Chicago Blackhawks receives Steve Montador from Buffalo Sabres for future pick –NHL Update
Teams throughout the National Hockey League (NHL) are busy in trading players before the 2011 free agency kicks off on Friday, July 1. The surprising thing is that most players to be dealt have been defensemen, including Wednesday’s trade of Steve Montador
from Buffalo Sabres to Chicago Blackhawks for a future draft pick.
The 31-year-old veteran defenseman from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, was traded to Chicago Blackhawks who in return gave his team, Buffalo Sabres, a seventh-round draft pick which is conditional for it to be in the 2012 or 2013 NHL Entry Draft.
The move came before he became an unrestricted free agent on Friday, thus, giving Chicago a full day to negotiate with him on a new contract.
It is no surprise that Blackhawks’ general manager, Stan Bowman, is trying his best to turn the team over from a disappointing season they had following a Stanley Cup winning postseason.
“We want to try and upgrade some role players. We weren’t that good at that last season and they make a difference. We’ve got a lot of ideas and players we like. We’re looking to add that to the mix, and I’m confident it will happen”, Bowman said during
his search for players.
Montador is known to be a consistent defenseman, which would in return be beneficial to Chicago if they plan on making a run for another cup next season.
He played 73 games last season and put up five goals and 21 assists for a total of 26 points and a plus-minus rating of 16.
He helped carry Buffalo to their first playoffs in over two seasons and recorded one assist in six games.
In order to clear up salary cap space to induct new defensive attackers, Bowman had to let go of a number of key defenseman and forwards due to their slacking.
He traded away Brian Campbell along with Troy Brouwer and Tomas Kopecky and now Chicago has over $14 million in salary cap space.
“It’s an important role, finding guys who want to do the dirty work, block shots and kill penalties”, Bowman said. “It’s a tough job and we burned out some of our top defensemen using them in that role”.
Chicago is expected to do more dealings when the free agents actually become free on Friday.
Tags: