One has to wonder how the sports-crazed city of Boston and the Bruins franchise would be today had it not been for the trade that brought Cam Neely to Boston in the summer of 1986.
For starters, there certainly would have been a lot fewer blood stains on the old Boston Garden ice and that goal lamp wouldn't have been lit nearly as much. There would also be a lot fewer males named Cam walking around New England today.
That summer, the B's sent 25-year-old sniping center Barry Pederson to the Canucks, who needed offense, for Neely, fresh off a 14-goal season and who also happened to turn 21 the day of the swap.
At the time, the deal seemed one-sided — so one-sided that the Canucks tossed in their 1987 first-round draft pick. Pederson already had a pair of 100-point seasons under his belt and was only two years removed from finishing third in the NHL in assists and sixth in points.
The rest is history.
Neely would go on to become one of the city's most beloved athletes while Pederson failed to bag more than 24 goals in any one season thereafter. But what about that draft pick the Canucks tossed in?
Can you name the defenseman who the Bruins drafted in 1987 using the first-round pick the 'Nucks sent over?
For a select amount of Bruins games this season, NESN and The Four's will be teaming up to offer B's fans the chance at winning a $50 gift card to The Four's Restaurant and Sports Bar by simply answering a trivia question found at NESN.com/thefours. Questions will be posted at noon every afternoon on the day of a Bruins home game, unless otherwise noted.
