How The 2015 O'Reilly Trade Led To A Blues Stanley Cup & Years Of Disappointment For The Sabres

I don't know if you know this, but I work with a guy named producer Drew and he's a Colorado Avalanche fan and every once in a while he pesters me to make a specific video and I'm finally giving in and doing it. results in one team winning a

stanley

cup and it's not the colorado avalanche well they could do it too this is the ryan o'

reilly

trade

3. Let me take you back to the 2009 nhl entry draft because I remember it as one that was particularly surprising. for the Colorado Avalanche and I had a particular affinity for this draft because that was the first year I worked in the business and covered junior and when I saw the first four picks that Colorado made I thought they were going to be a dynasty, they had the 33rd overall pick. overall, 49th and 64th overall pick, 3rd overall was matt duchene, 33rd was ryan o'

reilly

, 49th was stefan elliott and 64th was tyson berry, stefan elliott was a Highly touted guy at the time, only playing 87 NHL. games, but that's a lot more than most of us have played, Tyson Berry, played a lot of games for the Colorado Avalanche and then got a pretty penny when they

trade

d him for Nazim Kadri, we haven't even done that tree trade yet, Matt Duchaine, on the other.

On the other hand, we've done that trade tree and it's huge and even though his tenure in Colorado didn't end very well, oh, they got a lot for that guy, so at 33rd overall is Ryan O'reilly and we're doing his trade tree right . now in june

2015

the colorado avalanche happens trades ryan o'reilly to the buffalo sabers some things to note here one in june

2015

the buffalo sabers had just selected jack eichel second overall in the nhl draft also worth mentioning are the sabers picked 2nd overall in that draft and the reason they did it is because they stunk.

What surprised me about the size of this trade tree is that I couldn't believe Buffalo had anyone left after the 2014-15 season they sold and then took the players they got. in trades and they sold them too they were trying to be bad, they're the reason there are so many lottery picks right now, I mean damn they weren't the only ones, the greasers did it, the coyotes did it, the leaves. doing it, but no one did it like the 2014-15 Buffalo Sabres, but it seemed like they were turning things around like that because they had a young Jack Eichel and they were going to support him with Ryan O'reilly.

Here is the trade that acquired the Colorado Avalanche. forward mikael grigorenko defenseman nikita zadorov forward jt comfort and a 2015 second round pick who went 31st overall going the other way buffalo sabers acquire jamie mcginn and ryan o'reilly to give them an idea of ​​where to go this trade tree is headed for both zodorov and confer played more games with the avalanche than o'reilly did with the sabers, but we're also going to do o'reilly last because i think he deserves it and you'll see why later we'll start on the side of the colorado avalanche. things and we will take a look at mikhail grigorenko, perhaps the easiest of the deal.

Grigorenko was once talked about as a potential top five pick in the 2012 draft, but he ended up falling to the Buffalo Sabers at No. 12 and No. 3. In the season with the team he had a career-high three goals and they said, oh, during the 2014-15 season, he actually had good numbers in the American League with 36 points in 43 games, but the Sabers decided to part ways anyway. . Grigorenko's name has been around the NHL for so long that I was surprised to discover that the team he played the most NHL games with was the Colorado Avalanche with 149 games. I had forgotten that he finally left for the khl for three full seasons and yeah, that should be enough.

If he had 50 points in his 149 games with Colorado, it is not terrible but not overwhelming and then he went to the KHL, since that branch was over, they did not change him for anyone, nothing, so we can move on and what if we move on to the other russian involved in that deal, nikita zadorov, and was traded for something relatively recent. Let's talk about his time in Colorado. first 289 games played with avalanche, which is nothing and I keep mentioning it in the trade trees because Service is important games, sure you'd like Rocket Richards and Art Rosses and Heart Trophys and Norrises and Vesnas and all that, but At the end of the day you need hockey players on your hockey team and if you acquire a player he plays almost 300 games.

For his organization, typically in these trade trees, in my experience, that's pretty good in those 289 games. Zedorov scored 18 goals and 59 points, but who cares about all that. He was there to ruin your day with a big hit and he put in a lot of those. the colorado avalanche organization until they traded him last year joe sakic and avalanche packaged zedorov with anton lindholm and sent them to the chicago blackhawks in exchange for brandon sod and dennis gilbert first of all the name brandon sod just gives me anxiety when it's deals with these trade trees because he's involved in so many and they're very confusing because they keep trading him to and away from the Blackhawks and I almost expect that to happen in this trade tree, but I'm here to tell you that it is.

