NHL history: Worst trade in each team’s history

NHL history: Worst trade in each team’s history: Arizona Coyotes

It’s a tale as old as time. The Arizona/Pheonix Coyotes have traded away young players on the cusp of stardom only to see them become stars in other places. Or, they develop stars who then become too expensive, and they have to trade them away too. Although this could have easily been the Taylor Hall trade with the Devils, the fact they only ended up losing one 1st-round pick in the deal, and the Yotes made up with the lost picks with other trades puts the deal that lost Danny Briere as the worst trade in team history.

Chris Gratton was a mammoth forward who was going to bring some toughness to the Coyotes. He could also score, so it wasn’t the most egregious deal on paper. Briere was a smaller forward who might not have stayed in the NHL. Still, the fact that Yotes GM Michael Barnett ended up giving the Sabres a better pick with the better player is preposterous. Gratton spent a little over a season in Phoenix before he was traded to Colorado.

Meanwhile, Briere became the face of the franchise for Buffalo. After the trade, he only played for Buffalo for four years, but he had more than a point per game and really took them to places they hadn’t seen since. It came with two great playoff runs in 2006 and 2007 where the Sabres were actually considered a true contender.

The Sabres turned that draft pick into Andrej Sekera, who would go on to play seven years in Buffalo and 15 years overall in the NHL. The pick the Coyotes made was Liam Reddox, who played 100 games in the NHL and none of them were for the Coyotes.