Some of the greatest players in NHL history have donned the Winged Wheel, and over the years, Red Wings fans have been able to count themselves as some of the most fortunate in professional sports.
After all, there are multiple fan bases who would do just about anything to witness their team win the Stanley Cup just once in their lifetimes, let alone four times in 11 years like the Red Wings did from 1997 to 2008.
It could have been five in 12 years had the outcome of a certain Game 7 in June of 2009 at Joe Louis Arena gone a different way, but that's a topic for another day.
Several of those aforementioned legends of the game were drafted by and spent their entire NHL careers with in Detroit. Names like Steve Yzerman, Nicklas Lidstrom, Pavel Datsyuk, and Henrik Zetterberg never played a game in the NHL for any team other than the Red Wings.
But there were also plenty of other legendary figures who were part of multiple Stanley Cup-winning editions of the Red Wings who got their starts elsewhere.
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While there are multiple players who fit that bill, here are the first four we'll look back on.
Brendan Shanahan
One of the most clutch goal scorers the Red Wings boasted in the last 30 years, Shanahan originally began his career on the East Coast after being selected by the New Jersey Devils with the second overall pick in 1987.
He would eventually sign with the St. Louis Blues in 1991, and his goal scoring began to take off. In his second and third seasons with the Blues, he scored 52 and 51 goals, respectively. And after a brief tenure with the Hartford Whalers, the Red Wings decided to make one of the most impactful deals in their history.
Shanahan was obtained on October 9, 1996 after the Red Wings had already started the 1996-97 season. Detroit sent future Hall of Fame defenseman Paul Coffey along with forward Keith Primeau back to the Whalers, and Shanahan would arrive at Joe Louis Arena literally minutes before the Red Wings hit the ice for warmups in their 1996 home opener against the Edmonton Oilers.
The rest, as they say, is history. Shanahan scored 47 goals in his first season with the Red Wings and would play an integral part of their 1997, 1998, and 2002 Stanley Cup-winning teams. During his time in Detroit, he scored 309 goals in regular season play and 33 playoff goals.
While he would depart Detroit after the 2005-06 season after saying he felt was more identified with the team's past instead of the future, he would later be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a member of the Red Wings.
Larry Murphy
By the time the Red Wings acquired Murphy from the Toronto Maple Leafs at the 1997 NHL Trade Deadline, he was in the midst of his 17th season and had already won the Stanley Cup twice in a row as a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991 and 1992, the latter of which was under future Detroit coach Scott Bowman.
Murphy began his career with the Los Angeles Kings, who made him the fourth overall pick in the 1980 NHL Draft. He later played for the Washington Capitals and Minnesota North Stars before arriving with the Penguins in a 1990 trade.
Murphy was in his second season with the Maple Leafs when he was essentially rescued by the Red Wings, as the Maple Leafs were one of the worst clubs in the League at the time. Murphy was immediately paired with fellow future Hall of Fame defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom, and won the Stanley Cup in consecutive seasons for the second time in his career.
He retired in 2001 after 1,615 career games played, and he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.
Kris Draper
One of the least expensive acquisitions in NHL history, Draper was traded from the Winnipeg Jets to the Red Wings in 1993 for literally $1.
Draper was originally selected by the Jets in the 1989 NHL Draft with the 62nd overall pick, and he had a modest 20 games of NHL experience by the time he arrived in the Motor City.
He would go on to be one of the key elements of Detroit's famous "Grind Line" with Kirk Maltby and Darren McCarty, and would get his name on the Stanley Cup four times by the time he retired from the NHL in 2011.
Draper now works for the Red Wings as their director of amateur scouting and assistant general manager under his longtime teammate, Steve Yzerman.
Igor Larionov
One of the smartest players to ever lace up the skates in the NHL, Larionov began his professional hockey career in his native Russia before he helped to lobby (with his future Detroit teammate, Slava Fetisov) for the defection of Soviet players to the NHL.
Larionov, who was selected by the Vancouver Canucks in the 1985 NHL Draft with the 214th overall pick, was finally allowed to relocated to North America and joined the Canucks in 1989.
He would eventually claimed by the San Jose Sharks in the 1992 NHL Expansion Draft, and would ironically be part of the 8th seeded Sharks club that stunned the Red Wings with a seven-game series win in the opening round of the 1994 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Larionov was then traded to the Red Wings in the 1995-96 season, and would become part of Detroit's famed "Russian Five". He played an integral role in helping the Red Wings win the Stanley Cup consecutively in 1997 and 1998, but would leave the Red Wings to sign with the Florida Panthers in the 2000 offseason.
His time in Florida was brief, as he would be traded right back to Detroit in late December of 2000, where he would play for another two and a half seasons, which included another Stanley Cup win.
Larionov scored one of the most famous overtime goals in Red Wings postseason history in triple overtime of Game 3 of the 2002 Stanley Cup Finals against the Carolina Hurricanes. His goal after nearly two full games worth of playing time gave the Red Wings the series lead for good.
After one final NHL season with the New Jersey Devils in 2003-04, Larionov retired and would be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2008.
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