Mark Messier Trade Tree: Still Alive After Years!

[30ranfordfan]

You can't really win the deal when you trade away a Superstar. It happens occasionally, but it's rare. The Oilers had already traded away a pair of future HOFers during the 1980s (Gretzky, Coffey), and after winning their 5th Stanley Cup in 1990, it was only a matter of time before the rest would be moved.

1991 saw the Oilers deal away four more future HOfers: Jari Kurri was traded to the Philadephia Flyers on May 30th, and Glenn Anderson & Grant Fuhr were traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs on September 19th. Mark Messier went public with his trade demand at the 1991 Canada Cup, and he was dealt to the New York Rangers only a few weeks after the Anderson/Fuhr deal.

The Oilers Dynasty teams of the 80s produced 7 (so far) future Hall of Famers, and on October 4th 1991, after Mark Messier was traded, Kevin Lowe was the only one of those seven remaining.

I stand by my first couple of statements. It's exceptionally rare to win a deal, when you're dealing away a superstar. The players you get in return are never going to be as good as the one you gave up. Typically you get a "package" of some kind, mostly young players and picks... you hope they'll all pan out, usually only some of them do.... and "pan out" might mean they're just serviceable NHLers, not stars.

So will I suggest that the Edmonton Oilers, in anyway, won the Mark Messier trade? Of course not. I think in the end, when you see what collection of assets come as a result of dealing Mark Messier: The Oilers didn't do too bad.

Here goes:


Mark Messier was traded to the New York Rangers for Louie DeBrusk, Bernie Nicholls, and Steven Rice. There was also "future considerations" in there... which ultimately became the Jeff Beukeboom for David Shaw swap.

The only player in that list that ever did much for the Oilers was Nicholls. He did score at a nice pace, but played fewer than 100 games for the Oilers before he was traded to New Jersey, for Kevin Todd & Zdeno Ciger.

Kevin Todd would be traded to the Black Hawks for Adam Bennett, who was out of the NHL after his 48 games in Edmonton.

Ciger was really good, getting 31 goals / 70 points in 95-96. Then he went home to the Czech Republic to play for half a dozen years. He'd been taken in an expansion draft in the meantime.

The Nicholls branch ends here.

Louie deBrusk was a part-time player / enforcer. His last three seasons in Edmonton, he played less than half the games. He'd eventually leave via free agency, when he signed with Tampa Bay in 1997. His branch ends with him.

David Shaw, if you want to include him, played exactly a dozen games for the Oilers, and was traded to Minnesota for Brian Glynn. Glynn would eventually be moved to the Senators for future consideration, which wound up being a 1994 8th round pick. The Oilers selected Rob Guinn. He had a career that ran until 2008, mostly in UHL - but he did play as high as the ECHL in 2003-04. The David Shaw branch ends here.

That leaves Steven Rice, and this is where it gets really fun......

Steven Rice was a huge part of the deal. He was considered one of the best prospects in hockey, having recently lead Canada to a World Junior Gold medal. His first two seasons in Edmonton were dissapointing. He played 3 & 28 games, spending most of those years in the minors..... where he put up back-to-back 30+ goal seasons in the AHL.

1993-94 saw rice join the Oilers fulltime, but he was never really the scoring star they wanted him to be. 17 goals (32 points) in 63 games isn't bad... but it's not amazing, and they had hoped for amazing things from Rice.

So what happened? He was traded to the Hartford Whalers, for Bryan Marchment.

Marchment was a tough-as-nails (and sometimes dirty) defenseman for the Oilers. He spent the better part of four seasons in Edmonton, before being traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning. They sent Marchment along with a pair of first round busts (Jason Bonsignore & Steve Kelly) and got back Paul Comrie & for #1 overall pick, Roman Hamrlik.

Comrie was forced into retirement due to concussion problems, but Hamrlik was a stud on the Oilers blueline for three years, and a key part of those late 90s teams that were so much fun to watch.

The branch keeps growing when Hamrlik was traded to the New York Islanders for Eric Brewer, Josh Green, and a 2nd Round pick in 2000.

Winchester played 78 for the Oilers, wasn't qualified, and left as a free agent after the 06-07 season. He actually ended up playing 390 NHL games (which surprised me), but the Oilers got nothing for him when he left.

