The Buffalo Sabres have traded center Ryan O’Reilly to the St. Louis Blues for a 2019 1st round pick, a 2021 2nd round pick, prospect Tage Thompson, and forwards Patrick Berglund and Vladimir Sobotka.
The 27-year old O’Reilly was drafted 33rd overall in the 2nd round in the 2009 draft by the Avalanche.
The 20-year old Thompson was drafted 26th overall in the 1st round of the 2016 draft by the Blues. He carries a $1,137,500 million cap hit.
The 30-year old Berglund was drafted 25th overall in the 1st round of the 2006 draft by the Blues. He carries a $3.85 million cap hit.
The 31-year old Sobotka was drafted 2005 overall in the 4th round of the 2005 draft by the Bruins. He carries a $3.5 million cap hit.
Thoughts from the media …
Mike Harrington: “That’s a MASSIVE return for #Sabres for O’Reilly — the only way a trade would make any sense. #StlBlues clearly not giving in on Thomas or Parayko but Botterill still did well.”
Chris Peters: “The Blues did manage to hang onto Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou, which I’m sure had to be part of the initial discussions to end up with ROR, but Buffalo did pretty darn well with Botterill unafraid to take the slightly longer road to getting things on track.”
Adrian Dater: “Maybe not as big a haul as I thought for Buffalo, but five pieces for ROR is more than I would have thought”
E.J. Hradek: “Seems … actually, I like it for the @StLouisBlues. Give up what figures to be a late first rounder and young Tage Thompson (other guys not as significant) for a very good center.”
AJ Heafele: “Berglund and Sobotka are short-term pieces, Thompson has the shininess of a 1st rounder at least, plus a couple top 60 picks two years apart. Buffalo can say it got a lot but I’m pretty unimpressed by the quality of that”
Arpon Basu: “I’m just stunned it cost that much on top of paying the bonus. Though they unloaded a couple of expensive guys they didn’t particularly want.”
NHL Numbers: “- Berglund is signed for 3,850,000 for four more seasons. – Sobotka is signed for 3,500,000 for two more seasons. – Thompson has two years left on his ELC. – The Sabres could have three first-round picks in 2019 depending on if the Sharks make the playoffs.”
Luke Fox: “The Jason Botterill era could be a good one.”
Tom Timmermann: “For everyone who wanted Blues to get rid of Berglund and Sobotka, this is your lucky day. Blues had logjam of forwards that this will help clear up.”
Adrian Dater: “St. Louis gave up a ton of its near-term future for a big-money guy who didn’t win much” the last few years in leading role.”
Cap Friendly: “Despite acquiring Ryan O’Reilly and his entire $7.5M cap hit, the #Blues still save $775,000 in cap space this season with the deal seeing as Berglund ($3.85M), Sobotka ($3.5M) and Thompson’s ($925K) cap hits are going the other way.”
Ryan O’Reilly
Tage Thompson
Patrick Berglund
Vladimir Sobotka