Besides the 13,308 games error, there was one other. Steve said Hecht got some Selke votes because he played in front of Hasek who never let anyone score. Well since Hecht was part of the trade that sent Hasek to Detroit, that wasn’t why he got Selke votes.

I played goalie as a kid, and was taught traditional style with butterfly. I watched Hasek and kept losing my mind screaming, "You can't do that!" "What is he doing?" "How did he? What? OMG," He quickly became my favourite goalie.

It still boggles my mind that a 40 year old Chris Chelios on that 2002 Detroit Team Played 79 regular season games averaging 25:18 in ice time a game, contributing 39 pts as a Defenseman, and all 23 playoff games averaging over 26 minutes a game popping another 14 pts while being very defensively sound and always in position. While also leading his team in +/- both in the regular season, and Playoffs. At 40..Guys dedication to fitness and adapting his game kept him around and playing elite hockey for so long.

Just a quick note, Hasek actually won two cups with Detroit. 2002 against Carolina and 2008 against Pittsburgh, though Chris Osgood started most of the playoffs. Also calling Slava Kozlov Vyecheslav makes me uncomfortable as a Red Wings fan. Edit: Hasek was in his second stint with Detroit in 08, so that makes a bit more sense for the video.

Thanks for the love for Eric Daze, a often forgotten great from a mediocre Chicago team.

Really downplayed the fact that he won olympic gold in 98. Czech had two players. Jagr and Hasek. 2 good ones. But they beat out a Canada team with, 99, Lindros, Sakic, fluerry, Yzermen, Roy, etc, etc, Hasek stole that gold medal for a team that had no business being the best in the world. amazing.

A bit of irony, the goalie that Hasek and the Sabres lost too in the finals? Ed Belfour with Dallas.

I went to an event that included a Q&A with Teemu Selanne and someone asked him who the toughest goalie to play against was. His answer: Hasek, because "he had no style." With other goalies, you could at least make an educated guess as to what they might do in a certain situation because their style dictated certain tendencies. With Hasek, you had no idea if he was going to stack the pads, poke check you, stay on his feet, or flop like he got shot, and no matter what he did he almost always stopped the puck. With the game being so immensely skilled, highly-optimized, and meticulously calculated like it is now, I think it's safe to say we'll never see anyone like Hasek again. Truly a special player.

There's another part of Hasek's rise that's interesting to me, because there were two other teams beyond just the Blackhawks who passed on the chance to have him: the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and Florida Panthers. At the 92-93 trade deadline, ahead of the 1993 Expansion Draft, the Sabres traded Darren Puppa to Toronto (along with a 1st and Sabres legend Dave Andreychuk!) so that when the Expansion Draft came around, they could keep Grant Fuhr protected. The summer before he caught fire, *the Sabres left Dominik Hasek exposed in the Expansion Draft,* but neither the Panthers or Ducks took him. (Incidentally, Darren Puppa would get claimed by the Panthers, who then likewise left him exposed in the 2nd part of the draft, where the Tampa Bay Lightning selected him.) Granted, with the looser expansion draft rules of '93 both Anaheim and Florida did fine in the goaltending department, getting Guy Hebert and John Vanbiesbrouck respectively, but imagine what they could have done with The Dominator in goal.

As some people have some people have probably said in this comment section. Dominik Hasek is the best goalie of all-time simply because no goaltender ever had a stint of dominance like he did. From 1994-2002 6 Vezina Trophies 2 Hart Trophies 2 Lester B. Pearson Awards and a Stanley Cup. Otherworldly dominance. Edit: Oh yeah, he also won the William Jennings Award twice, 1994 and 2001. And don’t forget that Olympic Gold he won in Nagano in 1998 with the Czech Republic. And I ain’t even out of High School or live in Buffalo, and I know this

First time I hear about Jochen Hecht here. He played for Adler Mannheim at the beginning of his carreer and his last three seasons. I was at his first game back in germany and we were all so proud.