Josh Green was traded to the New York Rangers a couple of seasons later, for a conditional pick in the 2004 draft. I can't seem to find what pick that was, so I'm assuming the condition was never met. Green actually had a pretty wild 02-03 season. He played 20 games for the Oilers, before the December 12th trade. He played four times for the Rangers, before the Capitals claimed him in waivers. He played 21 games there.

Green actually came back to the Oilers in 2011-12, played 7 more games for them then, and spent the better part of two seasons with their AHL club.

Regardless of all that, this part of the Steven Rice branch ends with Josh Green.

Eric Brewer is where things stay alive and well. He came in, played four stellar seasons with the Oilers, won a gold medal with Team Canada at the 2002 Olympics, and was the then the key piece (along with Doug Lynch & Jeff Woywitka) in a 2005 trade with St. Louis, that netted the Oilers Chris Pronger.

Pronger, as most of you probably know, played amazing in his one season with Edmonton. The Oilers lost in game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals with him, and he asked for a trade after that.

He was dealt to the Anaheim Ducks, where he did win a Stanley Cup. In return the Oilers got Ladislav Smit, Joffrey Lupul, a 2007 1st round pick, and a 2008 2nd round pick. They also got a conditional first round pick: The Ducks owed them an extra one, if they got to the Stanley Cup finals. They got there, and won, in 2007. Since the Oilers already owned that pick, they got the Ducks' 2008 pick as well.

Smid (plus Olivier Roy) would be traded to Calgary for Laurent Brossoit & Roman Horak. Both would leave as free agents.

Lupul would be traded to Philly, along with Jason Smith, for Geoff Sanderson, Joni Pitkanen, and a 3rd Round pick in 2009. Sanderson retired after 41 games in Edmonton. The draft pick was used to select Cameron Abney. Abney was traded to Toronto, along with Teemu Hartikaninen, for Mark Fraser. Fraser would leave via free agency. Pitkanen would be taded for Erik Cole, who was traded for Patrick O'Sullivan, who was traded for Jim Vandermeer, who left as a free agent.

All that's left to talk about, from the Messier > Rice > Pronger branch are those three draft picks:

The 2007 1st was 31st overall. It was packaged along with the 36th overall pick and sent to Arizona for the 21st. The Oilers selected Riley Nash. He turned out to be a decent player, but never played a day for the Oilers. He refused to sign with the club, and would be dealt to Carolina for a 2nd round pick. The pick turned into Martin Marincin, who was traded for Brad Ross & a 4th round pick. Ross never played a game with the Oilers organization (he was already playing in Germany at the time of the deal). The 4th rounder was traded to Ottawa (along with Travis Ewanyk) for Eric Gryba. Gryba would leave as a free agent.

The 2nd round pick in 2008 was traded to the Islanders, for the Allan Rourke, and the Oilers own 2008 3rd round pick, that the Islanders had acquired in an earlier deal. The Oilers needed their own 3rd back, in order to make an offer sheet for Dustin Penner, which was ultimately not matched, and the Ducks took the Oilers 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round picks in 2008 as a result.

The final pick was the Ducks 2008 1st. It was used on Jordan Eberle.... who would eventually be traded for Ryan Strome, who would be traded for Ryan Spooner, would be traded from Sam Gagner.

At this most recent NHL trade deadline, Sam Gagner was traded (along with a couple of draft picks) the the Detroit Red Wings for Andreas Athanasiou.

The tree is still alive today!


So, while I would never argue that the Oilers got a great return for Messier, they did get assets which lead to other assets, and things have continued so long, that there's a player on today's roster that we can link back to dealing away Messier 29 years ago.

[RGM81]

Ridiculous how much fun these can be eh? End up down some strange rabbit holes. LOL I still need to do an "official" Craig Rivet one for the Habs.

It's amazing how these deals can have long-term "branches" that extend for so long. The Rangers getting the 1994 Cup will pretty much overshadow anything the Oilers could have done with any of the legacy players from the trade. It's a shame that Eberle didn't end up being more for them.

[mingus_md]

Cool read. As a Rangers fan I am still very happy with the Messier trade.

