Red Wings deal for Draper in 1993 was memorable heist

Legendary hockey reporter Stan Fischler writes a weekly scrapbook for NHL.com. Fischler, known as "The Hockey Maven," shares his humor and insight with readers each Wednesday.

With the start of NHL Free Agency on Saturday (July 1), Fischler presents a story about, perhaps, the biggest bargain in League history. And it all happened exactly 30 years ago this coming Friday.

Over the years, NHL teams have boasted about bargain deals that worked out favorably. But 30 years ago, there was a player who was acquired for the bargain of all bargains -- one dollar! What's even better about the steal was that Kris Draper went on to become a four-time Stanley Cup-winner with the Detroit Red Wings.

Draper's remarkable tale took shape on June 30, 1993, when the forward was traded by the Winnipeg Jets to the Red Wings for future considerations.

"If the truth be told," said Jimmy Devellano, Detroit's senior vice president at the time, "we really didn't know what we were getting. In fact, we made the deal to help our American League farm team, the Adirondack Red Wings. At the time, Draper had played all of 20 games for Winnipeg spread over three seasons and had scored three goals. The Jets general manager Mike Smith already had him up and down to the AHL three times. He clearly wanted to unload him."

Winnipeg, which had selected Draper in the third round (No. 62) of the 1989 NHL Draft, agreed to send the then-22-year-old to Detroit for a cash sum to be determined at a later point. That sum turned out to be one dollar.

"In terms of our organization, the man who helped make the deal happen was Doug MacLean," Devellano said. "In 1993, he was general manager of our AHL farm team (Adirondack) in Glens Falls, New York. Doug felt that Draper could help them and, yes, we got Kris for only $1."

In retrospect, the deal was a heist for Detroit.

Draper split the 1993-94 season between the AHL and NHL. He averaged nearly a point per game at Adirondack (43 points; 20 goals, 23 assists in 46 games) and had 13 points (five goals, eight assists) for the Red Wings in 39 games.

"Kris certainly helped our Adirondack team," Devellano said. "He had an excellent enough season down there, so we recalled him to Detroit and he never saw the minors again."

Three seasons after being acquired, Draper helped the Red Wings win the Stanley Cup in 1997. Draper and the Red Wings repeated as champions the following season and won the Cup again in 2002 and 2008.

Draper's forte was two-way play as well as being a premier checking forward combined with first-class penalty killing. He became so effective that opponents went out of their way to neutralize him. During the Western Conference Final in the 1996 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Draper was involved in an incident that ignited the heated rivalry between the Red Wings and Colorado Avalanche.

On May 20, 1996, during Game 6, Draper was checked from behind face-first into the boards by Colorado forward Claude Lemieux. Draper's injuries included a broken jaw, broken nose, broken cheekbone and a concussion.

"It marked the beginning of what would be one of the most intense rivalries in the NHL," Devellano said.

After recovering from his injuries, Draper returned as a key cog in the Red Wings machine, centering the "Grind Line" with Kirk Maltby and either Darren McCarty or Joe Kocur. Though known more for his defensive play, Draper enjoyed a breakout offensive season in 2003-04, when he scored an NHL career-high 24 goals and 40 points. That same year the Red Wings won the Presidents' Trophy and Draper captured the Selke Trophy as the League's best defensive forward.

Looking back, Devellano said, "We got our money's worth for the $1 purchase. So did Kris. He got his name on the Stanley Cup four times."

But don't expect another steal like this again any time soon.

"It was a one-shot for a buck," Devellano said, "and we won"

As for the "One Dollar Player," Draper now works for former teammate and current Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman as their director of amateur scouting. He remains amused about traded for a buck.

"It was 1994, a year after I joined the Red Wings, when I first heard about it," Draper recalled. "We were in the first round of the playoffs against San Jose and this was in a postgame media scrum. A reporter asked me a few questions and then ended the interview with 'not bad for a kid traded for a dollar.' Then, he walked away.

"I wondered what he meant by that, so I tracked him down and asked him to explain the $1 comment. He laughed and said, 'You don't know?' And then he explained that the 'future considerations' ended up being a dollar."

Kris still refused to believe it, so he contacted the Red Wings publicist and asked about the veracity of the tale.

"He gently said 'yes' and, at that point, I had to laugh too," Draper said. "Then, I thought about it for a moment and my reaction was 'who cares how I got here? I'm in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and playing for the Red Wings.'

"That $1 trade turned into over 1,100 games (1,137) with Detroit!"