Eric Staal’s tenure with the Sabres will be largely forgettable. Traded after 32 games, three goals and 10 points, there will be few people who ever connect Staal to the Sabres.
He’s hardly the first notable player to have a cameo with the Sabres and hardly the first to have a rather minimal impact. He certainly won’t be the last (paging Taylor Hall). The list of notables whose Sabres tenure is barely a blip in relation to the rest of their career is pretty impressive. There’s a healthy mix of late stage trade or free agent acquisitions with early departures.

I don’t know how Buffalo’s list compares to other teams around the league given that these scenarios are pretty commonplace. It’s not hard to come up with a handful of examples of notable stars having a cup of coffee with a team at the end of their career. Remember Dallas Star Eric Lindros? Calgary Flame Curtis Joseph? How about legendary Toronto Maple Leaf (or Boston Bruin) Brian Leetch.
Staal is the latest Sabre to get added to this rather ignominious list and he probably won’t even be the last one this season. Acquiring Staal was a shrewd move by Kevyn Adams. It’s unfortunate that the deal didn’t work out as Staal represented a quality upgrade at center behind Jack Eichel. The results didn’t follow and now we can catalog where Staal falls among others whose Sabres career isn’t the easiest to recall.
Staal’s 32 games falls right in the middle of this group of trade and free agent acquisitions who simply didn’t give the Sabres much bang for their buck.
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