Link: WGR 550 : Sabres Trade For A Defenseman.
Yesterday Darth Regier released his anger and pulled the trigger on a trade that was painfully obvious to all and sundry acquiring left-handed defenseman Toni Lydman from the Calgary Flames. It only cost him a 3rd round pick (presumably a mid-third rounder at that) to complete the deal that brings the 6'1", 204lb Lydman to Buffalo.
This is exactly the trade that many of us were expecting Regier to pull off. I'm a little shocked that it didn't cost us a roster player or a prospect. With the acquisition of Roman Hamrlik Lydman had slipped down to at least #5 on Calgary's depth chart and it seems to me to be bad asset management to hold onto someone making $1.9 million to play those kind of minutes. Couple that with needing to get the highly-touted Dion Phaneuf some experience to continue his growth, this makes perfect sense from Calgary's standpoint.
For Buffalo they get someone who helps plug the hole left by Alexei Zhitnik. he can log a ton of minutes if he needs to, has a solid offensive side to his game, skates very well and, most importantly to me, has been good on a bad team before. I don't know much about his character, Flames fans seem to speak very highly of him, but I've watched him play enough to know that like most Scandinavian defensemen he is positionally sound and keeps his head in his own zone.
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