Red Wings - Bruins

To Red Wings: Dufresne and Karpa

To Bruins: LaPointe (Martin)

The Wings seldom trade and looking at this trade one wishes for their own sake that they never did... They gave up uppercoming winger LaPointe, who is playing better and better in the NHL. He would have been a good asset to them in a couple of years. Karpa will probably make their team but he will hardly take it to a better place. Dufresne was picked in this years Rookiedraft but won't make the team. One understands that Wings wanted more players but they do have plenty of no talented defenders already so the aquisition of Dufresne is a mystery. Wings is a team that need to get more top players rather then more depth as they do have that. One reason has been given and that is the fact that the free agency really made LaPointe expensive for the Wings, but Wings is a wealthy club that should be able to keep their talents. Bruins made a steal here and even though this isn't another Yzerman disaster it's a trade the Wings will regret for a long time...

Red Wings - Blues

To Blues: Dandenault

To Red Wings: McAlpine

Another Wings trade and another free agency based one? At least that's the word out of Detroit. Two uppercoming wingers lost due to finaces? And once again the Wings trade for a defender. This trade is easier to understand then the LaPointe one though. McAlpine will make their team and since they consider them selves financially unsound they felt they needed to cut Dandenault off. Blues strenghten up their team a lot here though. Dandenault makes the team easily and with the recent trades in which they got Therien and others they won't miss McAlpine too much. Blues used the free agency here to scare the Wings into a trade, or at least according to some they did...