Sometimes, a team’s biggest opponent isn’t on the ice—it’s in their front office.
Trades don’t happen in professional sports as often as fans expect, and there’s a reason. Teams, like individuals, are susceptible to loss aversion – the psychological principle identified by Kahneman and Tversky (1979) that suggests people feel the pain of losses more than the satisfaction of equivalent gains. This is why general managers usually hesitate to trade high-value players—they fear backlash, regret, and the possibility of giving away something they can never truly replace.
Yet, somehow, the Boston Bruins front office managed to bungle their way into the opposite mistake. Instead of hesitating and demanding the overwhelming return a player like Brad Marchand warranted, they inexplicably accepted an underwhelming package. The question is: Did they act irrationally, or was their decision simply a bad bet that didn’t pan out?
Loss Aversion and the Marchand Blunder
Kahneman and Tversky’s work explains why teams often refuse to trade franchise players—even when a trade might make sense. The regret of parting ways with a star, only to see them succeed elsewhere, weighs heavily on decision-makers. That’s why teams typically hold onto their best players unless they are backed into a corner by contracts, age, or rebuilds.
But the Bruins did not behave like a team influenced by loss aversion. If they were, they would have overvalued Marchand, resisting offers even if they were fair. Instead, they undervalued him, treating their captain, Stanley Cup champion, and a top-tier producer like he was just another name on the roster. Worse, they accepted an offer that didn’t even attempt to compensate for his on-ice value, leadership, or irreplaceability.
The key question is whether this decision reflects the endowment effect, where teams overvalue what they already own. A classic example would be refusing to trade Marchand even when a fair offer was on the table. However, giving him away for a poor return doesn’t necessarily mean the Bruins were irrational; it may indicate that they miscalculated his worth or prioritized something else.
The Economics of One-Sided Trade
From an economic perspective, this decision raises red flags. Hanemann’s (1991) theory of Willingness to Pay (WTP) vs. Willingness to Accept (WTA) suggests that WTA—the amount a seller demands to give up an asset—should be significantly higher than WTP, especially when substitutes don’t exist.
In most cases, this explains why star players are rarely moved – the team trading them away demands a massive return to justify the loss. If the Bruins had refused reasonable offers for Marchand, we could attribute it to the endowment effect inflating their WTA beyond a rational market level.
But that’s not what happened. Instead, the Bruins accepted an offer well below any reasonable WTA for a player of Marchand’s caliber. This suggests one of two things: 10 They miscalculated his market value, treating him as a depreciating asset rather than an elite forward with years of impact left, or 2) They prioritized factors beyond hockey performance, such as salary cap flexibility, locker room dynamics, or a misguided attempt to sell high before a decline.
To call this an irrational decision, we need to show that their WTP for Marchand (if they were acquiring him) was higher than their WTA to trade him. That would indicate cognitive bias rather than just poor strategy.
Did the Bruins Simply Miscalculate?
Some research suggests that less sophisticated decision-makers accept situations where WTP exceeds WTA – that is, they are willing to sell an asset for less than they would pay to acquire it. This is a classic mistake of amateur investors who panic-sell valuable stock in financial markets.
Professional sports executives are expected to avoid such blunders. A front office managing a billion-dollar franchise should understand asset valuation, negotiation leverage, and decision-making principles.
Yet, the Bruins acted like a team desperate to unload Marchand despite 1) no financial pressure forcing the move; 2) no locker room turmoil necessitating a trade; and 3) no competitive justification for dismantling their roster.
This wasn’t just a bad trade but a case study in asset mismanagement. The decision could have been rational from their perspective if they valued something else more (e.g., future cap space, younger players, or draft picks). But if that’s the case, they grossly misjudged the trade market and Marchand’s continued impact.
The Verdict: A Billion-Dollar Miscalculation
Brad Marchand’s departure from Boston wasn’t just lousy trading but a massive front-office failure. The Bruins either miscalculated his value, prioritized the wrong factors, or failed to leverage the market correctly.
Critically, while the endowment effect could explain why the Bruins refused to trade him for a fair offer, it does not explain why they sold him for an inadequate return. The Bruins weren’t blinded by emotional attachment; they were, if anything, too detached from reality.
Trades don’t happen often in the NHL because GMs fear losing value. Boston somehow managed to make a trade that was even worse than the ones that didn’t happen. And in doing so, they handed Florida a Stanley Cup-level asset for nothing, proving that sometimes the biggest opponent a team faces isn’t on the ice—it’s in their front office.
