Five Worst Montreal Canadiens Trade Deadline Deals Ever

The Mark Recchi Trade (Not that Recchi trade, the other Recchi trade)

The Montreal Canadiens made a huge blunder when they traded for Mark Recchi. They gave up John LeClair and Eric Desjardins to bring in Recchi and it was a brutal move. Recchi was a good player, a really good scoring winger, but trading him for just LeClair would have been a fair deal.

Adding in a top pairing defenseman like Desjardins just makes the whole deal terrible. Of course, it was not a trade deadline deal though so it doesn't even count in this list.

But the other Mark Recchi trade does. Just four years after paying the Flyers way too much for Recchi, the Canadiens sent him back to Philadelphia, and this time got way too little in return.

Recchi, like Damphousse, seemed to be losing a step offensively but it was only because the team around him was so bad he couldn't produce points all by himself. He had 47 points in 61 games in the 1998-99 season and was shipped to the Flyers for Dainius Zubrus and a second round pick.

Recchi would find his offense once again and had 91 points the following season. And then he just kept piling up points. He had 77 in 2000-01, 75 in 2003-04, 68 in 2006-07, 61 in 2008-09 and 14 points in 25 playoff games in 2011 helping the Boston Bruins win the Stanley Cup.

So, a full decade after the Canadiens moved him he was still a 60 point winger and he was still good enough to be a top six forward on a Stanley Cup winner 12 years after the Canadiens gave him up for futures.