But who knows, maybe they'll trade him back to the Blackhawks after I film this and then I'll stop trading trees and move to the woods anyway. In his only season with the Avalanche that was pretty good in 44 games, he scored 24 points, never mind. blow but 15 goals that's pretty good but in 10 playoff games for the Avalanche he scored eight points that's good and seven goals that's unreal that's another thing we find in these trade trees yeah the statistics of the regular season they are great but when he performs like that in the playoffs it's a big win dennis gilbert it's a lot easier he's only played three games with the colorado avalanche so far he played most of his time in ahl we'll see how that plays out by now that branch is done we moved on to jt Comfort Now Confer was actually a 2013 second round pick, just two drafts before this trade happened, so he was actually like futures in this deal, he was the hot prospect and I guess who discovered that Zadorov was one of the players who had played the most. games for the avalanche than what o'reilly did for the sabers confer is the other in his career games with the avalanche he has 53 goals 56 assists for 109 points and then he was traded for no one is actually still on the colorado avalanche and he has two more

years

left on his contract and only to twist the knife a little in the buffalo sabers before he even gets to his half of the tree. grigorenko and zadorov and comfort combined have scored more points for the colorado avalanche than o'reilly has for the sabers but the most interesting part of the middle of this avalanche trade for me is the second round pick because i couldn't believe it when i saw it because remember this is the 31st overall pick right now, the 31st overall pick is in the first round.

In 2015, it was not yet a second, but a very good second. The Colorado Avalanche managed to trade the No. 31 overall pick in 2015 for a second-round pick in 2015 that was No. 39 overall, a second-round pick in 2016, and a sixth-round pick in 2017. The Sharks paid two seconds and a sixth for another second. The second round pick in 2016 ended up 40th overall, so the sharks basically traded the 39th pick, the 40th pick, and a sixth for the 31st pick, which with that is a great value for him. Colorado Avalanche, you might be wondering who the Sharks took with the 31st pick.

It was a defenseman named Jeremy Wah who six

years

later still hasn't played an NHL game, who knows he could be great, but he hasn't yet done and I would love to play jazz. This was true, but the Avalanche also got a lot of magic beans with the 39th pick in 2015, Avalanche draft pick Aj Grier played 37 games for them and was then traded to the New York Islanders in exchange for Kyle Burrows, who played five. games for them and he had an assist and that's it with the second round they got in 2016 that's the 40th overall pick that year the avalanche got a guy named cameron morrison now he hasn't played any nhl games either but This is going to be something that I think I'm going to say more and more often in the Trade Tree videos that he went to college and then once he graduated college, it was a pandemic, this is going to suck for draft guys. 2016, 17, 18 guys saying, oh yeah, me.

I'm going to take the long route, go to college and then start playing pro hockey and then when they graduate there will barely be any pro hockey to play in, 2017 6th round pick, same deal, actually Dennis smears Knob back in college. and then the pandemic so right now that branch and the Colorado Avalanches side of the trade tree are finished but I'm not ready to say they're finished like they're not going to get anything else out of this there are several prospects under contract still like that. The trade tree is still going on and the fact that this trade tree can continue should be a comfort to Buffalo Sabers fans because this is about to be bad.

Jamie McGinn's branch of this business tree is a complicated one. He tries to keep up, so Buffalo had Jamie. mcginn then traded him to anaheim for a third round pick, they traded that third round pick to the nashville predators for jimmy vici, but it was actually the rights to jimmy vesey, you may remember that vc opted not to stay in buffalo, He signed with the Rangers as a free agent. agent so this part of the trade tree is done even though vc would later become a member of the Buffalo Sabers after they traded for him to the Rangers then there's Ryan O'reilly the good, the bad and the ugly , Ryan should say.

O'reilly was a great member of the Buffalo Savers in his 224 games with the organization. He scored 65 goals, 111 assists and 176 points, which is excellent for a defensive-minded forward. He regularly earned selkie votes as a member of the Sabres, but Sabers fans might not look back fondly on that time because while Ryan O'reilly was good individually, that team stunk, there are bad streaks in the National Hockey League, teams who haven't won a playoff round for a long time and haven't won a Stanley. cup for a long time, the buffalo sabers haven't made the playoffs in a long time and since this initial deal they haven't come close at all, so o'reilly was traded to the saint louis

blues

before we get to what they are the sabers I understood what O'reilly said coming out was profound, deeply troubling if you're a Buffalo Sabers fan, like he was talking about losing his love of hockey in his first season with the Saint Louis Blues after leaving Buffalo O'reilly wins the selkie trophy as the best defensive forward in the nhl in the regular season, wins the

stanley

cup and wins the con smith as most valuable player of the playoffs.

