By Budd Bailey, Buffalo Sports Page Columnist
No. 67: October 27, 2013 – The Sabres trade Thomas Vanek to the New York Islanders for Matt Moulson, a first-round draft choice in 2015 and a second-round draft choice in 2015 (Brendan Guhle).
It didn’t take long to figure out that the Sabres weren’t going to be too good in the 2013-14 season. Fans knew dark days were coming less than a month into the season.
Thomas Vanek had been one of the team’s top goal-scorers since his arrival in 2005. He had scored 254 goals in 598 games in Buffalo, but he was scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent the following summer. The Sabres didn’t think they could sign him, so they jumped at the chance to swap him to the Islanders for Matt Moulson and a pair of high draft choices.
Vanek has been with seven different teams since leaving Buffalo, but he’s never reached the heights he hit in Buffalo. Moulson had an odd career path after coming here. He was traded to Minnesota in the spring of 2014, came back to Buffalo as a free agent that summer, and soon lost his scoring touch. The forward didn’t score in 14 games as a Sabre in 2017-18. Guhle was shipped to Anaheim at the trading deadline last spring.
(Follow Budd on Twitter @WDX2BB)
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