Could you do the 1998 Vincent Lecavalier trade where the lightning and sharks swapped firsts and the lightning gave up Bryan Marchment and David Shaw. This trade has some huge names later in it even though some of the pieces straight from the tree werent the big names in the trades. Just thought it would be a cool idea as it eventually branches into the Erik Karlsson trade and the Joe Thornton trade. Just thought it might be a fun idea

Holy Jesus some of those saves highlighted in the video are just amazing……some of the best saves ever. As a kid, watching these Sabres games and seeing these saves…….just insane

Hawks had an inkling of who this guy was. When he took over for Belfour in the Final, he was amazing. Although most would have made the same deal, today teams would have kept them both until one simply became too expensive.

I was a Hasek super fan growing up he was so amazing to watch, you never knew what he was gonna do except save the damn puck. :D I was as all Buffalo fans totally heartbroken when Mr Hull "scored" that goal. But most of all i just felt so damn sad for Hasek, cause he carried Sabres on his back for so long and was soo close to futher prove that 1 man can do it all. I was super excited and happy when he got to Detroit, and yea 2002 Red wings as you said might be the best team ever. Thanks for a great video keep it up

Great video….of course I’m a tad biased being from Buffalo and a life long die hard Sabres fan since day 1 in 1970. However, I love the job you do on all these trade trees your sense of humor is hysterical and after enjoying many of these that had nothing to do with the Sabres in the main players traded, I actually suggested you do this exact tree recently in the comments of the last one I watched….and you have. THANK YOU! Watching Hasek play just about every game with the Sabres was amazing.

Fun side note to the trade: Christian Ruuttu played for the Sabres for many years & was originally traded from Buffalo to Winnipeg in the Beauregard trade. He was then traded to Chicago for Beauregard.

Man Hecht was such a big part of the conference final run teams in 06-07!

I absolutely love this series… one of my greatest regrets in life is inviting a troubled friend to move in as a roommate in hopes I could help clean him up. That didn’t happen, he drug me down and in the process kind of destroyed my love for this game. Hockey was out thing, I was a massive fan that read everything, watched everything… hockey was 80/90% of my free time. Because of that relationship and me trying to separate me from that life, hockey became a casualty… I don’t get a deep into it as I once did and that’s sad. So watching these? Takes me back to the walking encyclopedia years… in fact, when you first downplayed Daze I was like “man, in his day he was expected to be a very big deal…” but you caught that anyway lol. Keep up the great work on these… lots of memories and lots of fun

Let's not forget, the goalie on that Dallas Stars team who beat Hasek and the 1999 Stanley Cup Finals was...Eddie "The Eagle" Belfour.

Eric Daze is literally Tage Thompson

Hey Steve, I gotta mention a key detail you seemed to have missed. They also had Jim Waite on their roster, a first-round pick in 1987, and they didn't want to lose him in the Senators/Lightning expansion draft. They also didn't want to lose Hasek for nothing, one would have to be made available to fulfil their goalie requirement; otherwise, Hasek would have been exempt because he was just a second-year pro. The trade was to get around expansion draft requirements, and that's why it looks so uneven. As far as I understand it, the Sabres didn't want to lose Ruutu for nothing, nor did the Jets with Beauregard. It was kind of a 3-way deal...I think. Sources for that stuff are really spotty, but I believe it was supposed to be reversed (for the most part) after the draft. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but Hasek was an expansion draft casualty (kind of).

I grew up watching the Dominator. I played pick-up hockey with friends and tried to emulate his playing style. I love the guy. Those Buffalo years, they had a solid defense. (good not great) It was the offense that royally sucked. If they had a capable offense that put up 4-5 goals per game, I feel they would have won... A... Stanley Cup one of those years. When he did win the cup with Detroit, it was bittersweet. I was happy for him to finally have a Cup added to his resume and sad it wasn't with the Sabres.