[icefields]

i really enjoy these "trees"
great job, and (hint hint) i look forward to the next one lol

maybe there is a small trade that had a super impact on building a franchise.

[30ranfordfan]

Ridiculous how much fun these can be eh? End up down some strange rabbit holes. LOL I still need to do an "official" Craig Rivet one for the Habs.

It's amazing how these deals can have long-term "branches" that extend for so long. The Rangers getting the 1994 Cup will pretty much overshadow anything the Oilers could have done with any of the legacy players from the trade. It's a shame that Eberle didn't end up being more for them.

Yeah, the long term branches thing: Of course these trees over simplify it. It's not like they got ALL of that stuff for Messier. Most of the trades that follow the first one, and certainly any of consequence, also involve other assets.

Cool read. As a Rangers fan I am still very happy with the Messier trade.

Oh yeah. The Rangers made out very well. They got a guy who is somewhere in the top 25 players of all time, and he delivered them a cup.

i really enjoy these "trees"
great job, and (hint hint) i look forward to the next one lol

maybe there is a small trade that had a super impact on building a franchise.

I will come up with another really good one to do soon, but I'll inject a "mini" one right here, since it's related to the Messier trade tree.


This one is even longer running, the oldest one going for the Oilers, and I'm not sure there's many around the league that would be older!

It's the Reg Thomas trade tree:

Reg Thomas, who most members have probably never heard of, was selected by the Oilers in the 1979 Dispersal Draft.

The Merger / Dispersal was one of the more complicated expansion drafts to date, and instead of going into great detail - I'll hold off and write about that in another post. Anyway, Reg Thomas was a member of the Cincinnati Stingers in the WHA, and the Oilers selected him in the Dispersal draft.

If you check out Thomas' hockeydb page, you'll see he never played for the Oilers. They dealt him to the Toronto Maple Leafs before the 79-80 season ever started, getting a 6th round pick in 1981. I should note, he never played for the Leafs either. He spent the first part of the season in the AHL, and then was traded to Quebec, where he played 39 games that season.

Anyway, the 6th round pick. Not a big deal, right? Well, it turned into defenceman Steve Smith... who'd play over 800 NHL games, and win 3 Stanley Cups with the Oilers (and had that gaffe in 1986, where he scored on his own net).

Smith would eventually be traded to the Blackhawks for Dave Manson. Dave Manson was traded to the Winnipeg Jets, in a complete heist of a deal: The Oilers traded Manson plus a 6th round pick, and got Boris Mironov, Mats Lindgren, and a 1st Round pick. Mironov is one of the 90s Oilers nobody every remembers.... despite how awesome he was. Lindgren was a top prospect at the time (15th overall pick in 1993). He was a decent NHLer, but not a top-end guy.

I could keep going on what other assets Mironov & Lindgren led to, but I'm just trying to quickly tie this into the Messier deal.

The draft pick? I'm not sure why the Jets would have traded it away.... because they were bad. It ended up being the #4 pick in 1994.

The Oilers ended up using the pick on Jason Bonsignore. As a junior, his combination of size & finesse drew comparisons to Mario Lemieux. I can't find any "pre-1994 draft" articles online that show rankings, but I'm certain he was talked about as a "possible" #1 overall pick, though Jovanovski was ranked #1.

Bonsignore would later be traded to Tampa Bay, packaged up with Steve Kelly & Bryan Marchment, as I mentioned in the Messier post. From that point on, the tree is the same.... so we can actually trace Athanasiou, a player on the Oilers in 2020, back to a trade of Reg Thomas to the Maple Leafs in August of 1979, about two months before the Oilers played their first NHL game.

[Savard18]

You sir - just crushed Steve Dangle's head with that one.

Really tho, I'm impressed because that must have taken hours to sort out in your mind.... And it is kinda funny because I was going though some early 90's Upper Deck and I was finding cards of all those players - even Adam Bennett - many of which were underrated (and Bennett wasn't one of them). In speaking of underrated why isn't Bernie Nicholls in the Hall of Fame? I mean I grew up watching him play, and I kinda get why he's not but I kinda don't get why he isn't...Was he too soft? I mean no one could make the "Rob Brown" argument considering Bernie was a PPG player on his own, while Brown was just a product of Mario.....So what is it? he was soft? a grifter or a guy that never went into the dirty areas to get the puck and relied on his teammates to feed him the puck?, the era?... IDK, his stats scream HOF to me, regardless of the game he played... He was a pretty talented player....

