Wayne Gretzky Trade Anniversary: Reflecting on Ultimate Winners and Losers (2024)

The Wayne Gretzky trade rocked the sports culture of two nations and helped the NHL embark on an ambitious path to where it now has 30 teams and a national footprint that covers all of the United States.

When the "Great One" was dealt to the Los Angeles Kings from the Edmonton Oilers on August 9, 1988, many teams, players and aspects of the league were changed forever. A lot of these effects are still seen today, many of which are responsible for the sport's immense increase in popularity since the start of the 1990s.

As we celebrate the 25th anniversary of this earth-shattering trade, let's take a look at the ultimate winners and losers of the deal.

Wayne Gretzky helped hockey become a popular sport at the youth level throughout the United States when he played for the Kings.

Much like NBA legend Michael Jordan, the Great One's legendary performances inspired a generation of young kids who decided to play hockey in markets where sports such as baseball and football had been far more popular and common.

According to Chris Peters from The United States of Hockey, participation in hockey has increased by over 100 percent in 17 states over the last 23 years.

He also writes:

USA Hockey has experienced a growth of 143.22% nationwide since 1990-91. During that season, USA Hockey had 195,125 members. In 2009-10, 474,592 people were registered as players with the national governing body.

If Gretzky didn't get traded to the Kings, it's quite possible that the NHL would have taken much longer to reach its current level of popularity in non-traditional hockey markets, especially those in warm-weather climates. As the perfect ambassador for the NHL, Gretzky helped make the sport of hockey an activity that kids all over the United States wanted to participate in.

When today's NHL players smile at the enormous dollar figures on their paychecks, they should pause for a moment to remember a player largely responsible for increasing the value of pro hockey players. That man is Wayne Gretzky.

Even though no one generated the same level of revenue and interest that Gretzky did, player salaries quickly escalated following the trade that sent No. 99 to Los Angeles.

From 1990-91 through 2003-04, the average NHL player salary increased by about 675 percent to $1.83 million.

Gretzky's positive influence on the popularity of the league following his trade to the Kings was a major reason why player salaries increased, with the heightened interest in the sport throughout the western United States allowing the NHL to put teams in new markets such as Anaheim, San Jose, Dallas, Colorado and Phoenix.

The growing number of teams created more jobs for the NHLPA, and no player had a bigger influence on the league expanding than Gretzky. He gave fans from non-traditional markets in the Western and Southern parts of the United States reasons to support the NHL by purchasing tickets and watching games on television.

Without Gretzky moving to Los Angeles, which gave the NHL a much larger presence in the United States, the salary explosion in the 1990s probably wouldn't have happened.

The Los Angeles Kings were an afterthought in the Hollywood sports scene before Wayne Gretzky arrived.

They shared the Great Western Forum with the Los Angeles Lakers but weren't able to compete with them for most of the "Showtime" era, with the Kings not competing for championships or possessing the star power needed to sell out consistently.

When No. 99 arrived, the Kings became one of the hottest tickets in town despite heavy competition from NFL, NBA and MLB teams that were all successful at the time. Hollywood stars wanted to watch NHL games because of Gretzky, which pushed the Kings to the forefront of the league's new level of popularity on the West Coast.

In the year prior to the Gretzky trade (1987-88), the Kings had an average attendance of 11,667 per game per HockeyDB, a number that jumped to well over 15,000 per game in six of the seven full seasons that the Great One spent in Los Angeles. Led by Gretzky, the franchise appeared in its first Stanley Cup Final in 1993 and made the playoffs in five of the eight seasons he played in Los Angeles.

Even though he never won a championship in Los Angeles, Gretzky helped put the team on the map in a crowded L.A. sports scene and helped grow the sport in Southern California, which has increased the number of Kings fans in the region.

The Gretzky trade helped elevate the success, popularity and status of the Los Angeles Kings franchise. The same can be said of its owner, Bruce McNall, who became a star in L.A. by bringing the Great One to Hollywood and earned respect around the league for helping to make hockey a part of the sports culture in Western markets.

