The worst trades in Bruins history

With unsubstantiated rumors that the Boston Bruins are taking trade calls on 21-year-old superstar in the making David Pastrnak, there has been no shortage of fans quick to bring up the team’s past mistakes. The thing is, they’re not really wrong. After all, when it comes to trading away star talent the B’s don’t really have a great track record.

The most recent examples are the Phil Kessel, Dougie Hamilton and Tyler Seguin trades. While the return for Kessel looked to be a bounty at the time, it hasn’t aged well. Of course the Seguin deal was rotten to begin with. Former general manager Peter Chiarelli traded an emerging superstar in Seguin along with solid veteran Rich Peverly for Loui Eriksson and three prospects who never panned out in Beantown.

But there’s one trade that continues to haunt the Bruins even ten years after it went down and it truly has to be considered the worst trade in Bruins history:

Boston trades Joe Thornton to the San Jose Sharks for Wayne Primeau, Brad Stuart, and Marco Sturm.

Yeah, you knew this was coming, didn’t you? The former 1st overall pick was quickly becoming the face of a young Bruins team that boasted some good young players in Patrice Bergeron, Sergei Samsonov and Andrew Raycroft. Despite already putting a 101 point season and a 77 point season in Boston, the Bruins elected to trade Thornton to the Sharks midseason while he had produced 33 points in just 23 games for them already that season. Of course, Thornton would go on to win the Art Ross Trophy and the Hart Memorial Trophy later that summer.

Thornton has been a key part of some good Sharks teams over the years, but is still seeking his first Stanley Cup championship. Meanwhile the players the Bruins received in return had little to no consequence during their time in Boston. Ouch.