The Detroit News’s John Niyo posted a meaty Monday night column, discussing his top 20 Detroit sports trades of the past 30 years, across all Detroit’s four major sports franchises.
The Red Wings’ best trades–and Niyo lists 7 of them–have involved both taking advantage of other teams’ disgruntled players, and they’ve involved some calculus as to which players would end up providing the most value for their investment over the long haul:
3. Oct. 9, 1996: Red Wings trade Paul Coffey, Keith Primeau and 1997 first-round pick to Hartford for Brendan Shanahan and Brian Glynn
Shanahan wanted out of a hopeless situation in Hartford, and Primeau wasn’t happy with his role in Detroit. But the big winner in this trade was Scotty Bowman, who got the power forward he needed to help the Red Wings end their championship drought. Shanahan was a huge part of the Wings’ three Stanley Cups (1997-98, 2002), while Primeau had a solid career that ended a decade later due to post-concussion syndrome. Coffey, whose attempts to derail the trade enraged Bowman, ended up getting dealt again to Philadelphia, where the offensive-minded defenseman was on the losing end of the ’97 Cup finals. That first-round pick was Nikos Tselios, who played in just two NHL games.
In the case of Shanahan, the Red Wings were able to take advantage of another team’s disgruntled performer in landing the best player in the trade. While the Whalers/Hurricanes got a hell of a second-half career out of Keith Primeau, Coffey flamed out in Hartford and bounced around, finishing his playing days in Chicago.
5. July 1, 2001: Red Wings trade Vyacheslav Kozlov and 2002 first-round pick to Buffalo for Dominik Hasek
Adding the “Dominator” was a stunner, no doubt. Hasek was the top goalie in the world and had just won his sixth Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s best netminder. But with the Sabres in the midst of a roster teardown, Red Wings GM Ken Holland pounced on the opportunity to add another Hall of Famer to a stacked roster that was a few years removed from back-to-back Cup wins. Hasek replaced Chris Osgood in net and backstopped another title run, posting a 1.86 goals-against average with six shutouts in the playoffs. He briefly retired after that, then returned twice more to the Wings, winning another Cup in Detroit as Osgood’s backup in the 2008 playoffs. Kozlov, who’d been part of the Russian Five in Detroit, only spent one year in Buffalo before finishing his NHL career in Atlanta.
Again, Dom wanted “out” of Buffalo, and he essentially picked his own destination, so the Red Wings were able to offload the playoff-savvy Kozlov to Buffalo as a return. Kozlov actually had a fairly good tenure with the Thrashers, but they struggled to get over the playoff hump.
7. March 23, 1999: Red Wings trade Anders Eriksson, 1999 and 2001 first-round picks to Chicago for Chris Chelios
Holland was pulling out all the stops to try to win a third straight Stanley Cup in 1999. But on a day where he acquired winger Wendel Clark from Toronto and veteran goalie Bill Ranford from Edmonton, a deal with the rival Blackhawks managed to steal the headlines. Chicago was in the midst of a fire sale and Chelios, who’d spent a decade there, wasn’t ready to play out his contract and retire. And after drawing interest from San Jose and Philadelphia, Detroit swooped in with an offer that included a contract extension. It didn’t take long for him to win over the fans, and Chelios would go on to play another decade for his third Original Six team, winning two Stanley Cups and cementing his Hall of Fame credentials. Eriksson only played one full season in Chicago, and the two first-round picks — Steve McCarthy and Adam Munro — didn’t make much of a mark, either.
Sometimes you have to take a flyer on an older player, part 1: Wendel Clark didn’t last long in Detroit, nor did Ranford, but Chelios’s superior conditioning and desire to play for a contending team arguably yielded the most impactful portion of his career taking a slightly lesser role on a playoff contender.
