By Budd Bailey, Buffalo Sports Page Columnist

No. 74: January 14, 1972 – The Sabres trade a second-round draft choice in 1972 (Larry Sacharuk) to the New York Rangers for Jim Lorentz.

Not too many trades have been completed from a hospital bed. This was one of them, and it was a very good one for the Sabres. General manager Punch Imlach was hospitalized with heart problems during the 1971-72 season. While he was there, he worked the phones to complete a deal with the Rangers.

The target was Jim Lorentz, who had bounced through three NHL teams before arriving in Buffalo. The center had trouble establishing himself in the big leagues, but the Sabres gave him an opportunity to do so, and he took advantage of it. Lorentz scored at least 20 goals four different times as a Sabre, and was particularly dangerous on the power play.

Lorentz retired after the 1977-78 season, but he found a way to stay around hockey. Lorentz became an analyst on the Sabres’ broadcasts, and stayed on that job for 26 years before retiring in 2007.

(Follow Budd on Twitter @WDX2BB)

 

Budd Bailey

Budd Bailey has been involved in almost every aspect of the local sports scene for the last 40 years. He worked for WEBR Radio, the Buffalo Sabres' public relations department and The Buffalo News during that time. In that time he covered virtually every aspect of the area's sports world, from high schools to the Bills and Sabres and everything in between. Along the way, Budd served as a play-by-play announcer for the Bisons, an analyst for the Stallions, and a talk-show host. He won the National Lacrosse League's Tom Borrelli Award as the media personality of the year in 2011, and was a finalist for that same award in 2017. Budd's seventh and eighth books, one on the Transcontinental Railroad and the other about Ichiro Suzuki, are scheduled to be released in the fall.

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