NHL history: Worst trade in each team’s history: Chicago Blackhawks
This guy? Again? Yeah, Dominik Hasek was a part of two of the worst trades in history, but this one is so much worse since the Chicago Blackhawks got none of the benefits from one of the best to ever put on the pads. Hasek was drafted in the 10th round by the Blackhawks, and they literally waited seven years for him to make the NHL only to trade him after 25 games.
For Hasek, the Blackhawks made themselves a part of one of the strangest trades in the history of the league. The Sabres traded Christian Ruuttu to the Winnipeg Jets for Stephane Beauregard. Then, they paired him with a 4th-round pick to get Hasek. Right after that trade, the Blackhawks traded Beauregard back to the Jets for, you guessed it, Christian Ruuttu.
Ruuttu played a total of 158 games for the Blackhawks before they traded him to Vancouver in the middle of the 1995 lockout-shortened season. It didn’t exactly move the needle. The Blackhawks had a prime Ed Belfour, so it’s not like they needed Hasek, but getting such a weak return for one of the best is inexcusable. Hasek went on to carry the Sabres for years, even taking them to the Stanley Cup Final (somewhere the Blackhawks never went with Belfour), and eventually won the Cup with the Red Wings.