The Anniversary Of A Big Trade

36 years ago today, on September 4, 1990, the Montreal Canadiens, through Serge Savard, traded Claude Lemieux, who had put up 18 points in just 39 games in the previous season, for Sylvain Turgeon, who had recorded 47 points in 72 games with the New Jersey Devils.

Lemieux went on to play with the Devils for five seasons and win the Stanley Cup for the second time in his career in 1995, also winning the Conn Smythe Trophy with 16 points, including 13 goals in 20 games. Before the start of the next season, Lemieux was sent to the Colorado Avalanche, where he would win two more Stanley Cups, meaning that after leaving the Habs, Lemieux went on to win three more Cups, play another 15 seasons in the NHL (934 games) and score another 597 points.

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Meanwhile, Turgeon spent only two seasons with the Canadiens, playing 75 games and scoring 32 points. Luck wasn’t on his side, and he suffered a fractured kneecap in his first year with the Habs, which set the tone for two tumultuous seasons. He was eventually left unprotected in the 1992 expansion draft and selected by the Ottawa Senators, ending his association with the Canadiens. Turgeon would go on to play three seasons for the Senators before hanging up his skates after just 699 games.

That trade wasn’t a great one for Savard, who was reportedly handcuffed by the fact that Lemieux had requested a trade, unhappy with how much ice time he was getting under coach Pat Burns. To this day, the Canadiens could still use a player of the same ilk as Lemieux; he was talented and produced offensively, but he was also a real pain to play against and could get in his opponents’ heads and under their skin.

Thankfully, before he passed tragically this summer, Lemieux had the chance to say goodbye to the public that loved him in the 1980s, as he returned as a torchbearer during the playoffs ahead of the Canadiens’ third game against the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Final.