After trading away Mike Reilly, the Montreal Canadiens have gone out and found themselves a different defenseman. The Canadiens have acquired Marco Scandella from the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for San Jose’s 2020 fourth-round pick. The Sabres then flipped that pick to acquire Michael Frolik from the Calgary Flames. No salary was retained in either transaction.
All season the Sabres had been looking to move one of their surplus defenseman to free up some cap space, and Scandella was essentially replaceable even if he was playing well of late. Buffalo has several other capable NHL defensemen, including some sitting in the minor leagues waiting for their opportunity. By moving the 29-year old Scandella and his $4MM cap hit out, they freed up enough room to bring in another forward that can help Jack Eichel create some offense.
Frolik, 31, comes to the Sabres after being the subject of many trade rumors over the last few years. There were times when it seemed he had completely run out of patience with the Flames organization, and times where they seemed to feel the same about him. Still, he continued playing for them and recorded 16 goals and 34 points in 65 games last season while providing solid penalty killing ability whenever asked. This season has brought ten points in 38 games, but given his average of fewer than 12 minutes a night it would have been difficult to provide much more offense.
In Buffalo, he’ll surely get a chance to be more of a contributor on that side of the puck. A Stanley Cup champion with the Chicago Blackhawks, Frolik has actually been a relatively consistent goal-scorer the last several years, recording double digit totals in each of the last six seasons. If the Sabres want to make the playoffs this season they absolutely needed to add more scoring punch up front.
For Montreal, a team that may now be overlooked in this busy night, swapping Reilly for Scandella provides an upgrade in experience and defensive capability. While the young defenseman may be more mobile and at one point provided a little more offensive upside, Scandella is nearing 600 games played at the NHL level and should help their group find a little more balance.
The Canadiens have been relying heavily on their top three names this year with Shea Weber, Jeff Petry and Ben Chiarot all logging more than 23 minutes a night, but will hope that Scandella can take some of that load off their shoulders. The Montreal native also has a ton of experience on the penalty kill, where the Canadiens currently rank 25th in the NHL.
Scandella is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year, meaning their overall moves have also removed an NHL contract from the books for next season when they are expecting prospects like Alexander Romanov to compete for spots.
Calgary also changes tonight, opening up some room of their own by ridding themselves of Frolik’s $4.3MM cap hit. That gives the Flames some extra flexibility of their own as they try to claw their way back into the Pacific Division race. The Flames will be a team to watch moving forward as they try to right the ship.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Can we trade botterill for a bad of mouth guards? I mean wtf is he doing. Should be worrying about a top forward for scoring! Not a 4th round pick for a dman to a division rival!
Just saw on Twitter that they might use Scandellas money to turn around quickly and trade for a forward
Woohoo! Big transaction! There’s our “top forward!” Smh! Pathetic
I know isn’t terrible when teams make depth moves, I hate it. Like who needs depth sounds dumb. Wish the smaller guys would just make their own damn transactions and we didn’t have to hear about them! *rolls eyes*
Ah. You’re one of those “fans”. Maybe you should actually learn about depth moves instead of rambling about nonsense.
Sabres are such a joke
It is such an advantage being a Buffalo fan because they keep trying and trying. My Detroit Tigers have the worst seats in baseball and maintain minimal creativity and energy instead of bringing in the seats to the field and making trades for youth.
I’m going to make this short. The comments by Buffalo fans is predictably insipid on PHR. It amounts to a pathetic lack of insight and devoid of analytical context.
Frolik adds much more than G’s for this team. Fortunately, Botterill knows this.
Like we need anymore “depth moves” on this team! That’s all we have is depth and lack top end talent! But “Dan da Man” is the ultimate Buffalo fan! So proud he’s rooting for our team NOT. At least he’s grown numb to the lack of production from the top of this team that he thinks this is a great transaction that’ll get us over the top. SMH
Thanks, Larry, for affirming my point. In addition to insipid remarks, you’ve added the talent of putting the words on other’s mouths.
This saves me the time and effort for all that dang thinkin’.
I mean depth moves are never flashy, but what top forward is currently available and would be worth the trade price? It should go without saying but it does take (atleast) two teams to make a trade. Just because Buffalo hasn’t added a bonafide top six forward doesn’t mean they haven’t been trying to. Not sure of Buffalo’s cap situation, but I’m sure that is also a factor in Buffalo’s trade seeking.