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"We're never as smart as we're made out to be, and never as dumb either."

- Buffalo general manager Darcy Regier, on Hockey Night in Canada, May of 2006.

The frustration is understandable. Most fans accept that when the star stops producing or the team hits rock bottom, a parting of ways is possible. If the big guy can be traded for a couple of solid veterans or a bucketful of draft picks and prospects, may as well go for it.

But it rarely works out that way. Hockey's best players often go at garage sale prices: Back in 2002, Pavel Bure was hockey's greatest scorer, coming off seasons of 58 and 59 goals. But the Florida Panthers traded him for little more than a decent young defensemen. Jaromir Jagr has twice been traded for almost nobody (Anson Carter, Frantisek Kucera, Kris Beech, Ross Lupaschuk and Michal Sivek are the combined return from both Jagr trades). Assorted lesser stars, like Alexei Kovalev, are routinely available for a minor leaguer and a middling draft pick or two. As of the summer of 2006, it's too early to judge the return on the Joe Thornton deal or the Chris Pronger trade. But they both look like steals so far.

The standard explanation for such deals is that management's hand is forced. They very much want to be rid of the guy, so they have to take what they can get. Not making the deal isn't an option. It's a weak bargaining position. The market is further depressed by the salary cap, which limits the number of bidders for a player with a fat contracts.

But we shouldn't lose sight of a more mundane truth: For all their talk of scouting and team building, NHL general managers are gamblers. They play hunches. Occasionally they guess right or get lucky. Other times they end up backtracking, panicking, or just chucking out the entire blueprint.

A few years ago, the San Jose Sharks looked like a model NHL franchise, an up and coming team built on a reasonable budget. Then, in 2002-03, they went bust. So Owen Nolan, the rock upon which the team was supposedly built, was dispatched to Toronto. If the Sharks were going to pitch their captain overboard because of one lousy season, why did they sign him to a five-year, $30-million contract in 2000? Good question.

Then again, the Sharks got a very good return (Alyn McCauley, Brad Boyes and a draft pick that turned into Mark Stuart), and Nolan never did much in Toronto. So it's the Maple Leafs who come out looking bad on that one.

So it goes. The best laid plans are often no more than thinly veiled crapshoots. The '99 Panthers thought Pavel Bure was the answer. Wrong. The '02 Flyers believed Adam Oates made them a contender. Nope. The '97 Canucks made a big splash by signing Mark Messier. Oh well.

Okay. It's not all luck. Some general managers are smarter than others. Detroit's Ken Holland is known as one shrewd customer. Back when the Avalanche were on a roll, Pierre Lacroix was assumed to be a genius of scouting, drafting, bartering, team chemistry. It helped that both had bags of money in the pre-cap era. But their resumes are hardly spotless. Remember when Theoren Fleury went to Colorado? He did nothing and disappeared quickly. Robyn Regher, traded to Calgary in return, turned into a first-rate defenseman. How about the year Detroit picked up Wendel Clark and Bill Ranford, and sank in the playoffs? All the experience and insight of great hockey minds cannot make up for the fact that a hockey team is unknowable.

Most pro hockey people know more about the game than the rest of us. But in today's ultra-analyzed sports world there is a tendency to treat games as science and managers as architects. Darcy Regier admits that it's just as much speculation and guesswork. Not all NHL executives are as honest as he is. The next time an NHL general manager starts blowing hot air about his long term franchise development plan, remind yourself to check back on his team in 12 or 18 months. And when the latest hockey guru is being lauded for his managerial genius, remember that a crucial element of his success will remain unspoken: "We got lucky this time."