Acquisition Motivation: The Effect on Performance After Being Traded in the NHL

Late in February the NHL becomes all hyped when the Trade Deadline looms closer and closer to see which players leave for new teams and which players stay put. The question after every trade is made is, “Was it worth it to give up this player for this player?” According to the article by Philip White and William McTeer writers of, “The Effect on Performance of Being Traded During The Season: The Case of The National Hockey League”, traded players are likely to increase their performance post-trade with the new team then prior to trade when on the their original team.

The article goes through the method of how they got there, the discussion of the data they received and finally a graph that shows the data they received. How they measured performance by the players was by average number scoring (goals and assists), because of this they only used centers and wingers in the study. The centers and wingers were then split up into three categories: all the players, players who had played 269 or fewer games and players who have played 270 or more games. They also split up the data into four time periods: season prior to the trade, partial season before the trade, remainder of the season after the trade, and finally the following season after the trade.

What White and McTeer found was that all the players performed poorly before the trade than the season before the trade. After the trade, performance increased .071 in the all players category from .225 and .296. In comparison their performance dipped in the season before they were traded from the previous season, but then their average shot up after being traded, and then went back to about same performance before the season they were traded. According to White and McTeer, “These players improved in the post-trade period by a rate of almost a goal a game but reverted to their "normal" level of performance the following year.” This data suggests that players' performance increases after being traded in both the dip of performance before the trade and then the large increase after being traded. From the findings White and McTeer discuss why this data could have happened.

White and McTeer go on to discuss why players would play so much better with the team they were originally on at the start of the season than the new team at the end of the season. Both writers seem to point to the motivation theory that players who are traded to new teams seem to respond to the change with increased effort resulting in improved performance. First, before a trade a player may under perform because he is unhappy or mistreated in a given team situation. Coaching staff could be using the player less because of bad play, personal reasons or even contractual reasons. In these instances the player has less opportunity to score, reducing the performance of the player in goals and assists. After a trade, the player is in a new place with new people and maybe even the season is going well for the team, removing that former stress, and likely motivating the player, causing him to be more productive. With this new environment the player could get extra opportunities to score giving more playing time than normal which could boost his numbers. Or take the opinion of an attribution theorist (Rosenbaum,Weiner), who has his own reason for why players have increased performance after being traded. They take first an experienced player before the trade, who usually played well his career and will likely blame his uncharacteristic poor performance on external problems such as bad luck or his teammates or coaches. These attributes may have negative consequences on the players' effort and motivation. He may perceive that he's putting in the maximum effort but may not improve his performance because of a lack of a good supporting cast around him. After a trade, the player may reassess his chances for success, being liberated from being moved from an unproductive environment to a brand new one which could make him more optimistic and more motivated. For inexperienced players, they are more likely to blame their performance more on themselves then others around them. This could explain why there numbers are little lower in performance before and after trades, as they lower expectancies for success following the trade because of the numbers they had before the trade. This proves the players perform much better after being traded generally saying they are more motivated and more optimistic in their new environment than in their old one; which will likely increase there performance on the new team.

With the findings found in this article by White and McTeer, we can assume that hockey players perform much better after a trade than prior to a trade when on their original team. In conclusion, when players play better comes down to fact that they are more motivated in an new environment, which results in increased performance of the player. So next time your unsure that the player your favorite team traded for will be either a stud or a dud think about this word motivation.

White, Phillip G., and William G. McTeet. "THE EFFECT ON PERFORMANCE OF BEING TRADED DURING THE SEASON: THE CASE OF THE NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE*." Journal of Sport Behavior 14 (1991).