Who was the best player to ever be the worst player in a trade?

With just days until the deadline, I want to try to tackle one of those questions that sounds simple but ends up being tougher than you might think: Who was the best worst player in an NHL trade?

In other words, if you took every player from a given trade and ranked them from best to worst, which trades from history give you a really good player in the last spot?

Clearly, we’re not looking at deals that only had one player involved, or even those with just two. Johnny Bucyk was probably worse than Terry Sawchuk, but that doesn’t really fit the spirit of what we’re going for here.

But a funny thing happens if you set the minimum at even three players: It suddenly gets really hard to find “good” bad players, because as it turns out, NHL GMs really love to start tossing random names into trades. Once you knock them out of the one-for-one equilibrium, they start floundering around and the next thing you know, your Phil Esposito-for-Brad Park blockbuster also has Joe Zanussi in it.

So today, let’s try to find that best worst trade piece from a trade of three players or more. We’re not counting draft picks here – your name has to have been in the original trade.

I went looking through the archives, and here are a few candidates I came up with.

Bob Rouse

The player: Rouse was never a Norris candidate, but he was a very good defensive defenseman in an era where that was a highly coveted skillset.

The trade: At the 1989 deadline, the North Stars traded Rouse and Dino Ciccarelli to the Capitals for Mike Gartner and Larry Murphy.

Why this guy was good: Rouse was a classic hard-nosed blueliner who could throw big hits and handle himself in a fight with pretty much anyone. That translated to a 17-season career that included two Cups with the Red Wings. His 127 playoff games in the 1990s ranks third among all defensemen.

But the other guys in the deal were: Hall-of-Famers. All of them.

That’s what makes this trade such a great example of what we’re looking for. Bob Rouse was really good! His arrival in Toronto was a big piece of turning that team around, and there’s a reason the Wings targeted him in free agency when they felt like they were on the verge of winning it all. But he’s the fourth best piece in this four-player trade by a mile, because the other pieces in the deal were a 600-goal scorer, a 700-goal scorer, and a guy who ranks in the top-five in all-time scoring for his position.

Compared to those guys, Rouse is schlub. But he might be the best player to ever be the worst player in a four-player trade.

Then again, this next guy might have something to say about that…

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Grab Bag: Weighing the pros and cons of some top candidates for the Edmonton Oilers GM job

In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Breaking down the pros and cons for six of the top candidates for the Oilers' GM job
- Please stop giving hockey lines nicknames based on their initials
- An obscure player who held an amazing Vancouver Canucks record
- The week's three comedy stars
- And a YouTube breakdown of the 1985 all-star game, in which everyone is dressed up like a cowboy for some reason

>> Read the full post at The Athletic

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Game Six Overtime is the NHL's Twilight Zone

They’re almost here.

Over the weekend, hockey fans will get this year’s first look at Game 6. We’ll get one on Saturday night, with the Hawks hosting the Blues. Depending on how things play out, we could have as many as four more on Sunday, and maybe even two more after that on Monday.

It goes without saying that a Game 6 is always crucial. A Game 6 means that one team is guaranteed to be looking to close out the series and move on to the next round. It also means that one team will be facing elimination, just one loss away from seeing everything they’ve worked for all season long end with the crushing disappointment of elimination.

But even more importantly, it means we have a chance to get overtime. And if we do, then the odds are good that we’ll see something truly strange. Because, for reasons nobody has ever been able to explain, Game 6 Overtime is the NHL’s version of the Twilight Zone.

Think back to the strangest, most controversial or just downright confusing moment you can remember witnessing as a hockey fan. The odds are good that it happened in a Game 6 Overtime. Nobody knows why this is. There's no rational explanation for it. But somehow, when it's Game 6 of a playoff series and we're deadlocked after regulation, things get weird. Before the Zambonis have completed their intermission rounds, the generally accepted laws of society, justice and even basic physics are already resetting themselves.

For example, what's the most controversial play in NHL history? Most fans would probably think of Brett Hull's skate-in-the-crease goal to win the 1999 Stanley Cup. And when did that happen? Game 6 Overtime, of course.

That goal and its aftermath still stands as one of the strangest moments that hockey fans have ever seen. Then again, at least we did actually see it. In Game 6 Overtime, there are no guarantees. At any other time, a star player scoring the biggest goal in a decade would be an unforgettable moment. In Game 6 Overtime, you might not even notice that it happened.

