A year later: Sabres and Jets both benefited from Kane mega-trade

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/02/2016 (3555 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One day it was a troubling combination of a pit in your stomach and the headache, not the debilitating one, but the one that’s barely there but never seems to go away.

Then the next day, one year ago today, it was all gone, replaced by promise on so many fronts.

This was the bottom line for the Winnipeg Jets and GM Kevin Cheveldayoff, who sent intractable winger Evander Kane, defenceman Zach Bogosian and prospect goalie Jason Kasdorf to the Buffalo Sabres for winger Drew Stafford, defenceman Tyler Myers, prospects Joel Armia, Brendan Lemieux and a first-round draft pick that became Miami (Ohio) centre Jack Roslovic.

Transaction day was the end of a 10-day period of acute turmoil with the Jets, the need for some kind of deal brought to a head by the events of Feb. 3, 2015 in Vancouver.

There, Kane was a healthy scratch in his hometown, by many reports rebuffed by his teammates for flouting team rules yet again.

By the end of the week, the power forward was calling an end to his season and opting for shoulder surgery while all kinds of claims were being aired — that he was pulling the plug on his team; that he was seriously injured and had been playing hurt for a long time; that he had asked to be traded; that he had not.

In the end, the truth surfaced on all of it, admissions made easier by the fact Cheveldayoff was able to find a willing trade partner in Buffalo’s Tim Murray, whose needs aligned with his.

The Sabres saw upside in the immensely talented Kane, who already had a 30-goal season on his resumé, but were happy to be without him for the rest of the season due to the surgery. That allowed them to get worse in the short term, important given Buffalo’s already low standing and the urgent need to land one of the year’s two generational draft picks.

Their prize in that respect was Jack Eichel, and the deal also brought them Bogosian, a skate-like-the-wind workhorse of a defenceman with a great attitude and a team outlook.

He, too, was to be grateful for a fresh start elsewhere.

Kasdorf, one surmises, was a college goalie the Sabres liked, and he was added to the mix for a final balance.

Fresh start was a common theme with this blockbuster trade.

Stafford, then 29, was seen to have gone stale in step with the Sabres, who had missed the playoffs three years running.

His 31 goals of 2010-11 had become 16 in 2013-14, and last year’s pace was again that prior to the trade.

Myers, the 2010 Calder Trophy winner as the NHL’s best rookie, had becoming increasingly under the gun for not living up to his league debut.

It could have been a case of being asked to do too much on a thin roster. It could also have been that young defencemen in the NHL are rarely on a straight-line ascent to their best game.

Clearly the Sabres and their fans had grown impatient — not unlike what frequently happens in Winnipeg — and the consideration for him to be included in this deal likely had much to do with what it would take to land a player of Kane’s scoring ability.

The other three elements that came to the Jets may turn out to be as important down the line.

Armia had given the Sabres some level of frustration in that his adjustment to North America wasn’t swift. The Finn, the team’s first-rounder of 2011 in the 16th spot, spent almost all of his first two seasons in the AHL, including after the trade.

Then he started with the Moose this fall after a nondescript training camp, adding more finger-tapping for those on the impatient side.

Lemieux was rumoured to not be interested in signing with the Sabres, though it was never confirmed, so it was potentially a risk Buffalo would rather have not taken.

His attractiveness to many teams, including the Jets, was obvious. Not only was he the first pick after the first round in 2014, but he’d shown an ability to be an agitator like his father, Claude, and also to skate and score.

Lemieux’s size and his willingness to be involved in the game have seen him blossom even more after the NHL deal.

The unknown at the time of the trade was the lower of Buffalo’s two first-round picks. It would up at No. 25, and the Jets made it 18-year-old Jack Roslovic of Columbus, Ohio, who had played two seasons with the U.S. national development teams.

Roslovic, an offensively gifted centre, was better than a point-per-game player in his second USNDT season in the USHL.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca