Analyzing GMTM’s First Big Swing by @realbrigang

 The Buffalo Sabres have traded to get Evander Kane.

 I’ve been waiting for that to sink in completely and it just refuses to.

 In the last few years, we’ve seen a lot of large trades that were, to one extent or another, fait accompli, and rumors (or maybe just hopes) of blockbuster trades that never came to fruitions. Major fixtures of the Sabres moving has been the trend as contracts were expiring since well before Tim Murray moved Miller, Ott and Moulson at the deadline last year. Vanek and Pomminville come to mind, as does Derek Roy and even back to Brian Campbell. 

 The Sabres have gotten many assets back in the process and itfeels like Tim Murray has finally used some of those assets to do something.

What strikes me most about this trade is the fact that, as I look back to everything that has happened with the Sabres since the President’s Trophy team, that this is a trade that Darcy Regier would absolutely not make. A trade like this, with so many pieces moving, would have been too daunting for him to overcome his own reservations. Darcy give up his own prospects? Never. Darcy Regier never wanted to lose a trade or, perhaps more troubling, make a trade that could come back to haunt him. Around the league, his reputation was one of a person who held onto his prospects and valued his players’ potential as their value.

There is a completely fair section of the populace that seems to be saying that Winnipeg won this trade, especially looking at the potential going out. Two very large prospects went west in Brendan Lemieux and Joel Armia that I was genuinely excited to see wear the blue and gold. Myers could still develop into the stud defenseman we had been hoping he would be after winning the Calder Trophy in his Rookie season. Even Stafford is likely to do better there than he did here because, rather than playing on a higher line than he should, he will be placed correctly on a strong team. Oh, AND a First round pick this year.

Conversely, there are questions that are coming back. The biggest reason that Evander Kane was even available is because he has had issues, not with character necessarily, but getting along with teammates with the Jets. People call him a cancer in the locker room there. Zach Bogosian was a healthy scratch in recent games in Winnipeg. There’s a lot that you could be concerned about on that side of things.

I personally do not think the Sabres overpaid in this deal. Evander Kane is a bonafide talent who was in a bad situation. Despite any off-ice issues that may have existed, he never stopped working. He conformed to the role he was asked to play. If he scored less, it was because he was playing a two-way game against the best competition. Bogosian is a solid defenseman who was projected to be better than Myers (In the 2008 draft, Bogosian was picked 3^rdoverall while Myers was the 12^th pick), is currently a better player than Myers and may well continue to be that.

In talking about the pieces going to Winnipeg, GMTM said, “It’s certainly not easy trading good players and good people from your organization.” And that’s true. It’s quite possible that Armia and Lemieux will play like their pants are on fire, that Myers will finally ‘get it’ and become a major player in this league, that Stafford will stay on and be a solid player and penalty killers and they can hit with the 1^st round pick. It’s possible that they will all hit their stride and it will look, on the balance sheet, like Winnipeg got a lot more out of this trade.

But right now I’m picturing Evander Kane, Mikhail Grigorenko and a Connack McEichel to be named after the draft lottery bearing down on a number one power play unit with Nikita Zadorov at one point and Rasmus Ristolainen on the other. I am seeing a future for this franchise that feels perhaps a full year closer than it felt when I went to bed last night. Say what you will about the upside of Armia and Lemieux and the possible upside of Myers, I genuinely believe that the Sabres have the best two players coming back.

I feel like the promise of change in the front office is real, rather than dealing with a type of suffering with a different mouth piece. Because as clear to me as it is that Darcy Regier never would have made this trade, it is equally clear to me that Tim Murray has the will to do what he thinks it will take to make the Sabres the best that they can be.