I should also mention that he goes on, he was nominated for the selkie the following year. in 2020 and last season he was also 5th in selkie voting for such a good player, you better get something in return, well they got a lot, it worked for the Buffalo Savers. Buffalo got Patrick Berglund, Vladimir Zabotka, Tage Thompson, in the first round. pick in 2019 and a second round pick in 2021. We'll start with Patrick Berglund and it's hard to talk about him, he only played 23 games with the Sabers organization, two goals, two assists, four points and then he retired and his retirement really meant something. because most nhl players don't retire until they are paid all the money they are owed.

Berglin's contract still had more than $13 million left. Berglin's contract he signed with the St. Louis Blues actually had a 20-team no-trade list. However, in years two and three of the deal, and I'm reading directly from a 2019 sportsnet.ca article by Chris Johnston, that clause was voided when Berglin failed to provide the team list by the deadline, so that on July 1, 2018 the exchange will take place. the article also mentions that berglin made over 30 million dollars in his nhl career and knows exactly how much he was owed and didn't fight for any of it and at the end of the article he is also quoted as saying that i don't know how much money you need to be happy, but I'm fine, he was obviously unhappy and did what was best for him.

It's his life to live if you want to read that article in its entirety, it's from November 30, 2019 by chris. johnston on sportsnet.ca and it is said why patrick bergland's decision to walk away from the nhl without any decision for the purposes of this video, which part of the trade tree is finished, moving to vladimir sobotka 85 games with the buffalo sabers 16 points and that's it and he also didn't play in the nhl last season and his part of the trade tree is done yeah he's generally not good when he's fast in these videos. Next up is Tage Thompson and it's complicated, I think this.

The once highly touted top prospect played 104 games for the Buffalo Sabers and scored 15 goals and 26 points. Now you knowplayers have scored much less in the NHL, but you could do worse. He was supposed to be like the young shooter. In this deal, the real sweetener is the cable that blue is handing to this guy. He will be 24 years old when he starts this season. Tage Thompson has a long career left, but so far he hasn't been a high-impact player. for the buffalo sabers now we head into the unknown the 2019 first round pick that the st louis

blues

gave to the buffalo sabers is the 31st overall because the st louis blues won the stanley cup is the worst first you could have with that pick Sabers selected defenseman Ryan Johnson not now, he hasn't played in the NHL yet, but keep in mind that defensemen take longer to develop and he was also drafted in 2019.

Last season at the University of Minnesota, the defenseman scored 14 points in 27 games, that's not bad, it's too early to dismiss that part of the trade dream, too early, the story of the second round that the buffalo sabers got from the saint.louis blues is actually pretty quick and easy, They packaged him along with a 2022 fifth-rounder and sent him to the Vegas Golden Knights in exchange for defenseman Colin Miller, who has played 99 games for the Sabers but has been in and out of the lineup as a healthy scratch, so there's that. for this trade deal so far it's obviously going to evolve, there are too many young players that haven't played in the nhl yet to declare a clear winner or a clear loser if you ask me who the clear winner is. it's the st louis blues and it's funny i was just saying to myself oh i wonder what the st louis trade tree would look like in all this and all they got was ryan o'reilly and he won the cup and i think that cohn smythe and selkie are fine with the return they got.

Thank you so much. I know some Sabers fans look back on this trade with disdain and I think a lot of that has to do with how it worked out with the Blues, obviously, and also the success. that the Sabers had under O'reilly, uh, maybe the lack of them, I will say this though, while Buffalo hasn't gotten an impact player out of this trade tree, it's nice, in my experience making these videos, that a tree business continues for six years. Going forward, heck, they managed to get a first-rounder who was only taken two years ago and a second and a third-round pick in this draft in 2021.

They have a long way to go to make this a success, but it's not failure total that I have had. I've seen it painted not even close and as for the avalanche, what did they really get? There are some prospects that could be good for them, we don't know yet, but other than Brandon Saud and his very good, very brief playoff performance for the Avalanche. They have some guys that have played a lot of games for the organization, but no one will really blow you away. They certainly didn't get Orion O'reilly, so this will continue and maybe there will be an update one day, but for now that's it. for this swap tree as always leave a comment in the comment box below what did you think of this swap tree video and who do you think won and who do you think will win for now?

That's all for this one. Thank you very much for watching click like if you like this video click subscribe if you really liked it tell your friends this is not over yet