, Patrick Roy would team up with Joe Sakic (background) and Chris Simon (front) to win the Cup in Colorado. Robert Laberge/Allsport

SI's Farber: "See Houle, Reggie. An experienced GM would have calmed the waters, the way Bob Gainey did in Dallas with Ed Belfour. But four days after Roy's blowup with coach Mario Tremblay, Roy was shipped to Colorado along with captain and character-player extrodinaire Mike Keane. The Avalanche won the Stanley Cup in large part due to Roy's solid play, and the Canadiens, even though they had a 90-point season that year, started their rapid decline."

CNNSI.com: For those who need a refresher, tensions between Roy and Tremblay came to a head when the goalie was humiliated on home ice by the Detroit Red Wings and their nine goals in 31 minutes (and by Tremblay for leaving him in that long).

A King is Dethroned; Hockey, Canadiens-style, is not without its warts The (Montreal) Gazette -- December 9, 1995 By Red Fisher What Roy did, with that fire in his eyes, started unfolding in mid-stride beyond coach Tremblay. He stopped, tucked his chin onto his chest, turned and walked back several steps to the box seat behind the Canadiens' bench where team president Ronald Corey sits. He leaned toward Corey and rasped, "This is my last game for Montreal."   Patrick Roy could not swallow any more pride in Montreal. Harry Scull/Allsport Then he turned again and walked back toward the vacant stool. All the while Tremblay, arms folded, was following Roy with his eyes afire. As he passed Tremblay for a second time, he was greeted with another glare. Roy settled onto the stool, tossed his head, and ran his hand through his wet hair. Then he snapped at Tremblay: "As-tu compris?" (Did you understand?) The television cameras had caught all of it. So had most of the crowd. In his box seat, president Corey leaned forward and rested his chin on his folded arms. Coach Tremblay stared straight. The light still danced in his eyes like lasers on an inky night.

Trade to Avalanche puts a smile on Roy; it's hard to believe he's gone The (Montreal) Gazette -- December 7, 1995 By Jack Todd It ended like this for Patrick Roy: on a snowy airport runway on an afternoon in early December, boarding a Lear jet with his wife, Michele, and Mike Keane and his wife, Tamy, bound for Denver and a new life as the goaltender for a hockey franchise that didn't exist last year. Roy is now a Colorado Avalanche - and if that doesn't sound right, it's because it isn't right. It was not supposed to end this soon and it was not supposed to end this way, not with one of the handful of truly legendary players in the history of the Montreal Canadiens leaving on a jet plane four days after he stalked off the ice in a game against the Detroit Red Wings and told club president Ronald Corey he had played his last game as a Canadien.   SI Flashback Dec. 18, 1995 1986 Stanley Cup 1993 Stanley Cup 1996 Stanley Cup     But it has ended. It's official now: Roy and captain Mike Keane to Colorado for young goalie Jocelyn Thibault and fleet European wingers Andrei Kovalenko and Martin Rucinsky, the biggest trade in Canadiens history engineered by Rejean Houle, a GM with six weeks experience. For the record, Roy yesterday looked happier than he has looked at any time in the past two years. He looked like a man who had been released from a terrible burden - and perhaps he is.

Mark ,, Montreal "So how about that one folks: Patrick Roy and Mike Keane for Jeff Hackett, Martin Rucinsky, and Juha Lind. A legend of a goalie and a forward who always showed intensity and heart for a decent goalie, a guy who is on our first line, (but would most likely be second or even third line on most other teams) and a fourth-liner, who shouldn't even be in the NHL."

Michael Dalton, Calgary, Alberta "The day the Habs died. I'll never forget the day the Montreal Canadiens traded the greatest goaltender of all time, Patrick Roy, to the Colorado Avalanche, all to appease an ignorant coach's ego. A coach who never had any business behind the Habs bench in the first place. Since the trade, the Avs have been consistent playoff threats and the Habs have been playoff jokes or no-shows. Much as the Curse of the Bambino is still a source of frustration for Boston, this trade will one day be called the Curse of St. Patrick."

 

September 10, 1943	Montreal trades the rights to C Ted Kennedy to Toronto for Frank Eddolls

SI's Farber: "Teeder Kennedy went on just to win five Stanley Cups and a Hart Trophy for the hated Maple Leafs. Kennedy also became the greatest faceoff man in the history of the NHL. Eddolls played 57 games over parts of three seasons for Montreal, scoring five goals and 14 points."

 

February 9, 1995	Montreal trades LW John LeClair, D Eric Desjardins and LW Gilbert Dionne to Philadelphia for RW Mark Recchi and a 3rd-round pick (Martin Hohnberger)

John LeClair scored 49 goals in parts of five seasons with Montreal, then scored 234 in his first five in Philly. Allsport

SI's Farber: "Recchi proved to be a fine player in Montreal, at least until he wanted out and the Canadiens moved him back to Philadelphia.

