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Anybody who was a fan of the National Hockey League in the 1990’s remembers Mike Richter. The veteran goalie played his entire career in New York, and holds the Rangers’ team records for games played, wins and wins in a single season. It was Richter who was in net when New York won the Stanley Cup in 1994, ending a drought that stretched back to 1940.

Yet for one day in 2002, Richter was a member of the Edmonton Oilers. By curious coincidence, the player the Oilers traded to add Richter to their team was Corey Potter – the long-time Rangers farmhand who only broke through as an NHL’er with the Oilers in 2011-12.

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It’s an odd story, and it goes back to an odd but well-intentioned rule the NHL put in place to help small-market teams like Edmonton.

The Background

The way the rule worked was that teams which lost more Group III unrestricted free agents than they signed could be awarded compensatory picks after the first round to help off-set the loss. Sometimes, this worked well – for example, when Bill Guerin left the Boston Bruins in the summer of 2002 to sign in Dallas, Boston got the 45th overall pick in the 2003 Draft as compensation. That picked turned out to be Patrice Bergeron. In this way, teams that didn’t have the ability to hang on to their free agents still got something in exchange.