March 4th will forever be one of the
biggest watershed moments in NHL history.
The infamous trade between the Penguins and Whalers handed the Penguins
Ron Francis and Ulf Samuelsson, a Hall-of-Fame forward and a stud defender, and
turned them into a championship caliber team; meanwhile, the Whalers received
three mediocre players andentered into a downward spiral that resulted in an
ownership change, declining attendance, and relocation to North Carolina.
And
yet, looking back at what information I could find from the time of the trade,
it seems most experts and publications like The
Hockey News thought that the Whalers got the better deal, or at least broke
even with the Pens.
It’s hard to believe that such an obviously lopsided deal in favor of
the Penguins was actually considered to be a win for the Whalersat the time.ZarleyZalapski,
John Cullen, and Jeff Parker were evidently considered a pretty good haul for
Ron Francis and Ulf Samuelsson, a suggestion that genuinely makes my brain hurt
thinking about it.
To
be fair, the Whalers’ hand was kind of forced.
Based off the twenty year retrospective from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Samuelsson was threatening to leave for
Sweden, and the owner Richard Gordon wanted rid of Francis. I guess it wouldn’t be the Hartford Whalers
without having an owner completely screw things up, though that does make a bit
more sense as to why this would be considered a decent deal for them. Three potentially good prospects for two guys
surely on their way out would be a fair deal better than just straight up
losing them for nothing, and this is the sort of dealing that Jim Rutherford
has used to keep the Penguins machine churning in recent years.
The
problem is, Rutherford has yet to deal a true superstar player like Francis or
Samuelsson, let alone two of them in one deal.Then again, he hasn’t exactly
been on the verge of losing a star or two for free, and they’ve mostly been
happy in Pittsburgh, although being a cup contender as opposed to a flaming
pile of poo is certainly a bonus. I can
see why the Whalers made the deal, and I can understand why this was considered
to be a decent haul at the time based on the alternative of losing one or both
unhappy stars. It’s just a shame that they
were ever in that position in the first place and that it turned into such an
epic blunder that effectively killed the team for good.
