(Ed. Note: It’s the NHL Alternate History project! We’ve asked fans and bloggers from 31 teams to pick one turning point in their franchise’s history and ask ‘what if things had gone differently?’ Trades, hirings, firings, wins, losses, injuries … all of it. How would one different outcome change the course of history for an NHL team? Today, it’s a plucky up and coming writer named Greg Wyshynski on the New Jersey Devils. Enjoy!)

By Greg Wyshynski

In Summer 1991, the St. Louis Blues signed New Jersey Devils free agent forward Brendan Shanahan to a four-year free-agent deal worth $5 million.

(In total. Yeah, it was a different time in the NHL. There was even a president instead of a commissioner!)

Shanahan was considered one of the best young offensive players in the League, and the Blues snagging the 22 year old was their second straight summertime coup: They had signed Washington Capitals star defenseman Scott Stevens in 1990 to a four-year, $5.1 million restricted free-agent contract, and surrendered five first-round draft picks to the Capitals to do so.

As a Group I restricted free agent, the Devils were due compensation from the Blues for losing Shanahan. And here’s where the fun begins.

The NHL took long over a month and a half to finally approve Shanahan’s deal with the Blues, and the two teams began their compensation talks. New Jersey anticipated that without first-round picks to ante up, the Blues might not offer a fair package for having signed away a player like Shanahan. So they aimed high in the hopes of winning the arbitration.

The Devils were rumored to consider asking for center Adam Oates, coming off a 115-point season, as compensation. There was talk they might aim even higher to ask for all-world sniper Brett Hull. Also in the mix: Stevens, having played just one season in St. Louis.

The Blues steadfastly refused to discuss sending Oates, Stevens or Hull to the Devils. At a stalemate, the case was sent to NHL arbitrator Judge Edward J. Houston of Ottawa. Each team submitted a proposal. The Blues felt theirs was a solid one: 23-year-old goalie Curtis Joseph, who had 45 NHL games under his belt with (thus far) middling results; 21-year-old forward Rod Brind’Amour, with 43 goals in his first two seasons; and a couple of compensatory draft picks.

The addition of Brind’Amour in the deal was seen as the aggressive ante, with the anticipation that the Devils would ask for a more established star.

And they did. They asked for Scott Stevens.

On September 3, 1991, Houston made his decision: The Blues lost, the Devils won. Which would be the case for the duration of Stevens’s NHL career, spent with the Devils, with whom he won three Stanley Cups, including a Conn Smythe Trophy win in 2000.

So this being an NHL Alternate History project, we suppose it’s time to get to the Earth 2 timeline that is …

What If The St. Louis Blues Won The Brendan Shanahan Arbitration, And The Devils Never Had Been Given Scott Stevens?

Let’s get the Blues out of the way first.

Please recall they went after Brendan Shanahan after one of the most inexplicable and terrible trades in franchise history: The March 1991 deal that saw them add Garth Butcher and Dan Quinn from the Vancouver Canucks for forwards Geoff Courtnall, Cliff Ronning, Sergio Momesso and defenseman Robert Dirk. All four of those players were on the Canucks’ 1994 Stanley Cup finalist. Quinn played 14 games for the Blues before being moved in another bad trade. Butcher would go on to play around four seasons in St. Louis.

Which is to say that even if they keep Stevens after signing Shanahan, the Blues were a toxic cocktail of specious management and cheap ownership at the time. Does Adam Oates still get traded to Boston because of a salary dispute with Blues ownership? If anything, having both Shanahan and Stevens on the books for the next few seasons makes that even more probable.

Stevens undoubtedly makes the Blues better on the back end, but in front of what? Curtis Joseph was the heir between the pipes, and played there for the next five years. Without him, do they turn to Guy Hebert, who was selected in the expansion draft by the Mighty Ducks? Or do they go outside the organization for a netminder (keeping in mind they couldn’t use the five first-round picks they had given the Capitals for Stevens)?