"But the Canadiens short-sheeted themselves by trading the two commodities every team wants: the scoring winger and the No. 1 defenseman.

"LeClair proved a perfect complement to Eric Lindros, and the Flyers were in the Cup finals two years later. A Serge Savard trade, proving Savard could rebuild a franchise. Just not Montreal's."

Mark Watson, Morgan Hill, Calif. "I remember when John LeClair first came up in his second year people were touting him as the next Jean Beliveau. Eric Desjardins is a perennial All-Star defenseman and a probable member of the Canadian 2002 Olympic Hockey squad. Way to go, Serge!"

 

June 29, 1990	Montreal trades D Chris Chelios and a 2nd-round pick (Michael Pomichter) to Chicago for C Denis Savard

SI's Farber: "President Ronald Corey made this trade because Chelios was just too edgy a character for a buttoned-down organization to handle. Not only did Montreal give up the better and more valuable player, it threw in a draft pick. Denis Savard was near the end of a Hall of Fame career, but contributed little to the Stanley Cup in 1993, while Chelios went on to win two more Norris Trophies with Chicago and was runner-up in '95. And he's still playing."

CNNSI.com: Of course, some Montrealers go back a few years farther to the fact that Montreal could have had Savard from the start, inexplicably passing him by with the No. 1 overall pick in the 1980 draft for Doug Wickenheiser.

Denis Savard won a Cup with Montreal, but fans still felt he should have been a lifer. Allsport

Wickenheiser, who died of cancer in 1999, was one of the biggest disappointments in Canadiens' history, lasting only three-plus seasons before bouncing around the NHL and various European leagues. Savard, a Quebec native, did help Montreal win a Cup in 1993, but then left as a free agent and eventually retired a Blackhawk. He remains in the Chicago organization.

It was his kind of town: Chicago honours Savard as Habs fans still wonder what might have been The (Montreal) Gazette -- March 20, 1998 By Pat Hickey The Blackhawks couldn't have picked a better night to honour Denis Savard. While the flashy forward played most of his career in the Windy City, he won his only Stanley Cup while playing for the Canadiens and, throughout his career, he was best remembered in Montreal as the guy the Canadiens snubbed at the 1980 National Hockey League entry draft.   SI Flashback Oct. 8, 1990 July 3, 2000    When the Canadiens used the No. 1 over-all selection in the 1980 draft to select Doug Wickenheiser of the Regina Pats, it touched off a storm of protest in Montreal. Irving Grundman, who was the Canadiens' general manager at the time, was roundly criticized in the French media for selecting Wickenheiser instead of Savard, a native Quebecer who had a huge following as a junior star with the Verdun-based Montreal Juniors. "It was a disappointment to many people, but not to me," said Savard, whose No. 18 was retired and raised to the rafters of the United Centre last night before the start of the Canadiens-Blackhawks game. "When I went into the draft, I went in with the idea that I wanted to play in the National Hockey League. I didn't care where I played and, looking back, I might have been better off going to Chicago. The Canadiens had a policy of bringing young players along slowly and there was no guarantee that I would have played." ... ... People forgot that Wickenheiser was honoured as the best player in Canadian junior hockey in 1980. They forgot that Winnipeg selected Dave Babych ahead of Savard, or that the Canadiens gave the nod to Wickenheiser because he had size and Guy Lafleur was screaming for a big centre. Wickenheiser had an average career that was cut short by a knee injury and his shortcomings were obvious when matched against Savard, who emerged as a superstar.

James Barringer, Tokyo, Japan "Arrrgh! How could it ever have been worse than being a Montreal Canadiens fan? As the great late-'70s dynasty was nearing its end -- with the Flower showing signs of dropping a few petals -- new management, under the direction of one Irving Grundman, overlooked the budding and luminous local hero, Denis (the French Canadian Saviour) Savard, and squandered its first draft choice on a few more pounds and some grit from the prairies, in the form of Doug Wickenheiser. Very sad to tell this tale, now, of course, given Mr. Wickenheiser's far too early and tragic death, but Mr. Grundman will forever be both Scrooge and the Grinch in the hearts of Montrealers everywhere, for his flagrant disregard of the traditional, torch-passing fire of Les Habitants."

Michael Peters, Vancouver, British Columbia "Savard was in the waning years of an excellent career and the Canadiens believed they needed a French-Canadian "superstar." The time to pick up Savard would have been 10 years earlier when they drafted Doug Wickenheiser. Chelios had established himself as a good defenseman with just the right edge of toughness and meanness."

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