Morning Skate: Throwback

I’m not sure how I missed this, but yesterday was apparently the 15th anniversary of the Joe Thornton trade. What a day that was!

The Bruins made themselves markedly worse, made San Jose markedly better, and spawned a billion takes in the process.

(Imagine if Twitter was around for this trade? It would have ruled.)

Anyways, the Thornton for Brad Stuart, Marco Sturm, and Wayne Primeau deal was a bad move for the Bruins, one there’s really no defending.

Still, the Bruins would be “good” again just three or four years later, and things ultimately turned out OK for both franchises.

It’s always interesting to see how these trades branch out after the fact.

Sturm would eventually be traded for future considerations, so his journey ends there.

Brad Stuart and Wayne Primeau turned into Andrew Ference and Chuck Kobasew. Ference would eventually leave Boston as a free agent.

Kobasew turned into Craig Weller and a draft pick that was used on Alexander Khokhlachev.

Weller was eventually part of the package that resulted in the Bruins acquiring Dennis Seidenberg and Matt Bartkowski.

Seidenberg would be bought out, and Bartkowski left as a free agent.

Quite a trade tree!

Today’s highlight

Marco Sturm ruled.

Today’s discussion topic

What was your take on the Thornton trade at the time? Did you try to talk yourself into it, or did you know it was bad?