Do the Trevor Linden trade tree. It's crazy you haven't done a trade tree that involves Linden, Bertuzzi, The Sedins, Luongo, Markstrom

I think the Saad/Panarin trade(s) tree would an awesome video. We all know how much Steve loves talking about Brandon Saad in trade trees

Hey Steve, I have a few trade tree ideas: Martin St. Louis from TBL to NYR Scott Hartnell from NSH to PHI James Neal from DAL to PIT Andrej Sekera from BUF to CAR Thomas Vanek from BUF to NYI

I really like these videos since it gives you an insight to team structure and how much value there is in every single player

I have always had a hard time feeling bad for the Hawks on this deal... the one position that having 2 really good ones is bad... is Goalie.. and hindsight now says they had 2 HOF goalies early in their careers on the same team... but you can't use both at the same time.. so they moved Dom for Daze, who they could use with Belfour in the net... So though they may have chosen the wrong one... they still had a damn good one in a HOF'er too.. (of course, Belfour was moved and was on that Stars team that beat Hasek in the finals, but that's their fault)

Hasek’s style flowed from the two pad stack. It’s the most effective move a goalie has in one-on-one situations or when he has to cover a great distance laterally. He used it against 3/5 shooters vs Canada in 1998. Somehow, nobody has figured this out in the 20 years since Hasek’s peak.

It’s always good to have a new Steve’s video! Thank you for this trade tree!

It's worth noting that Mike Keenan knew what he had in Hasek, so much so, that he wanted to trade Belfour in a package to Quebec to acquire Eric Lindros. Clearly, the Blackhawks brass knew that had to two of the top goaltenders in the league.

Christian ruuttu, acquired by the Blackhawks from the jets in exchange for Stephane Beauregard, after being acquired by the jets two months earlier (with future considerations) in a trade with buffalo for Stephane Beauregard

I think the last goalie after Hasek to get such a streak of success is actually Carey Price. Won Olympic goal in 2014, won the Hart, Jennings, Vezina and Lindsay in 2015 and won World championship Gold in 2016.

Another banger of video!! Love the trade tree series, and mostly commenting for the algorithm

This one is great! Right in the heart of my childhood obsession with the NHL. I remember that triple OT game 6 with Buffo and Dallas like it was yesterday. I was taping it while watching it, using VHS and the tape ended at the end of the 2nd OT so didn't record the goal.

I remembered Danny Paille as a member of the Guelph Storm because my uncle (Shawn Camp) coached him to an OHL championship. Dustin Brown, Marty St.Pierre, Ryan Callahan, and Cam Janssen were also a part of that roster lol. Good times growing up in that company as a 9/10-year-old

As a passionate young Bruins fan who hopes were frequently crushed by Patrick Roy's Canadiens of the late '80s and early '90s, I would choose him for best-ever goalie. But by the numbers, it probably should be Hasek. Ken Dryden's numbers were amazing, but so were all of them for the Canadiens teams of the '70s (their goal differential was plus-216 in '76-'77, 387-171).

His daughter was on Eurovision this year for Czechia in the same arena Hasek played in 2006.

Well i always ranked my best goalies like this: Who would i pick in their prime? Hasek because i think he was the only one in his prime who would be simply unplayable to play against. He had a 70 save shutout in a playoff game, carried Czechs to international glory even though they weren't the best team in the tournament and other incredible things that i just think no other goalie could have accomplished in their prime. Who would i put in net for a game 7 of the stanley cup finals? Roy because to me he had the ability to play at his absolute best when the pressure was high and his team had to win a match. He was the ultimate competitor which was one of the reasons he won so many trophies. And then who would i pick if i wanted to draft a rock solid goalie for the next 15-20 years? That'd be Brodeur because he had the ability to play at a high level for a very long time. He perhaps didn't have the prime ability of Hasek or Roy, but his longetivity deserves a remark. All three are legends of thd game though.

As a Hawks fan... Daze and Amonte were the 2 stars when I first started paying attention to hockey and he was really good, but a huge amount of injuries. Old man Wirtz broke that early 90s and screwed the Hawks over until the very late 2000s.

