Okay, so I don't have a favorite pro team, nor do I feel like analyzing a trade from any of my SHL GMs; as much as I like the GMs I've played for, they're trade addicts so choosing one would be too hard.

But I am going to analyze a forgotten pro trade. Let's go back to 2003. The San Jose Sharks organization has had a goalie logjam for years, one that already cost them Johan Hedberg. The previous year, normal starter Evgeni Nabokov held out, meaning that their starting goalie situation was a de facto head to head for the long-term backup job between two Finns. Vesa Toskala ended up winning that gig almost by default, as the starter put up a pathetic -16.1 GSAA and .879 SV% (and Nabokov eventually came back). However, during all of this, Toskala's competition ended up now requiring waivers to be sent to their AHL team. So much of the early 2003-04 season, San Jose carried three goalies - Nabokov, Toskala, and the third goalie.

However, a starting spot opened up elsewhere in the league when Roman Turek got injured. So the Sharks sent this other goalie to the Flames for a draft pick. His name was Miikka Kiprusoff, who promptly went off in Calgary and actually knocked the Sharks out of that year's playoffs. Calgary recently announced that Kipper's number would be rising to the Saddledome rafters, and deservedly so; his peak was incredible.

That said, this trade seemed awful but actually managed to come back around for San Jose. When there was no 2004-05 season, and the order was decided by a complete lottery, the league elected it would be a snake style draft. This shoved the second rounder they got from Calgary from the end of the second, to the top 5 of it. And with it, San Jose took a Quebecois defender by the name of Marc-Édouard Vlasic. "Pickles" has since won Olympic gold and played over 1000 games for a Sharks team that was excellent for much of his tenure. While it would be easy to say "San Jose gave up Kiprusoff for nothing," Vlasic ultimately made the trade very much worth it.