The Trade that shocked the hockey world happened 25 years ago, ripping Wayne Gretzky from Edmonton and forever making Peter Pocklington a pariah in the City of Champions. But there exists an alternate universe where Wayne Gretzky was never traded from Edmonton—because he was a Winnipeg Jet.

In Peter Gzowski's best-selling classic The Game of Our Lives, which follows the 1980-81 Edmonton Oilers, a team on the brink of becoming a dynasty, Gzowski tells a story of how Wayne Gretzky was almost traded to the Winnipeg Jets instead of the Edmonton Oilers. The deal never happened because Jets owner Michael Gobuty wasn't a bolder backgammon player.

Five Stanley Cups put Edmonton on the map, helping it land the nickname 'The City of Champions'. But if you listen to Oilers' owner Daryl Katz and Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel it's going to take a brand-new rink to put Edmonton on the map. And who should pay for that rink? Why not billionaire Daryl Katz, but rather the good people of Edmonton. What a surprise.

Sure, a nice, fancy, new arena would be a whole lot of fun, but when the public is held hostage by owners and made to subsidize the cost, which inevitably go way over budget, it's a scam.

Check out today's post at The Good Point to read more.

Justin Schultz abandoned the Anaheim Ducks and he had every right to do so.

Thanks to a loophole in the CBA, Schultz was able to become an unrestricted free agent before playing a game in the NHL. After completing his junior year at Wisconsin, he refused to sign with the Ducks and was courted by close to every team in the league, ultimately signing with Edmonton.

In 1991, the Quebec Nordiques had the privilege of drafting first overall for the third straight year, giving them the chance to draft Eric Lindros, dubbed the next Wayne Gretzky. Lindros, however, had other plans, refusing to play in Quebec and holding out until being traded to Philadelphia the next season. Flash-forward 20 years and the Edmonton Oilers own the first overall pick for the third consecutive year. Like the Nordiques before them, they too might see that pick slip away, albeit for entirely different reasons.

The Oilers are in a unique predicament this year: they have spent the last few years drafting high-end forwards and lack the same quality of talent on the backend. Although Edmonton’s system does possess a good amount of NHL-calibre defenemen, there is not a No. 1 quality blueliner among them. The Oilers have a choice: continue to add up front, which is almost entirely unnecessary, or deal the pick to add much-needed pieces to the blueline.

Although this draft class is full of defencemen, the first few picks will likely be forwards. This means that the Oilers can trade down, possibly as low as five, and still have a chance to take the best defenceman in the draft.

By trading down the Oilers would also be able to grab a young player and/or a handful of picks from a team eager to land Nail Yakupov, the highly skilled Russian winger from the OHL. This is an opportunity for the team to fill their greatest need, and at the same time add more pieces to their growing cupboard.

It isn’t every year that a team is willing to trade away the first overall pick, and the return varies based on the needs of the teams involved. But we can look back at some of the teams that have traded the No. 1 pick to see what type of return the Oilers can expect and whether it is in their best interest to pass on Yakupov.

Justin Schultz is a former second-round pick of the Anaheim Ducks and has the type of potential that makes scouts drool. When teams get a player with Schultz's skill they tend to hold tight. But this summer Schultz could hit unrestricted free agency before playing his first NHL game.

Thanks to a loophole in the CBA, the young defenceman can become an unrestricted free agent this summer, as he is a college player yet to sign an NHL contract four years after being drafted. All Schultz has to do is walk away from his senior year at Wisconsin and he will be able to choose where he plays in 2012-13.

Burke explaining that the Leafs do, in fact, occasionally draft in the first round.

When Brian Burke traded two first- and one second-round pick for Phil Kessel, the prevailing thought was that Burke was foolish; you don't rebuild a team by trading away your high draft picks.

Burke boldly declared he was too impatient for a traditional rebuild and that under his watch the Leafs would undergo a radical on-the-fly rebuild. The Leafs weren't going to tank year in, year out, slowly building a team with the best young prospects available each June.

People were outwardly skeptical or the brash GM.

