I'm sure I knew some of these pieces previously, but I hadn't really put them all together until today when I read this Yahoo - Wyshinski piece about the Brendan Shanahan RFA signing by the St. Louis Blues - 20 years ago today.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/The-Brendan-Shanahan-Scott-Stevens-switch-20-ye?urn=nhl-wp9643&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

If you look back at Shanny's career, this means that he was "acquired" (not traded in this initial case) in the following ways:

Shanahan for Scott Stevens - New Jersey and St. Louis

Shanahan for Chris Pronger - St. Louis and Hartford

Shanahan for Paul Coffey - Hartford and Detroit (ok, maybe this one really is offense for offense)

Amazing to think about it, Shanny was acquired for 3 pre-emminent/stalwart Defenseman throughout his career.  Of course, the trade near and dear to us Red Wings fans is the swap during 1997 for Coffey, which many people believe was the final piece to the Red Wings Stanley Cup puzzle.