What are Pierre Dorion’s worst trades as GM?
Cam Talbot for Filip Gustavsson
I’ve written about this trade recently, so I won’t go into the absolute nitty-gritty details as to avoid redundancy. One thing I will mention is that I find it ironic that two trades in the same trade tree are linked in this article. The reason the Senators had Filip Gustavsson in the first place was because of the aforementioned Mika Zibanejad trade. Zibanejad was traded for Derick Brassard. Later on, Brassard was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for Filip Gustavsson and a few other pieces.
During his time in Ottawa, Gustavsson was regarded as the goalie of the future, but unfortunately was not able to ever win a permanent NHL spot with the Senators. He needed to either be handed the reigns or a change of scenery, and Dorion opted to give him a change of scenery. As I discuss in the article I have linked earlier, Gustavsson has been lights out for Minnesota while Talbot has been inconsistent, and riddled with injuries. I could go as far to say that Gustavsson could be nominated as a finalist for the Vezina Trophy, and has a slight chance to actually win it if he continues how he’s playing down the stretch.
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Closing thoughts
Let’s be clear, Dorion has made a lot of transactions during his time with the Ottawa Senators. He’s been GM since April 10th, 2016, and is the 9th longest-tenured GM in the NHL right now. This article serves as the first part of a series in order to evaluate Pierre Dorion’s time as General Manager, and how long should he get to keep this position.