NHL Trade Deadline: A Cautionary Tale

It’s been nearly two years since Black Tuesday in Edmonton:

Kevin Lowe is waking up this morning as the most hated man in Edmonton.

The Oilers general manager dropped a bombshell… by dealing Ryan Smyth to the New York Islanders, moments before the trade deadline passed.

Unsurprisingly, it didn't take long for this newspaper to be flooded with e-mails from Oilers fans who were appalled, aghast and just plain angry that the heart and soul of the Oilers franchise has been shipped out.

- Mike Jenkinson, Edmonton Sun. February 28, 2007

And that was just the start of it. Alberta angst boiled over across the internet as the heart and soul blubbered his way out of town.

Meanwhile, Islanders GM Garth Snow couldn’t hide his delight. “Honestly, I got the adrenaline I used to get from playing the game," he told media admirers.

One suspects Snow is feeling a little less giddy these days.

Smyth lasted 18 games on the Island before fleeing west as a free agent.

Nor does Edmonton have much to show for the deal. Of the players acquired, only Robert Nilsson is a current Oiler, and they're still waiting for him to pay dividends.

But the real losers in the Ryan Smyth trade turned out to be the Colorado Avalanche.

For all his emotional value in Edmonton, Smyth looked like suspect goods by 2007: a 31-year-old winger with plenty of hard miles on his chassis.

That didn’t stop the Avs from stepping up with a five-year, $31.25 contract in July of that year – the kind of money the Oilers had refused to pay, triggering the trade a few months before.

Now the former heart-and-soul is an aging forward eating up huge cap space as his team spirals out of the playoff race. It’s almost certain that production will decline and injuries increase over the remaining three years of Smyth’s contract.

Colorado could trade him, but only if he waives the no-trade clause.

Kevin Lowe might not be the best GM in the NHL. But he needn’t have any regrets about driving Ryan Smyth to the airport.

Garth Snow learned that a lot of noise on deadline day often adds up to a lot of nothing on the ice. But with NHL GMs, that lesson rarely sticks.

With the 2009 NHL trade deadline fast approaching (March 4), the cycle begins anew.

(Photo: Andy Marlin/Getty Images)