Over 30 years have passed since Rick Martin was traded to Los Angeles on March 10, 1981 and there are trades being made today which can be traced directly back to that move and the trade of Don Edwards and Richie Dunn a little over a year later.
There’s little sign of this massive trade tree petering out any time soon as acquisitions of picks and prospects over the last couple of years will extend it’s life for at least five more seasons. If not more. The most recent, was the acquisition of Brandon Montour from the Anaheim Ducks. Acquired for Brendan Guhle and a conditional first round pick, the Sabres will part ways with one of the first round picks they acquired from either the San Jose Sharks or St. Louis Blues. Regardless of which pick the Ducks end up with, Montour will slot in as part of long list of players who can be traced back to Martin’s trade.
For those of you who are new to this image, a few quick notes:
- All logos are era adjusted so stuff your whining about the Slug.
- The logos next to each draft pick indicate which team ultimately selected that player. Many of the picks were dealt again so the logos are there to indicate the final destination of each pick.
- This combines the Martin trade tree and Edwards trade tree due to where they overlap (Ryan Miller and Steve Ott going to St. Louis). That deal created a significant branch of the two trees so it made sense to combine the two. No other trade trees are included for the sake of clarity (whatever is left given how deep this goes). There are many other trade trees which intersect with this but including them all would make an already confusing document that much worse. To give some of examples, Craig Muni was acquired in a separate trade prior to being included in the Grosek/Shannon deal. Guhle was selected with a pick acquired in exchange for Thomas Vanek. Nikita Zadorov comes from the Jason Pominville trade tree. You can find other significant trade trees from throughout Sabres history with this link.
- Feel free to air any other questions or areas of confusion in the comments or via Twitter.
Two in the Box 