NHL

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Wednesday marks the trading deadline for the 2013-14 season, a day that has changed the destiny for many NHL teams over the years. It kick-started the 1980s New York Islanders dynasty, landed the Pittsburgh Penguins the final pieces they needed in the early 1990s, and got teams like Tampa Bay, St. Louis and Vancouver their franchise players. Which deal was the greatest of them all?

Though I normally use analytics to answer questions like these, this time it's based on pure personal opinion. Short-term successes down the stretch and into the Stanley Cup playoffs were weighed against those deals that involved players who provided modest but more sustained success. In each case the trade-day motivation is explained, along with the ultimate end result of each deal.

This was no easy task. There have been a lot of great deadline deals, and it is hard to choose 10. For example, New Jersey's famous deals in 2000 (Aleander Mogilny), 2002 (Jamie Langenbrunner and Joe Nieuwendyk) and even 2003 (Grant Marshall and Richard Smehlik) were especially hard to leave out.

In the end these trades were not always the biggest, nor always the most one-sided, but they were the Printable Coupons, and each one has a great story. Let's begin.

All advanced statistics are via writer's own original research unless otherwise noted.