Also, if I remember correctly didn't Fuhr want out of Edmonton because he wanted to put Pepsi advertising on his pads or something? then he tried the same crap with LA and the league banned the entire concept?

It's kinda funny if you think about it tho - the Oilers colors were essentially the Pepsi colors so in a weird twisted way it kinda made sense, lol.

[30ranfordfan]

You sir - just crushed Steve Dangle's head with that one.

Really tho, I'm impressed because that must have taken hours to sort out in your mind.... And it is kinda funny because I was going though some early 90's Upper Deck and I was finding cards of all those players - even Adam Bennett - many of which were underrated (and Bennett wasn't one of them). In speaking of underrated why isn't Bernie Nicholls in the Hall of Fame? I mean I grew up watching him play, and I kinda get why he's not but I kinda don't get why he isn't...Was he too soft? I mean no one could make the "Rob Brown" argument considering Bernie was a PPG player on his own, while Brown was just a product of Mario.....So what is it? he was soft? a grifter or a guy that never went into the dirty areas to get the puck and relied on his teammates to feed him the puck?, the era?... IDK, his stats scream HOF to me, regardless of the game he played... He was a pretty talented player....

Also, if I remember correctly didn't Fuhr want out of Edmonton because he wanted to put Pepsi advertising on his pads or something? then he tried the same crap with LA and the league banned the entire concept?

It's kinda funny if you think about it tho - the Oilers colors were essentially the Pepsi colors so in a weird twisted way it kinda made sense, lol.

Not hours, no. lol.

I could have loosely rhymed off a lot of that. For whatever reason, these kinds of facts stick in my head really easy. I did have to look up some of the specifics, but hockeydb.com actually makes looking up this kind of information really easy. (lots of sites had trade information, but I find it really easy to use - links to each player are right there when you're looking at a trade).

I'm with you on Nicholls. I'm not sure how he's not in the Hall, with some of the other names that have already gotten there.

I had never heard of the Pepsi thing. I did a quick search, and it appears that there was an issue with it, yes. He wanted to put a Pepsi logo on his pads, but league rules forbid it. His agent blamed the Oilers, and tried to force a trade (apparently, to the Red Wings). If he'd been traded, he likely would have got a hefty raise... which the Oilers weren't giving him. It reads to me like his agent stirred the pot, and created an issue that would result in a trade, and the trade would get him more money.

After Fuhr realized that it was the league, and not the team, that was stopping the adds - things got patched up pretty quickly, and he was back with the club.

[30ranfordfan]

Bumping this one, just wanted to add a little info....

I had been suggesting that the "Reg Thomas trade tree" was the oldest one I could find. It started on August 22nd, 1979, when the Oilers dealt Thomas to the Leafs for a draft pick. That tree eventually joins up with the Messier tree in the 90s, when the Roman Hamrlik deal was made with Tampa Bay.

I'm not sure this one really counts as extending the Messier deal, but until this morning I did not realize that the pick the Oilers used on Messier was not their own.

Dave Semenko was an Oiler in the WHA, but he was reclaimed by the Minnesota North Stars, who owned his NHL rights. The Oilers wanted Semenko back, and traded a 2nd Round pick (42nd overall) plus a 3rd round pick (63rd overall) in 1979, for Semenko & a 3rd round pick (48th overall).

Basically, the North Stars got to move up 6 slots, and added the 63rd pick, in exchange for a player they likely didn't really want, but were entitled to.

The North Stars actually did pretty good with the 42nd pick: Neal Broten. The 63rd was Kevin Maxwell. This is the first time I'd ever heard of Mr. Maxwell (he did play 66 NHL games). Like Broten, he played at the 1980 Olympics..... but he was on Team Canada.

Anyway, that 48th picks is what the Oilers used to take Messier.

[camsue]

This is amazing

[sparty07]

I enjoy reading these trees. It's also interesting to see how many times teams seem to trade with only a few other teams. Like Edmonton and the NY teams had a number of trades back and forth. Or more recently, the Coyotes and Hawks have made a number of trades the last few seasons.