The Boston Bruins waived Jimmy Hayes Friday with the purpose of buying out the remainder of his contract, and in doing so the franchise officially has nothing to show for the trade that sent Tyler Seguin to the Dallas Stars four years ago.
On July 4, 2013, former Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli sent Seguin—along with Rich Peverley and Ryan Button—to the Stars in exchange for Loui Eriksson and prospects Reilly Smith, Joe Morrow and Matt Fraser.
In hindsight, it’s one of the more lopsided trades in recent NHL history.
Seguin scored 56 goals and 121 points in 203 games with the Bruins and won a Stanley Cup with them as a rookie in 2011, however he faced criticism during the 2012-13 campaign for perceived off-ice antics.
“Tyler’s a real good kid,” Chiarelli said at the time. “I see in the Twitterverse a lot of reports about extracurricular stuff. I made comments as to his professionalism and acting more like a professional. You have to remember he’s 21 years old.”
Seguin has gone on to become a legitimate star in the league averaging more than a point per game in his 305 contests with the Stars.
The trade also occurred less than a year after Seguin inked a six-year, $34.5 million contract with the Bruins, which is another reason why it was a surprising deal when it was made.
“You have to make some hard choices and hard decisions,” Chiarelli added. “The fact that we signed Tyler had nothing to do with us trading him. It was an opportunity to get a very good player—a natural winger (in Eriksson)—to get some good prospects, and lower your cap.”
One by one, though, each piece the Bruins received failed to pan out in the long-term.
Fraser did well, scoring 30 points in 40 games with the AHL’s Providence Bruins, yet failed to contribute in 38 games with Boston before being claimed on waivers by the Edmonton Oilers in Decemeber 2014.
Smith had a great first year with the Bruins, registering 51 points as a 22-year-old. His production dipped the following season and he was traded, along with Marc Savard’s contract, to the Panthers in July 2015 for Hayes. After a 19-goal year with the Panthers in 2014-15 Hayes failed to live up to to his billing as a top-six forward on the Bruins.
Eriksson was unquestionably a quality player for Boston, increasing his production in each of his three seasons there, but he left for the Vancouver Canucks as a free agent in 2016 without the Bruins getting anything in return.
Morrow had high expectations considering he was a first-round pick of the Penguins’ in 2011 (23rd overall), but unfortunately he hasn’t developed into an everyday NHLer and earlier this week the Bruins chose to part ways by not extending him a qualifying offer.
So, if it wasn’t already abundantly clear, we can now officially declare the Stars won the trade.
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