Misconduct | What hockey transaction stood out to you the most?

Every week, journalists from Sports de The Press answer a question with pleasure, and also a little insolence.

Alexander Pratt

When the Quebec Nordiques traded Eric Lindros to not one, but two teams – in an hour and a half! The dispute ended up before an arbitrator who, after five days of hearings, awarded Lindros to the Philadelphia Flyers over the New York Rangers. The Nordiques therefore acquired Peter Forsberg, Ron Hextall, Steve Duchene, Mike Ricci, Chris Simon, Kerry Huffman, two first-round picks and 15 million. Rangers’ offer wasn’t bad either. It included in particular Alexei Kovalev, Tony Amonte, a goalkeeper among Mike Richter and John Vanbiesbrouck and even more millions!

Katherine Harvey Pinard

June 2010, I was 15 years old. In the corner of my room sat a stop sign with a goalkeeper’s name written on it: Halak. Absolutely dazzled – like many – by the Slovak’s surprising prowess in the playoffs, I had become a fan. As you can imagine, I was very disappointed to learn of his exchange in return for two hopefuls whose names, Lars Eller and Ian Schultz, meant nothing to me. By sending Jaroslav Halak to St. Louis, Pierre Gauthier chose Carey Price as his future goaltender. In hindsight, I obviously understood that it was a good trade, considering what became of Price and what each traded player brought to his new team. But for the Katherine of 2010, and probably for many fans, it hurt. I couldn’t tell you what happened to the stop sign to date though…

Nicholas Richard

I didn’t choose to talk about the transaction that was the most successful in terms of hockey. Rather, I went with the memory, the effect and the impact that the exchange had at the time it happened. For people of my generation, the most significant transaction is without a shadow of a doubt the one involving PK Subban and Shea Weber. Everyone remembers where he was and what he was doing when the trade was announced on June 29, 2016, late afternoon. This is probably the best way to measure the importance of a milestone event. Even if, in retrospect, this exchange will have had less significant repercussions than expected on the ice, we must remember the context in which it took place. Subban was the big star of the Canadiens, the player most loved by fans, one of the most involved personalities in his community across the NHL, he had won the Norris Trophy and initialed the most important contract of the team history. In return, Weber was with the Predators forever, he was the captain, he was one of the five best defensemen in the league, one of the most respected players and he had won two Olympic medals. Ultimately, the two players will each have reached a Stanley Cup final with their new team, but they have been in constant decline since the trade. The fact remains that this transaction made an impression.

Richard Labbe

January 2012, on a winter evening at the Bruins arena in Boston. The Canadian is awful, the game means nothing, but at a certain point, at the start of the third, we notice that Mike Cammalleri is no longer on the bench. After a few minutes, we learn that the Canadiens traded him to the Calgary Flames… between the second and third period! This wacky transaction worthy of Slapshot is the work of CEO Pierre Gauthier, a gentleman who liked to do something different. That, well, that was really different. After the game, I spent long minutes in front of the door of the good Mike’s room at the Ritz in Boston, in the company of friends Jonathan Bernier from Montreal Journal and Jérémie Rainville, then with TVA Sports, trying to get a comment or two, without success, while downstairs in the lobby, Pierre Gauthier celebrated like there was no tomorrow while sipping a Beck’s alcohol-free. The next morning, by pure chance, I got into the taxi of a driver who spent the race explaining to me that he had just left a Canadian player at the airport, and that the player in question ( yes, Mike Cammalleri) had spent his time telling him how happy he was to change teams! After all these years, I still ask myself the question: the Canadian could not have exchanged Cammalleri before the start of the game?

Frederick Duchesneau

Patrick Roy? Wayne Gretzky? Sure, since they’re childhood idols, in that order. But the first transaction that struck me was rather that of Steve Penney, probably the one who made me want to put on the “big” leggings. The good old days of goalkeepers barely equipped for the cosom, so tiny in front of the net. In short, in 1983-1984, after only four games – as many defeats – in the season with the Habs, Penney had been sensational against the Bruins and the Nordiques, much stronger than the CH. Then the balloon deflated against the mighty Islanders, unsurprisingly. The following spring, the Nordiques would get revenge, in overtime in Game 7 of the second round. Which was pretty much going to sound the death knell for good Steve. At the subsequent training camp, the emergence of young Roy. In May 1986, what everyone remembers happened. And, on August 15, what everyone forgot: Steve Penney sent to Winnipeg against the excellent Brian Hayward. Also transferred to Manitoba in the pact, Jan Ingman. Who ? Yes, yes… Another great first-round pick from the Canadian.

