NHL Trade Deadline: Has Anyone Ever Really "Won"?

When it comes to trades, the typical question isn't "How did the trade work for both teams?" or even "How did the trade work for an individual player?"

Rather, the usual is "Who won?" Like everything else in sports, it comes down to winning, bettering your foe. 

But this question doesn’t actually mean much. 

When you sit down and really think about it, why would a general manager readily agree to a trade in which his team takes a significant blow? Would he ever execute a move that puts his team at a disadvantage?

Unless he’s trying to pull a George Costanza, it wouldn't make sense. 

Really, most trades aren’t really "wins" or "losses" for either team; they’re just a reshuffling of the deck, as it were. 

Take last season’s "blockbuster" trade: Marian Hossa and Pascal Dupuis from Atlanta to Pittsburgh for a bundle of prospects and a draft pick.

The Penguins were widely thought to have “won” the trade and, in a sense, they did: They went to the Stanley Cup Finals. But during the offseason, Hossa left to sign with Detroit. 

Meanwhile, two of the prospects Pittsburgh traded away (Angelo Esposito and Colby Armstrong) are still with the Thrashers (though Erik Christensen was traded in early March to Anaheim).

So does that change who really won that trade, then? Did anybody win?

Both teams got what they wanted out of it—Atlanta some prospects to help rebuild the team, Pittsburgh a shot in the arm for a deep playoff run. Wouldn't it be fair to say that nobody really won that trade?

Of course, it's also possible that neither team wins.

One need only look back to early 1992, when the Toronto Maple Leafs picked up Jamie Macoun, Ric Nattress, Kent Maderville, Rick Wamsley, and Doug Gilmour from the Calgary Flames for Gary Leeman, Alexander Godynyuk, Jeff Reese, Michel Petit, and Craig Berube. A huge 10-player deal, that, in retrospect, was completely lopsided in Toronto’s favor. 

But forgotten is why Calgary made that deal: They had problems with all of the players they sent to Toronto.

For example, Gilmour bailed on the Flames over his pay check. He took the team to arbitration in December of 1991 and was awarded a salary of $750,000—much less than the $1.2 million he was looking for.

So, on Jan. 1, Gilmour told Doug Risebrough he was leaving the team.

He was traded to Toronto shortly after, the key part of a deal that Toronto Globe and Mail writer David Shoalts called a “moving of malcontents.”

Leafs defenseman Todd Gill summed up the mood at the time of the trade: "(It) should be pretty good for both teams. I hope this change can get a few guys on our team going." 

Even in such an extreme example, calling a winner or loser in trades is not always so clear-cut. Essentially, Calgary got rid of a player who didn’t want to play and got one back who would only score 11 more NHL goals.

But they did manage to clear the dressing room of players who had been causing problems for the team all season.

All the players sent to Toronto were having contract problems; one had even threatened to leave the Flames for the national team. At the same time, Toronto was considered a bad team, but they picked up some good players.

Still, nobody was predicting back-to-back runs to the conference finals in the next two seasons. 

Which brings me to this season’s trade deadline. The biggest and arguably most important move was Calgary’s acquisition of Olli Jokinen and Jordan Leopold from the Phoenix Coyotes.

While it didn't prompt anyone to proclaim the Flames favorites for the Cup—Dallas, Detroit, and Boston still hold that distinction—they are being called the winners of their trades. 

But, as history has shown, isn’t it a little early to make those calls? Shouldn’t we, as the pundits or as the fans, wait just a little bit first? 

Lost in the orgy of information (over eight hours of debate and opinion on two different channels can hardly be called anything else) on trade deadline Wednesday was the most basic rule of every trade: You make it to improve your team, either by addition or subtraction.

Of course, that doesn’t make for riveting television, and that’s exactly why The Sports Reporters is a non-entity while Around the Horn is on five times a week. 

One must conclude that the real winners on trade deadline day are the networks, who turn a fairly meaningless day into a huge TV event. 

After all, it’s not like any team wins or loses specifically because of what they do that day.

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