The Leafs began their rebuild shortly before Burke was named GM in 2008, as Cliff Fletcher took over for the deposed John Ferguson Jr. Fletcher acquired a few mid to late draft picks at the deadline and then traded up in the draft to take Luke Schenn, before fleecing the Canadiens for Mikhail Grabovski.

But aside from those two players, plus Tomas Kaberle and Nik Antropov, Burke was left with a roster deprived of nearly all talent, and saddled with seemingly unmovable contracts like Jason Blake's, which still had the next three seasons and $12 million on it.

At the same time, the Edmonton Oilers were about to embark on their own rebuild after finishing the 2008-09 season in 11th place in the Western Conference.

Over the next three years the two teams took different strategies to bring respectability back to their once proud franchises. The Oilers ended up adopting the more traditional tank hard and draft high method, while the Leafs managed to hold onto only one of their own first round picks.

Critics of Brian Burke and the Leafs pointed to Edmonton, proclaiming that the Oilers, on account of their proper rebuild, would become a better team sooner than the Leafs. Eventually, the armchair GMs said, the Leafs too would have to follow Edmonton as Burke's method was doomed to failure.

Well, three years have passed, and it is Toronto who has taken the first major step forward, sitting 7th in the Eastern Conference. In comparison, the Oilers once again sit in their customary lottery position, and can only console themselves by fact that drafting high will pay off eventually... or so they hope.

They say in Gotham City you can buy a cop. Well, in Montreal you can buy a referee.

The Bell Centre is one of the loudest buildings in the league. The Montreal faithful pack the 21,000+ arena every night and have been accused of swaying the referees to their side by more than a few angry coaches.

But Montreal can no longer lay claim to the title of "loudest building in the league". That prestigious honour now goes to Winnipeg and the MTS Centre, home of the relocated Jets.

The MTS Centre barely holds over 15,000 and is quite small, which actually works to make the building itself louder. Plus, Winnipeg hasn't had hockey in 15 years, so the fans are just a little pent up.

And in addition to being one of the most wild, passionate buildings in the league, it seems like the fans are actually helping the Jets win games. The popular joke is that Winnipeg is the Jets at home and the Thrashers on the road. It looks like the transformation has something to do with the crowd.

The Oilers are a team on the rise. They have Taylor Hall – who looks deadly, but sort of skates like he’s slack-jawed – and Captain Clutch, Jordan Eberle, which could become a pretty fearsome 1-2 punch in the near future. They also could have the ‘Nuge, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, but he’s about as heavy as a fart in a strong wind at this point, so he might not be making the team this season.

If the Oilers can only get some goaltending maybe they can make their big first step towards respectability this season. But if for some reason they have to actually play Nikolai Khabibulin more than 30 games this season they are headed straight for another 1st overall pick. Khabs is terrible. He can’t stop anything. It's amazing he stopped his car during that police check...

Check out The Good Point for my latest article looking at what's in store for the Oilers this season and beyond.

August 9, 1988 is a day that will live in infamy for Canadians. It marks the day that Oilers GM Peter Pocklington sold Canada’s favourite son, Wayne Gretzky. It was a trade that literally shook the nation to its core. If hockey is a religion in Canada (pretty much) then Wayne is Jesus. People sent death threats to Pocklington and he still hasn’t been forgiven 20 years later, especially by the residents of Edmonton. Poor Edmonton, the city Wayne practically founded, has spiralled into a meth and hooker binge that it has yet to recover from (or so To Serve and Protect would have me believe).

Kings Ransom is a documentary by Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) investigating the development and culmination of the biggest trade in sports history. What other example can you think of a transcendental player being traded during his absolute prime (Wilt Chamberlain maybe)? It’s part of the ESPN series 30 for 30, which is a set of documentaries celebrating ESPN’s 30th year. These aren’t necessarily the 30 biggest sports stories of the past 30 years, rather, they are 30 stories that 30 prominent directors were compelled to make. This gives an interesting view on diverse and often obscure subjects such as the USFL, the death of Len Bias, and the advent of Rotisserie baseball (excessively excited to watch that one…seriously).