A couple of smaller deals were made by the Buffalo Sabres and the Montreal Canadiens not too long ago:
Pending trade call, sounds like BUF sends Brayden McNabb and two 2nd round picks to LA for two prospects – one of them Hudson Fasching.
— Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) March 5, 2014
Nashville Preds trade Devan Dubnyk to Montreal for futures
— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) March 5, 2014
First things first.
McNabb is a third round pick of the Sabres from 2009 which is to say he’s JAG (Just A Guy). None of his numbers stand out from his Junior League days and he’s been good, not great, at the AHL level. Of course, he’s still just 21-years-old so we’ll see what happens. In all likelihood, this is just a roster spot in the minors.
The second round picks are part of the stockpile that Buffalo has amassed from trades over the last couple of years and represents what they believe is the return coming back.
Hudson Fasching is a college player who is just 18-years-old and has 27 points in 31 games so far this year for the University of Minnesota. He profiles to be a good power forward in a few years and that would seem to fit in perfectly with what Los Angeles likes in their players.
Nicolas Deslauriers is a 23-year-old who is having a very good year in the AHL for the Manchester Monarchs. His profile can be found here on Hockey’s Future.
The Canadiens shored up a little bit of goaltending with the acquisition of Devan Dubnyk.
As soon as it was announced, I saw all the snarky remarks on Twitter. To be sure, Dubnyk had a very bad 34 games this year (.891 save percentage). In the 120 games before that for the Oilers from 2010-2013, Dubnyk’s save percentage was .917. That mark was the same mark that Carey Price, Sergei Bobrovsky and Kari Lehtonen posted over that span; it’s a better mark than Ryan Miller (.916), Marc Andre-Fleury (.916), Jimmy Howard (.916), Jonas Hiller (.915), Jaroslav Halak (.915), and James Reimer (.915). At least four of those goalies who were as good or worse than Devan Dubnyk (Price, Miller, Fleury, Hiller) are expected to lead their team deep into the playoffs.
In short, this is a great no-risk move by the Habs. I don’t think this year’s performance should erase the three good years Dubnyk had before that. As we’ve seen, though, teams are throwing around goaltenders like they grow on trees this deadline.
This is a pure insurance move that could pay off for the Habs eventually. Heck, Ilya Bryzgalov was traded for a draft pick.
