It's the most talked about trade over the last two decades when it comes to the Boston Bruins.
The Boston Bruins sent face of the franchise Joe Thornton over to the San Jose Sharks for what ended up being basically peanuts.
Boston received forwards Marco Sturm and Wayne Primeau and defenseman Brad Stuart from San Jose.
No draft picks and no real prospects, however they could have possibly landed some from the Anaheim Ducks.
Former general manager Brian Burke revealed that at the time he was making a push to land Thornton trying to beat the Sharks offer.
While doing his part and staying at home during the coronavirus pandemic, Burke decided to take some Twitter questions and one of the answers revealed how much he was willing to give up.
"I tried desperately to get Joe Thornton to Anaheim. I thought we beat the offer that got accepted. Mike O'Connell was the GM and we were babysitting him, checking in once a day, sometimes more.
I told OC that I would protect 5 players on my roster and he could take whoever he had ranked 6th. No restrictions. Then I'd add another roster player, a prospect, and a first. I'm still bitter we didn't get him."
Looking at the roster it's pretty easy to figure out who the 5 protected players were, however that means the Bruins could have landed maybe Sergei Federov a first and more as Federov was eventually traded for Francois Beauchemin.