Simon Drouin

If I became a Boston Bruins fan in the early 1980s, it was thanks to Raymond Bourque and Barry Pederson. In the summer of 1986, Pederson, still young but slowed by a tumor and injuries, was traded to the Vancouver Canucks for a certain Cam Neely and a first-round pick who would become the excellent defenseman Glen Wesley (himself traded later against three first-round picks!). With his rough style, his three 50-goal seasons and his ability to beat Patrick Roy, Neely was one of my absolute idols whose poster I still have in my office. Retired at 30 because of that bastard Ulf Samuelsson, Neely is now the all-powerful president of the Bruins, whose legendary intensity on the press gallery is the delight of the cameras. Pederson, he makes a very good analyst on NESN, the Bruins’ local network. Killing two birds with one stone, and what an exchange of Harry Sinden!

Simon Olivier Lorange

I have already mentioned several times how traumatic the period 1998-2001 was in my life as a young fan of the CH. Painful seasons during which the Canadian lost its best players and which systematically ended in fishtail. So I remember exactly the transaction that marked a clean break in the ambient gloom of the new millennium: the one, orchestrated by general manager André Savard, which sent Trevor Linden, Dainius Zubrus and a second-round pick to the Washington Capitals in return for Richard Zednik, Jan Bulis and a first-round pick (now Alexander Perezhogin). A masterstroke that allowed the Canadian to instantly rejuvenate and improve in the medium term. Rare at that time for a player who passed through Montreal, Zednik had the best years of his career there. And Bulis, when we were able to give him a more secondary role with the arrival of quality players, also rendered great service. In particular that of having given a little hope to supporters who really needed it.

Jean-Francois Tremblay

I don’t think I was as shocked by transactions as by those that polluted the Canadiens at the start of 2017. First, Marc Bergevin went to get Nikita Nesterov, to give a solid taste of things to come. . Then it was Jordie Benn, to whom we will grant a little respite, however, for services rendered. Then came Brandon Davidson, who was presented to us as a good first pass player, a quality that we are still waiting for. But the best was yet to come. In this fateful 1^er March 2017, Bergevin went for Andreas Martinsen, Dwight King and Steve Ott in what is sure to go down as the most wasteful acquisition of a trio of players in hockey history. To believe that no one among the professional scouts of the CH had access to the cable. The arrival of King will at least have allowed Claude Julien to declare that he had the greatest quality of “knowing when to make line changes”. Despite a clean season, and although he finished first in the Atlantic Division, the Canadian was knocked down by the Rangers in the first round of the playoffs. Well-deserved.

Jean-Francois Teotonio

This column wants us to operate in insolence, so that’s what I’m going to do. The most significant transaction in the history of hockey is that of Patrice Bernier who, at the age of 18, traded in his hockey skates to become a full-time soccer player. He divided his time between the two sports at the time. This transaction, which involved less salaries and hopes than real life choices, changed the history of soccer – and potentially sport – in Quebec. Bernier was a defenseman for the Val-d’Or Foreurs in the QMJHL for a season and a half before being traded to the Sherbrooke Faucons during the 1997-1998 season. This transaction, almost as important as the one that will follow in the life of young Patrice, sounded the death knell for his career as a hockey player. He was then told that he did not have the profile sought by NHL teams. He therefore puts on his crampons so as not to take them off. They will take him to several European countries, to the CONCACAF international championships with Canada, and to a return with the Montreal Impact in 2012. For many, he is still the face of soccer in Quebec, even after his retired in 2017. Significant transaction if ever there was one. On this subject, the book Patrice Bernier, master of his destiny, biography written by my colleague Mathias Brunet, is full of interesting information. Plogue which is not at all subtle.

Miguel Bujold

I started taking for the Philadelphia Flyers in 1985, a few months before the tragic death of Pelle Lindbergh. Not because they were tough. I liked the intensity in their game, but it was also because of Lindbergh, one of the good goalies in the NHL at the time. After several great seasons, including two that ended in the Finals against Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers, the Flyers had aged and were going nowhere by the early 1990s. trade half of their club to the Nordiques to get their hands on Eric Lindros. Like most Quebecers, I didn’t hold Lindros very close to my heart thirty years ago. A few decades later, however, we learned that it was indeed because he did not want to play for Marcel Aubut that Lindros had refused to join the Nordiques, it had nothing to do with Quebec. Lindros even married a Quebecer. In his prime, Lindros was one of the most dominant players in NHL history. But Peter Forsberg, Mike Ricci, Ron Hextall, Steve Duchesne, Chris Simon, Kerry Huffman and two first-round picks, it was a bit too much to pay…