Love the trade trees!! Thank you for another good one.

The fact that Ed Belfour ended up beating Hasek and his Sabres, but not with the Blackhawks, in the Stanley Cup Finals is such an interesting part of the trade. Until those Red Wings Cups, Belfour technically had more success even though Hasek was far and above the better goalie.

Great trade tree! I saw the Dominator play in '94, the most electrifying performance I've ever seen

WooHoo. You made the connection with Daze! The kid needed recognition. He gave his body to the game and it tossed him aside after it was done with him. a Sad story.

As a hockey fan who grew up in the 90s in Chicago, seeing Eric Daze’s name made my face light up.

Steve as a Buffalo sports fan did the Buffalo Bills going to 4th Street Super Bowls then we had the Dominator 93 - 2001 it was the greatest time to be a sports fan in Buffalo growing up

What year did the earliest trade tree by your rules start such that it is still unfolding as of the upload of this video? I remember 1988 Gretzky trade is still going now. Any from the original 6 era? Would be cool video idea maybe.

Dominik Hasek was playing in the CSSSR when he was drafted to the NHL. He played in the CSSSR form 1980 to 1989. It was Indianapolis Ice that he played for in the IHL in the 1990-1991 season. He played a handful of games during that same season in the NHL. 1991-1992 season, he split his time between the Blackhawks and the Ice. He was 23 when he made his NHL debut. Lots of people make their NHL debuts well into their twenties. Some don't even get that far. 23 is not old. Connie Madigan has the record for the oldest NHL debut. He was 38 when he debuted for St. Louis in January 1973. It was because of injuries that season that led to Madigan being brought up to the NHL. Going back to Hasek. If he wasn't traded, we might not have seen the greatness that became of him. There is nobody who who used the ice, the net, and his body like he did. We will never see someone like that again.

Love the early 90s stuff. One trade from then that would be awesome to explore is the Rick Tocchet-Mark Recchi Trade between the Penguins and Flyers. A couple hall of famers that you forget played with the Pens and a couple of long time Flyers that are acquired because of Recchi.

_the tragic tale of how chicago had 2 solid ass goalies and kept neither._

Keep in mind a couple of things, on why Hasek was traded. 1. He didn't play his first North American game until AFTER the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1989. 2. The Blackhawks had a 3-headed monster with Belfour, Hasek, and more recently drafted, Jimmy Waite (Rd 1 Pk 8, 1987). Not knowing of those 3, one would become The Diminator, or that Czechoslovakia would split, they chose to err on the side of reason, and keep the younger, higher drafted Waite. 3. And probably the most likely reason....the Hawks head coach Mike Keenan. Who consequently was the coach for Team Canada in the 1987 Canada Cup. That said, he probably began to develop his opinion of Hasek's ability during that tournament.

When I saw the title, I assumed the video was about Chad Johnson.

It would be nice if at the end during the wrap up, you added in some key stats like games played or trips through the playoffs.

Dryden was 258 wins 57 loss 74 ties in 389 games. Losing 57 out of 389 is 14.6% of all games played. So if you had Dryden in nets in the 70's, you had a 85.6% chance of not losing and a 66.3% chances of winning. Just amazing. For reference : if you had Hasek in nets, you had a 69.9% chance of not losing (223 loss in 735 games) if you had Brodeur in nets, you had a 68.7% chance of not losing (397 loss in 1266 games)

You guys should do the Brent Burns Trade Tree from the Wild. At the 2011 NHL Draft a big trade happend between the Minnesota Wild and the San Jose Sharks. Brent Burns was headed to San Jose with a 2012 2nd Round Pick, the return that was going back to Minnesota was: a 2011 1st Round Pick, Devin Setoguchi, and Charlie Coyle. I won't do anymore but I can tell you that there's a prospect that ends up here and holy crap this guy is a stud.

Not one of the best, BUT THE BEST goalie ever!!

