Philadelphia Flyers Friday Flubs, Part 3: Trading Patrick Sharp

In the third installment of this weekly (for now) series where I examine past atrocities committed by the Philadelphia Flyers, I talk about the incredibly dumb decision to trade Patrick Sharp.

Well, if you’re playing Jeopardy! and that’s your “question” to the “answer” of “This scrub is who the Philadelphia Flyers received when they made one of the worst trades in their history”, then you are correct. The Flyers brought Ellison (and a draft pick) aboard on December 5, 2005 in exchange for Eric Meloche and Patrick Sharp, with the latter player being the reason why this constitutes one of the bigger flubs in team history.

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Sharp was a former third round draft pick of the Flyers, a mid-level prospect who seemed like he could have been a decent contributor but just couldn’t stay in the lineup under then head coach Ken Hitchcock. Sharp would play 66 games over parts of three seasons for the Flyers, but given the fact that he wore FIVE different uniform numbers during his brief time with the team, it seemed like they didn’t view him as part of their long-term plan.

This proved to be the case when they unloaded him on the Chicago Blackhawks, striking a deal that seemed like little more than moving extra pieces around. But Sharp proved almost immediately that all he needed was a shot. He finished that season by scoring 23 points in 50 games with the Blackhawks, then hit the 20-goal mark the next year.

He reached new heights in 2007-08 with 36 goals, including seven shorthanded goals to lead the league in that category. Two years later, of course, he’d go on to help the Blackhawks capture the Stanley Cup as they defeated the Flyers in the Final. In those playoffs, he put up 11 goals and 11 assists in 22 games, with four of those goals coming at the expense of his former team.

If that didn’t hurt enough, Sharp would add two more Stanley Cups to his resume during his time in Chicago, to go along with three more 30-goal seasons. As for Ellison, he played seven games for the Flyers. That was it. Seven games, no goals, one assists. He played his final NHL game mere days after his 23rd birthday, never to return.

I’d call that one a loss for the Flyers.

They got seven games out of a guy in exchange for the 249 goals and 283 assists in 749 contests that Sharp would produce in Chicago. Plus, Sharp fired home 42 goals in 117 playoff games as a ‘Hawk, en route to the three Cups.

Strangely, Chicago traded Eric Meloche (the other guy the Flyers sent packing with Sharp) back to the Flyers the following year. I guess they felt a tinge of remorse about how badly they had fleeced the Flyers, knowing the great production that was to come from Patrick Sharp. And in case you’re wondering, Meloche did way better with the Flyers than Matt Ellison had. Meloche scored one goal and two assists in 13 games with the Flyers after they re-acquired him. Take that, Chicago.

Next. Eric Lindros just makes me sad. dark

Usually, even when you lose a trade, you get something back in return. But in the annals of Flyers history, this one is probably the litmus test that all other deals should be compared to when you’re evaluating how much you might possibly have given up while getting absolutely nothing in exchange.

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