How about the Thornton trade this season?

or closer to home, the Patrick Roy trade where Rejean Houle "threw in" captain Mike Keane. Way to go Reggie!

I don't consider the Roy trade, a "trade" because it was essentially a forced move. 

The worst/best all-time trade has to be the Lindros deal (I didn't write this novel, it's from hockeyology.com):

In exchange for Lindros, the Nordiques received Peter Forsberg, Steve Duschene, Kerry Huffman, Mike Ricci, Ron Hextall, Chris Simon, Philly’s first-round pick in 1993 and 1994, and $15 million in cash, just to make sure the deal was even.

Now immediately, one would think that a Lindros-Forsberg deal is pretty decent. After all, Forsberg, who had been selected fifth overall in the same Draft, was touted as being the best player outside of North America, while Lindros was the top prospect on either side of the 49th parallel. That deal alone would have been okay, but the extra players sealed the fate of the Flyers.

Let’s take this step-by-step:

Quebec took Jocylen Thibault with Philly’s 1993 pick. Thibault, you may recall, was the major piece in the Colorado Avalanche deal that brought in Patrick Roy. That one move, in the eyes of many fans, gave the Avs the Stanley Cup in 1996.

Steve Duschene’s trade trail is a bit more complicated, bust just as noteworthy. First, he was traded with Denis Chasse to St. Louis for three players, the most important being Garth Butcher. Why Butcher you ask? Well, Butcher was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs for Wendel Clark. Clarkie was later traded to the Islanders for Claude Lemieux, who you may remember as being one of the cogs in the 1996 Cup win.

Also part of the initial Duschene deal was Ron Sutter, who would be dealt for Uwe Krupp, who scored the Cup-winning goal for the 1996 Avalanche. The third player was Bob Bassen, who was signed away by Dallas in 1995, one year prior to the 1996 Cup win.

Mike Ricci was also a big part of the 1996 Cup win. His tenure with the Avs, however, did not last much past that victory, as he would soon be traded to San Jose for their first-round pick in 1998. You may have heard of the guy they selected – Alex Tanguay.

Ron Hextall was traded, along with a first round pick in 1993 (which ended up being Todd Bertuzzi), to the New York Islanders for Mark Fitzpatrick and their first-round pick (Adam Deadmarsh). While Fitzpatrick would end up on the Panthers via the expansion draft, Deadmarsh would win a Cup in 1996, but more importantly would be later traded to Los Angeles for Rob Blake.

Hextall, meanwhile, would end up back in the Flyers organization a couple years after the first trade, as would Kerry Huffman, after a trade from Ottawa (he was a waiver claim from Quebec).

Chris Simon was traded to the Capitals with Curtis Leshchychyn for Keith Jones and Washington’s first and fourth-round picks in 1998. Those two picks would get Stanley Cup rings in 2001 with the Avs – Shjon Podein and Scott Parker.

And just to round it out, the 1994 pick ended up in Washington after a couple trades. Yes, had the fates worked out a different way, Nolan Baumgartner could have had a Cup ring as well.

So looking down the line, Quebec received Forsberg, Roy, Tanguay, Blake and other key players for Lindros. The Flyers, for their part, got a 1995 Hart Trophy win from Lindros and a trip to the 1997 Stanley Cup Finals, where they were beat by Detroit. They also got their own fair share of headaches from “Big E” (pun not intended), and ended up trading Lindros to the New York Rangers, the team who was ready to deal with Quebec in the first place.