This stuff has been going on for decades. And it's not just about the winning goals. Go find the nearest Maple Leafs fan and ask them how their day is going. Then count the seconds until they manage to change the subject to the one play that every Leafs fan has been droning on about for 23 years: Wayne Gretzky's missed high-stick on Doug Gilmour from the 1993 Conference Finals. And when did that happen? Of course.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Did you know? The Wayne Gretzky trade

Gretzky never saw his wallet again.

Today marks 25 years since the most famous trade in NHL history. On August 9, 1988, the Edmonton Oilers traded Wayne Gretzky, Marty McSorley and Mike Krushelnyski to the LA Kings for Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas, three first-round picks and cash.

The deal became known simply as "The Trade", and its effects are still being felt to this day. The day still resonates with hockey fans so strongly that even now, a quarter of a century later, the anniversary is getting extensive media coverage.

But how well do you really know The Trade? Here are some lesser known facts and figures from the most famous transaction in hockey history:

• Before the trade, every NHL trade deadline broadcast would begin with the host saying "You know what they say, folks, if Wayne Gretzky can be traded then anyone can! But of course Wayne Gretzky cannot, in fact, be traded, so…" followed by an eight-hour test pattern.
  
  
• The main piece coming back to Edmonton in the trade never did produce the sort of offensive numbers that fans had been hoping for, although in fairness it's hard to score goals when you are a giant bag full of money.
  
  
• Everyone who has ever asked you if you remember where you were the day Gretzky was traded didn't remotely care about your answer, and was just waiting for you to stop talking so they could tell you their own boring story.

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Maple Leafs Overtime Heroes: Mike Foligno vs. the Red Wings

This post kicks off a new series where we'll occasionally look back at memorable Leaf playoff overtime goals. Today's goal is Mike Foligno's winner against the Red Wings in game five of the 1993 playoffs, which gave the Leafs a 3-2 series lead.

Any Leaf fan over the age of 25 should remember Mike Foligno's overtime goal against the Red Wings. Probably the most famous goal of Foligno's long career, it served as turning point in the Leafs' eventual series win that launched the rebirth of the Leafs as quasi-contenders.

Heading into game five in Detroit, the series had been predictable: the heavily favored Wings had won two blowouts at home, while the underdog Leafs had won two squeakers at MLG. Mid-way through the game it seemed like the pattern would hold, as the Leafs were trailing 4-1.

Thanks to a furious comeback by the Leafs and some Toskalish goaltending by Tim Cheveldae, the two teams went to overtime for the first time in the series. And just two minutes in, this happened:

The video pretty much speaks for itself, and I could just end the post here. But I hope everyone realizes by now that that's not the way things work around these parts.

No, instead we're going to analyze the entire clip in ridiculous detail. Here are nine interesting things about this goal:

Probert's giveaway
The play starts with one of the worst overtime giveaways in recent memory. Bob Probert has an easy path out of the Wings zone, but sees a check coming from Foligno and throws the puck carelessly along the blueline instead.

Now a lot of people will criticize Probert for this one, but I'm going to defend him. Put yourself in his position. He's trying to make a play along the boards when out of the corner of his eye he sees somebody skating towards him wearing a Maple Leafs jersey with the numbers "1" and "7" on it.

Every other time this happened to Probert in his career, he spent the next few days trying to poop out shards of his own teeth. So I don't think you can blame him for going into full-on panic mode here. I think he actually showed a lot of restraint by not finding the nearest exit, sprinting down the hallway and pulling the first fire alarm he saw.

Anyways, the puck slides almost all the way across the ice before two players converge on it.

Clark vs. Lidstrom
Yes, that's a young Nik Lidstrom trying to stop Wendel Clark along the boards. Clark winds up with the puck. Lidstrom winds up with a nicely framed diploma, because he gets taken to school.

Here's an approximate transcript of Nik Lidstrom's thought process on this play:

"Here comes the puck, I should probably go and... oh god almighty, here comes Wendel. OK, stay calm. Hook him. Hook him again. Don't make eye contact. Hook him a third time. He's not stopping. Dear god why isn't anybody helping me? Now he just slammed on the brakes and left me standing here by myself. Good, I'm going to just aimlessly skate backwards and let somebody else deal with this. Hey, did somebody just pull a fire alarm?"