Chelios won 2 Cups in Detroit and spent a third of his life in Southeastern Michigan, whether he likes to admit it these days or not…
14. June 29, 1994: Red Wings trade Steve Chiasson to Calgary for Mike Vernon
The Red Wings knew they had a team capable of winning the Stanley Cup. But after a disastrous Game 7 loss to San Jose in the first round of the 1994 playoffs — sealed by Osgood’s puckhandling gaffe — Bowman wanted some veteran insurance in net. The Wings had pursued Vernon for more than a year, but finally landed the former Cup winner (1989) and five-time All-Star that summer, giving up Chiasson, an offensive defenseman who was an alternate captain in Detroit. Vernon backstopped the Wings to the Cup final in 1995, then served as Osgood’s backup in the ’96 playoffs. But Bowman turned back to his veteran in ’97, and Vernon went 16-4 with a .927 save percentage in the postseason run as the Wings ended their 42-year championship drought. He was traded to San Jose later that summer for a pair of second-round picks.
Sometimes you have to take a flyer on an older player, part 2: Chiasson was a strong second-pair defender at the time, but Vernon, while skating through the “back 40” of his career, was motivated and plain old clutch, and I would suggest that he wouldn’t have minded spending more time in Detroit, even in a back-up’s role…
15. July 9, 2023: Red Wings trade Dominik Kubalik, Donovan Sebrango, 2024 conditional first-round pick and fourth-round pick to Ottawa for forward Alex DeBrincat
Ottawa GM Pierre Dorion thought he’d hit the jackpot when he paid a ransom to add Debrincat, a 40-goal scorer, to his young core in the summer of 2022. But a year later, after the star winger had made it clear he wouldn’t sign an extension to stay with the Senators, Dorion was forced to take a lesser return from Detroit, DeBrincat’s hometown team. Steve Yzerman gave up an expendable winger in Kubalik, a middling prospect (Sebrango) and a conditional first-round pick that ended up the 25th overall selection (Dean Letourneau), and then signed DeBrincat to a four-year, $31.5 million extension. Debrincat has scored 107 goals in his three seasons with the Wings, including a team-best 41 in an 85-point season in 2025-26.
In this situation, the Red Wings were betting on the better player being the better player over the long haul. At the time, Kubalik wasn’t chopped liver as a 20-goal-scorer, and Sebrango and a 1st was not an insubstantial return, but motivation to play in familiar circumstances is a hell of a drug sometimes.
16. Feb. 26, 2008: Red Wings trade 2008 second-round pick, 2009 fourth-round pick to Los Angeles Kings for Brad Stuart
Stuart was arguably the final piece to another Stanley Cup in Detroit, acquired at the deadline from the Kings to shore up the Wings’ blueline. Stuart joined Niklas Kronwall to form a reliable second defensive pair behind Nick Lidstrom and Brian Rafalski down the stretch. And he proved to be far more than a playoff rental, signing a four-year, $15 million extension to remain that summer. The second-round pick (Peter Delmas) never played in the NHL, but the fourth-rounder became Ben Chiarot, who ended up in that same second-pair defensive role in Detroit some 15 years later.
Sometimes you have to make a bet on a really, really good supporting cast member. Stuart was never going to win the Stanley Cup on his own, but he and Bob Rouse were the most useful multi-tool defensemen to play any and every role asked of them, and to play any and every role asked of them well, better than anybody else not named Nicklas Lidstrom.
17. March 18, 1997: Red Wings trade future considerations to Toronto for Larry Murphy
Scapegoats are priced to sell, apparently. And in Murphy, the Red Wings got a true bargain, because the floundering Maple Leafs were looking to unload their highest-paid player in a salary dump. Leafs GM Cliff Fletcher found a trade partner in Bowman, who’d won a couple Stanley Cups in Pittsburgh with Murphy, a veteran defenseman feeling the wrath of fans in Toronto that winter. And the Wings found an ideal partner for Lidstrom, as Murphy’s veteran savvy and offensive skill helped solidify the blue line in Detroit as the Wings won back-to-back Cups. The Hall of Famer even re-signed and played until he was 40 at the end of the 2000-01 season.
Sometimes you have to take a flyer on an older player, part 3: Murph was never a particularly fast skater, but his impeccable positioning and ability to play off of Lidstrom’s cues afforded someone who had perhaps half-a-step left in his stride to become one of the best positional defensemen I’ve ever seen. Lidstrom and Murphy didn’t play a physical brand of hockey, but they blunted the Legion of Doom’s physical might with ease.