Probably my favourite trade tree of all time. This just goes to show goaltenders are unpredictable and giving the right circumstances, scenery, and players in front of him… anything is POSSIBLE!!!

Credit to Buffalo for seeing something in Hasek in limited action, and he’d have made the nhl way earlier if it weren’t for the USSR.

Hasek was the best goalie in the NHL ever .. hands down. Period. I believe if the Sabres were a more rounded team with some scoring punch back in the day they would have won some Cups along that stretch.

Everyone here will be talking about the trade tree itself but... what about some love for the editing and aesthetics of the video production! 10/10, good stuff!

The two arguments I use when I’m convincing someone that Hasek is the goat: 1. He carried very mediocre Sabres teams to multiple playoff runs (see 1999 most notably, that team doesn’t make playoffs without him much less the final) 2. Roy and Brodeur are the most common goalies people name as contenders for the goat title, yet when all of them were at their peaks, it was Hasek that was winning the Vezinas

By the way, he played 72 games in 97-98, 67 in 96-97 and 00-01, and couple more 60+ game seasons.

Whoever is editing deserves a raise. Or a cookie at least

For what it’s worth I always liked Hasek at Chicago and there was some talk of keeping him and getting rid of Belfour because he kept getting drunk and getting into fights off the ice. Also, Daze terrorized my Red Wings for several seasons back then. I remember when Hasek came to Detroit. Man, would he spoil you. Every goalie after that no matter what looked so average. Hasek was that super hot chick you hooked up with at a frat party. You’re grateful it happened, but damn, you’d like it some more.

“One of the Greatest?” More like the greatest goalie to ever play in the NHL. Run the numbers and or watch him, he was the best goalie to play in the NHL.

Greatest goalie of all time Hasek was born to be a goalie. Excellent analysis really enjoyed the video.

13308 games as a Sabre is what Steve said, it's actually right around 500 counting playoffs, I'm really curious what the number 13308 refers to though. That'd be roughly 162 seasons of playing each game, I did some math and couldn't figure it out (thought maybe he meant minutes, saves or shots against but none of those lined up). STEVE, WHAT IS THAT NUMBER!?!?!?

I love the Trade Trees. This one was fascinating.

As a life long Sabres fan, I THANK YOU for making this video. Dominik Hasek is still the greatest goalie I have ever seen in my life. This warmed my heart seeing my Sabres have been hot garbage for the last 15 years. Also, thank you for acknowledging that HULL WAS IN THE FREAKIN CREASE! I mean yeah, if the refs get the call right, we still go to Dallas and lose Game 7; but COME ON! Even Leafs fans stick up for Sabres fans on this!

in 20 years, Steve is going to do this exact same video for fit throwing Belfour, I mean Binnington, and incredible late bloomer Has.. Husso who became a league leading starter who was traded for a draft pick. You heard it here first.

So glad to see some Hasek love. I never liked the Sabres, but I always loved Hasek. And I always thought his choice of helmet was so punk rock; im kidding but serious at the same time.

Chicago had Belfour and made the finals before Hasek was traded. Expansion was coming up so he wasn’t going to stay for long likely. Especially after Hasek in game 4 of those finals

As a lifelong Sabers fan since their inception I want to thank the Chicago Blackhawks for trading the Dominator to Buffalo. He would go on to surpass my childhood hero Gilbert Perreault as my favourite Buffalo Saber of all time. The fact that in front of Hasek the Sabers were not even a playoff team made watching just about every Sabers game edge of your seat nail-biting hair pulling excitement. The Sabers would get outshot 40 something to 20 something and win 2-1. When they went to the cup finals they had Hasek to thank because without him they wouldn't have even beat the Toronto Maple Leafs. Great trade by Sabers management to land Hasek. Pathetic job by Sabers management of putting together a good team in front of him. I wonder how many of his wins came in games the Sabers were outshot. All of them? He gets my vote as best Saber of all time, most exciting Saber of all time and not just best Sabers goalie but best goalie period of all time. I think the fact the Sabers were so pathetic in front of him made him even so much more fun to watch. I suspect if he had played for the New Jersey Devils and seen only 5 shots per period he would not have been nearly as exciting or effective as he was in Buffalo where he was seemingly always under a constant barrage of pucks.

the trio of goalies was Puppa-Hasek-Draper, then the Sabres traded Puppa, Andreychuk and a 1st for Fuhr. Sabres got fleeced (and they already had Hasek). So Fuhr became the 1G until he got injured...