After Clark is done shrugging off a terrified Lidstrom he spins back and executes a backhanded saucer pass to a streaking Foligno, who Clark was no doubt able to spot because of...

Foligno's helmet
Three things you need to know about Mike Foligno's helmet.

• He made it himself out of an old salad bowl.
  
• It had a white stripe around it for absolutely no reason.
  
• For his entire Leafs career, it was always a slightly different shade of blue than everyone else's

And yes, I listed those in increasing order of how much they annoyed me. And still do.

The goal
Not much to say about this one, except to point out that Cheveldae executes one of the great overtime "losing goaltender sprint off the ice" moves of all-time. I love those.

There are only two types of athletes who are allowed to react to crushing defeat by storming away as quickly as they can: sobbing five-year-olds whose parents signed them up for sports against their will, and NHL goaltenders. And when they build a hall of fame for losing goalie sprints, the first inductee will be Ed Belfour.

Wait, what was I talking about? Oh right. Moving on...

The Foligno Leap
Every Leaf fan knows the Foligno Leap, and at least 25% have suffered a serious ACL injury trying to replicate it.

But here's a question: why did Mike Foligno have his own patented goal celebration? Has any other player in NHL history had a specific goal celebration that was unique ot them? I don't mean one-time deals like Ovechkin's hot stick or Selanne's air rifle, I mean specific celebrations that they did every single time they scored. I can't think of any.

Doesn't that seem odd to you? Journeyman grinder Mike Foligno somehow became the only player to get his own patented celebration. This would be like if the only NFL wide receiver to ever do an endzone celebration was Waybe Chrebet. And yet everyone in the hockey world was fine with this.

So Foligno does his leap, the Leafs pile onto the ice, and we get a rare sighting of...

Darren Puppa
Is it me, or is Puppa a little bit too involved in the post-goal celebration? He's only been on the team for a few weeks, but he's right in there, aggressively looking for somebody to hug but not finding any takers.

True story: I was once at a wedding reception with Darren Puppa. A friend and I decided to play a game called "how many reception pictures can you take that have Darren Puppa somewhere in the background?" After a few drinks, we were basically posing for pictures in his lap.

He probably hates me.

Alright then, moving on...

Todd Gill's celebration
This was an important goal scored by the Leafs during the 1990s, so you're no doubt assuming that Todd Gill was on the ice. And he was, as you can see on the right-side of the screen during the replay at the 0:50 mark.

Watch his reaction. When the goal goes in, Gill raises his arms in the air and appears to do a 360-degree twirl. He doesn't head for Foligno, or towards another teammate. He just stays where he is and spins around by himself.

It's a bizarre was to react to a goal, but it felt vaguely familiar to me. And then it hit me: arms raised... random spinning... no interaction with teammates...

Todd Gill is doing the goal celebration from NHL '93!

The only thing missing is an occasional fist pump, an annoying siren, and my college roommate desperately trying to check him headfirst into the boards from behind and then making me watch the replay of that seven hundred times.

Pat Burns' reaction
This is the single greatest "holy crap, I can not believe we actually won" reaction of all time. Burns doesn't even try to contain it. He can not believe the Maple Leafs actually won this game.

He's still smiling a minute later as the players are coming off the ice. He's in such a good mood that we get to see a series of awkward high five attempts, even though Burns is holding either a pen or a Virginia Slim cigarette. I think you can tell which players on the team were cool by how they react to the high-five. Doug Gilmour handles it smoothly, while Mike Krushelnyski has no idea what to do.

Also, Burns is wearing suspenders. I don't know why this makes it so much better, but it does.

The old man strut
At the very end of the clip, you can see Foligno leave the ice and walk into the dressing room. Except he doesn't walk. He lets out some sort of warrior scream, then proceeds to strut into the dressing room like he's Ric Flair fighting a stomach flu.

As an added bonus, Kent Manderville tries to leap into Foligno's arms but mistimes it and winds up awkwardly landing by himself.

Homework assignment: at some point this week, you must enter a room strutting like Mike Foligno. And that includes the pre-strut scream. I'd suggest a crowded elevator, a church service, or a conference room at work during a meeting you were not invited to. Report back here when done.

Update: Commenter kidkawartha adds a tenth moment: at 0:42, does Foligno seem to be... um... "getting to know" Bob Rouse?