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Every general manager in whatever sport you name finds himself stuck with at least one move he’d give his soul to have back. It’s an occupational hazard. Part of the gig.

No one is immune.

“No excuses on my part for now knowing Marty St. Louis better, ” says TSN hockey analyst Craig Button, the GM in the early days of his first big-league managerial opportunity when St. Louis left the Flames. “I’d watched him since he played midget in Quebec. I’d seen him a little bit in the minors: That was part of my job. Player personnel, scouting, evaluation.

“That’s on me.

“But when we as a group sat down and talked players, there was only one person in the entire organization that really had a strong voice for Marty St. Louis. And that was Tom Watt.

“At the end of the day, only one person was going to bat for Marty St. Louis, and that was Tom.

“Nobody, outside of Tom Watt.

“You know what the real frightening thing is? There was far greater support for Andrei Nazarov — who I ended up trading for Jordan Leopold — than there was for Martin St. Louis.”

Different era. During the shift in organizational power, from the Al Coates/Brian Sutter era to Button/Don Hay, they’d shown a belief in St. Louis no one else had. A quick transitional period for the incoming GM (Button couldn’t officially move over until his employers, the Dallas Stars, finished an ultimately disappointing six-game Stanley Cup final against the New Jersey Devils).

Release Martin St. Louis?! It seems crazy now, in the soft, easy light of reflection, Back then, no one else seemed overly taken with the little guy’s potential.