In 1992, McNall became the chairman of the NHL's Board of Governors, and his most influential act in this role was concluding the league's search for a commissioner by hiring Gary Bettman from the NBA.

McNall toldBob McCown on Prime Time Sports:

I met with Gary Bettman. I realized for that time and that moment, and the circ*mstances we were going through, I thought he was the right guy.

I introduced him to the other members of the search committee, they realized once they spoke to him and knew his substantial knowledge of the sports world and especially the issues we were going through with labor, he was the only obvious candidate at the time. Once we presented him to the board, he was unanimously elected.

Bettman has been NHL commissioner since February of 1993. He is often criticized, sometimes unfairly, for the league going through three lockouts during his tenure, including the cancellation of the 2004-05 season due to a labor dispute.

To Bettman's credit, the game's growth has been incredible since he joined the NHL. The league now has 30 teams, a rich national television contract with NBC Sports and earned a record $3.3 billion in revenue during the 2011-12 season. The NHL is well-positioned for a bright future, and Bettman deserves a good portion of the credit for this situation.

Gretzky's ability to popularize the NHL and the sport in the United States helped the NHL expand into Western and Southern markets that weren't known for having a strong history or culture of hockey.

By increasing its numbers of teams, the league was able to earn more money, become more attractive to networks when negotiating TV deals and make hockey a sport played and watched by people of all ages in all parts of the United States, instead of only places with a rich history of the game.

Gretzky's influence on the NHL was so substantial that major corporations began to take notice of the sport. A good example of this was the Walt Disney Company becoming the first owners of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim (now the Anaheim Ducks) in 1993. The creation of the Ducks franchise gave California three teams, two more than the state had prior to the Gretzky trade in 1988.

The league had a presence all over the United States with the addition of seven new franchises and the relocation of struggling teams to new markets during the 1990s. The following teams moved to or were started in their current city during the expansion era of the 1990s.

Without the Gretzky trade, the sport of hockey may not have been popular enough for the NHL to make a commitment to places such as Dallas, Anaheim, San Jose and Florida.

Despite a few clubs going through ownership changes/issues, the only expansion team in a Southern or Western market that has been forced to relocate was the Atlanta Thrashers (moved to Winnipeg in 2011).

Wayne Gretzky leaving Edmonton made the Oilers Mark Messier's team. The superstar forward was a major contributor to the team's success during the 1980s when he helped Gretzky win four Stanley Cups from 1983 through 1988.

Despite Messier's impressive performances at both ends of the ice, the Great One received most of the attention as the main star and captain. That situation changed when Gretzky left for Los Angeles.

When Messier helped the Oilers win their fifth championship in eight years after defeating the Boston Bruins in the 1990 Stanley Cup Final, some of the anger felt by fans following the Gretzky trade subsided. During the 1989-90 regular season, Messier set career highs with 129 points and 84 assists.

By captaining the Oilers to a title in 1990, Messier proved that he was capable of leading a team to the Stanley Cup as the face of a franchise. This made him the perfect player for the New York Rangers to acquire with the hopes of ending the Blueshirts' 54-year championship drought.

Despite winning the Stanley Cup in 1990 without Gretzky, the Edmonton Oilers were never able to recover from "The Trade."

In addition to not making the most out of the draft picks acquired from the Kings in the Gretzky deal. Edmonton also failed to keep most of its key players from the dynasty years into the 1990s, which included the departure of captain Mark Messier to the New York Rangers after the 1990-91 season.

After making back-to-back trips to the Campbell Conference Final in 1991 and 1992, Edmonton missed the playoffs four straight years. The Oilers returned to postseason action in 1997, but they advanced past the first round just one time over the next seven seasons.

An unexpected appearance in the 2006 Stanley Cup Final, where they lost to Carolina in seven games, is the last playoff series that the Oilers have played in. The team's seven-year playoff drought is the longest in the NHL.

Wayne Gretzky's move to Los Angeles gave him a new contract which took his salary to new heights. By 1991, Gretzky was making $3 million as the league's highest-paid player. As I explained on the NHLPA slide, the trade also played a part in player salaries rising across the league.

