33 Years Later, The Wayne Gretzky Trade Tree Lives On
Michael Martin. Getty Images.31 years ago the world was witness to what was quite possibly the biggest trade in sports history. After winning 4 Stanley Cups, 8 Hart Trophies, 7 Art Ross Trophies, 2 Conn Smythes, and putting up over 1600 points in 9 NHL seasons with the Edmonton Oilers, Wayne Gretzky was traded to the Los Angeles Kings. It was a move so massive that it is simply just referred to these days as "the trade". You think about how many players throughout the course of the NHL's history have been traded, and everybody knows the exact one you're talking about when you mention "the trade". August 9, 1988. A day that would forever change the landscape in the National Hockey League. A day that would forever change the sport of hockey. Gretzky goes to LA and here are the initial trade details courtesy of Steve Dangle.
Now I'm not going to go through the entire trade tree here, but you can watch Steve's full breakdown of that right here. It's a long one so make sure you carve out a little time if you're interested. The moral of the story here is that obviously there were a ton of moving pieces necessary in order to make this deal happen. It's not like Peter Chiarelli was the GM of the Oilers at the time and could just trade Gretzky for Jimmy Carson one-for-one. So all those branches started to grow, and grow, and grow some more. Leading us to where we're at today.
You're gonna have to do a little zooming here but Marty McSorley eventually goes from LA to the Rangers in exchange for Ray Ferraro, Mattias Norstrom, and some other pieces. The Kings then trade Norstrom to Dallas for a 1st round pick. That pick gets packaged with another pick and sent to Anaheim for a 1st round pick in 2008. That pick then gets traded to Buffalo for a couple more draft picks. One of those picks goes to Calgary, then one of those picks goes to Buffalo again, then the Kings draft Eric Cernak with one of those picks. Cernak was traded from LA to Tampa for Ben Bishop. Then the Kings traded Ben Bishop to Dallas in a package that sent a 2017 5th round pick to the Kings. With that 138th overall pick in the 2017 NHL Draft, the Los Angeles Kings selected Drake Rymsha from Huntington Woods, Michigan. He played quite a few years in the OHL with the London Knights, Ottawa 67's, and finished up with the Sarnia Sting. Then he bounced around between the AHL and the ECHL over the past few seasons in the Kings' minor league system. And then last night, Drake Rymsha made his NHL debut.
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A player drafted by the Kings from pieces they acquired from picking up Marty McSorley in the Wayne Gretzky trade in August of 1988 just made his NHL debut last night. And now all that needs to happen is for the Kings to get crazy this offseason and package Rymsha in a deal to bring Jack Eichel to LA to really make sure this thing lasts for the rest of eternity. All you have to do is believe.
h/t Steve Dangle for doing all the tree climbing here. But what a wild journey it's been to get us to this point. And if the Kings decide to keep Rymsha on the roster next year, I say they give him 99.