Tbh I only knew Daze from my favourite NHL video game: NHL 2004. He was actually on team Canada in that game.

"Be careful when you trade away your back-up." See also: Miikka Kiprusoff

Are you sure he played 13,308 games for the Sabres? Cause that's like over 160 seasons

13:16 "13308 games. as a goalie for the buffalo sabres"........you really sure bud? in that case man's still playing part of his 162 year career...

Fun (but unrelated to the tree) fact: I have a Bobby hull Blackhawks jersey given to me by my great uncle from when he was in Canada decades ago and met Ed Belfour 😅

I loved hasek, crazy watching him single-handedly pull the Czechs to gold in 98

Did Hasek not play with the sens at some point too? Also, I can remember selecting Eric Daze out of FA in NHL 06 Be A GM mode and he was decently useful

The similiarities between this trade and what Sergei Bobrovsky was able to accomplish after the Flyers traded him away (ironically because they too had a goalie they were sure would just be #1 going forward)... Uncanny

Great vid 💯

Funny thing is that when Hasek lost to Dallas in the Stanley Cup Finals, Ed Belfour was at the other end of the ice. Weird how things work out.

About this trade. I think Ruuttu is the most underrated Finnish player ever. Him or skriko. I just remember hating Ruuttu for his shenanigans while playing for Hifk in the 94-95 lockout season.

Hasek's trade to the wings was a respect trade. sending him to a team that could and did win the cup. return was ok but was about sending Hasek to win

Another often forgotten fact is that in Hasek era there were arguably the best goalies of all time at the same time.....Belfour, Roy, Brodeu. And Hasek still managed to overperformed these guys. For me, he is the GOAT goalie.

Thank you Steve

And these same 2 goalies faced off in the 99 Cup Final. Ed Belfour and Hasek. And I never remembered Ruuttu with Winnipeg

You mentioned the Net Detective Jim Carey getting one of those Vezinas that Hasek should have won. Would love a Jim Carey trade tree as I think that was also the trade where the Caps got Adam Oates.

As a quick aside as a Hurricanes fan, that 2002 Red Wings team is the perfect example for why there needed to be a salary cap. They had freaking Brett Hull and Luc Robataille on their *FOURTH* line. Granted, they were both like 40, but still... on their *FOURTH* line. I'm amazed the Canes even pushed them to 5 games and didn't get swept 🤣

I don't blame the Hawks for this, there was no reason to think Hasek would turn into a god

Fun fact the Thrashers ended the 5 game (nhl record) shutout streak in Phoenix

What's ironic in that 8 year span, the 2 years he was beaten to win the Vezina were both by Caps goalies(Jim Carey and Olaf Kolzig)!

I remember the Blackhawks switching goalies in the 91-92 playoffs just to have timeouts. They knew they had a good one in Hasek, they were just the only ones who knew. Doesn't make getting value in a trade easy when no one believe they are getting something worth the price asked.

Favorite dangle trade tree. Great job

When you were rattling off all the stuff Hasek won with Buffalo I was grinning ear to ear!!!

You can’t fault the Hawks for making the trade. You CAN fault them for the return.

Dominic Hasek also had a Stanley Cup winning goal scored against him as a Blackhawk. Thank you, Ron Francis.

The comment about continuous overtime...yeah, that 7th period in the playoffs with a 70 save 1-0 shutout vs Brodeur and the Devils...excellent point, probably would have been alot of those in the mid-90s had there been continuous OT.