Two clubs hurt the most by the substantial rise in salaries during the aftermath of Gretzky's trade were the Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets. These teams played in small Canadian markets and were unable to compete financially with major-market American clubs because of the weak Canadian dollar and the fact that players had to be paid in US currency (which was difficult when revenue earned by these teams was collected in Canadian dollars).

A steady increase in player salaries wasn't the only reason why the Nordiques and Jets had to be relocated (not being able to build a modern arena was also a major issue for both clubs), but it certainly played a part in the decision.

Quebec was eventually moved to Colorado, where the franchise won the Stanley Cup in its first season in Denver (1995-96). Winnipeg went to Phoenix for the 1996-97 season, where it has been involved in several ownership issues.

The NHL returned to Winnipeg in 2011 when the Atlanta Thrashers relocated to Manitoba, while hockey fans in Quebec City are still waiting for a new team to cheer for.

The Kings weren't the only team involved in the Gretzky trade discussions. The Vancouver Canucks reportedly talked with Edmonton as well. Former Canucks assistant general manager Brian Burke talked about Vancouver's interest in Gretzky to TSN radio in 2011.

James Mirtle of The Globe and Mail tweeted the details of the conversation:

Brian Burke's on TSN 1050 Drive right now talking about how the Canucks were in talks to acquire Gretzky 23 years ago. Burke said the Oilers wanted three first-round picks, $18-million, Greg Adams and another player for just Gretzky.

Vancouver was still successful in the early 1990s despite failing to acquire Gretzky, with playoff appearances in seven of the eight seasons following the trade, but the franchise is still trying to win its first Stanley Cup.

If the Canucks were successful in trading for Gretzky, their matchup with the New York Rangers in the 1994 Stanley Cup Final might not have ended in heartbreak.

Rising player salaries in the 1990s, which happened in large part because of Gretzky's trade to the Kings, forced NHL owners to pursue the creation of a salary cap that would help control costs and give teams a better chance to be profitable.

Owners were unable to get the NHLPA to agree to a salary cap during the 1992 work stoppage and 1994-95 lockout.

But when the gap between high-spending teams in large markets and small-market clubs grew too large after the 2003-04 season, the owners dug in during another lockout and were able to get a salary cap from the players' association at the expense of the entire 2004-05 season.

The cap helped create parity in the NHL, evidenced by the seven different Stanley Cup winners in the eight seasons of the cap era (2005-06 to the present). However, the new system prevents rich teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers from constructing "super-teams" with gigantic payrolls.

Not being able to spend freely to make quality rosters is one reason, among many, why these three franchises haven't won the Stanley Cup since the cap was introduced.

The 1993 Campbell Conference Final is a playoff series that Toronto Maple Leafs fans would like to forget. Led by Hall of Fame forward Doug Gilmour, the '93 Leafs seemed to be on a mission that was destined to end with a dream Stanley Cup Final matchup against the rival Montreal Canadiens.

Before that could happen, the Leafs had to play Gretzky's Kings.

After the Leafs took a 3-2 series lead, Gretzky was involved in a controversial non-call during Game 6 in which referee Kerry Fraser missed a high stick by the Great One on Gilmour. Instead of a game misconduct for Gretzky, which would have given Toronto a much better chance to clinch the series that night, No. 99 remained in the contest and forced a Game 7 with an overtime goal.

In the series-deciding game, Gretzky scored a hat trick at Maple Leaf Gardens to send the Kings to their first ever Cup final. They would eventually lose to Montreal in five games.

The Leafs' championship drought, which dates back to 1967, is the longest in the NHL. Toronto's playoff series against the Kings in '93 was the team's best chance in the last 25 years to bring hockey's Holy Grail back to the city.

Follow @NicholasGoss35

Nicholas Goss is an NHL Lead Writer at Bleacher Report. He was a credentialed writer at the 2011 and 2013 Stanley Cup Final, as well as the 2013 NHL draft.