We have an early season trade and it comes in the middle of the night.
According to an official announcement from the Detroit Red Wings organization, the Red Wings have just acquired veteran defenseman Alex Biega from the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for Red Wings prospect David Pope. This is a relatively minor deal in the grand scheme of things and based on all reports thus far this does appear to be a straight up one for one trade.
The Red Wings are obviously acquiring the more proven commodity in this deal given that Biega is the only player on the move in this deal that has any National Hockey League experience under his belt. That being said the 31 year old defenseman has yet to play so much as a single game for the Canucks this season and that is very likely a sign that he had become expendable in the eyes of the Canucks organization. The former 5th round pick (147th overall) of the Buffalo Sabres at the 2006 NHL Entry Draft has appeared in 179 career games thus far, all of which were as a member of the Vancouver Canucks, and recorded 4 goals and 32 assists for a total of 36 career points over that stretch of play.
Pope as mentioned above has never played a single game at the NHL level, spending 4 years playing with the University of Nebraska-Omaha prior to joining the Red Wings organization. Since coming on board with the Red Wings he has spent the majority of his time with the Grand Rapids Griffins of the American Hockey League, although he did have a brief stint with the Toledo Walleye of the ECHL. Pop was selected in the 4th round (109th overall) of the 2013 NHL Entry Draft by the aforementioned Detroit Red Wings and its fair to wonder how much further he can go given that he is already 25 years old.
No doubt as part of this trade the Red Wings wanted a contract going the other way, and it is hard to gauge whether or not the Canucks see something in Pope or if his inclusion in this deal was merely a formality.
