Twenty-five years ago today, on June 30, 2001, the Detroit Red Wings pulled off one of the most franchise-altering trades in their storied history, acquiring eventual Hall-of-Fame goaltender Dominik Hasek from the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for forward Slava Kozlov, a 2002 first-round draft pick (later used to select Jim Slater), and future considerations.
The deal sent shockwaves around the league as Hasek had just won his sixth Vezina Trophy as the league's top goaltender and had already cemented himself as one of the greatest to ever play the position when the Sabres, who could not recapture the playoff success of their 1999 Stanley Cup Final run, decided to move him.
Buffalo GM Darcy Regier was looking to cut payroll that summer, and after letting veterans like Doug Gilmour and Dave Andreychuk walk via free agency, dealing Hasek to Detroit became the centerpiece of a roster teardown. For Detroit, the move paid off almost immediately.
In his first season with the Red Wings, Hasek appeared in 65 games, posting 41 wins, a 2.17 goals-against average, a .915 save percentage and five shutouts, anchoring a Presidents' Trophy winning campaign. Detroit added Luc Robitaille and Brett Hull that same offseason, with Robitaille scoring 30 goals and 50 points and Hull adding 30 goals and 63 points, while Brendan Shanahan led the team with 37 goals and Nicklas Lidstrom won the Norris Trophy.
The investment culminated in a championship with Hasek starting all 23 games of the 2002 playoffs, going 16-7 with a 1.86 goals-against average, a .920 save percentage and an NHL record six shutouts in a single postseason, including a shutout in every round. Hasek continued to be "The Dominator" in that first season with Detroit, winning a career high 41 games and leading the Red Wings to their third Stanley Cup in six seasons.
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Hasek's Detroit tenure had a few twists from there. He retired after that 2002 title, only to return for the 2003-04 season before the 2004-05 lockout wiped out a full year of hockey, and he later came back to Detroit as a free agent in 2006.
His second stint got off to a rough start, as he played just 14 games in 2003-04 before a season-ending groin injury. Still, Hasek won a second Stanley Cup with Detroit in 2008, this time as the backup goaltender. Across his two stints in Detroit, Hasek finished with a 114-39-19 record and a .911 save percentage in 176 games.
The other side of the trade did not work out nearly as well for Buffalo. The Sabres moved on from Kozlov after just one season, shipping him to Atlanta for a 2002 third-round pick and a second-round pick swap, with that second-rounder eventually being flipped to Edmonton for winger Jochen Hecht. Kozlov did find some success elsewhere, as he went on to score 20-plus goals in five of his next six seasons with the Thrashers.
As for the first-round pick included in the deal, Buffalo packaged it along with the rights to Mike Pandolfo to move up to 20th overall in the 2002 draft, where they selected winger Daniel Paille. Detroit, by trading that selection away as part of the Hasek deal, never actually used the pick that became Jim Slater, as Buffalo retained and moved it before making their own selection.
A quarter-century later, the trade remains a defining example of a star player swap that delivered exactly what one side hoped for while leaving the other still searching for equal value in return, with Hasek's two championships in Detroit standing in stark contrast to the more modest returns Buffalo ultimately recouped for the franchise goaltender.
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