Where did I write teams should give them players? They could trade or sign better players.
Yeah, the amount of player moment in free agency and soft deals wasn't nearly as common as it is now.
In the realm of actual moves that affected the Sabres vis a vis scoring depth and first pairing defense:
- Losing Andreychuk (and a pick) in order to flip Fuhr and Puppa did not help their scoring depth. Had they known where Hasek was headed early on, they surely would not have done this.
- A year later, they flipped Fuhr in a multi-part deal that brought back the best defenseman they had all decade, Zhitnik. Could this have been done earlier?
- Traded Housley for Hawerchuk. Peter, meet Paul.
In 1992-93 and 1994, here are a few players who were moved around the league for either not much or something that wouldn't help on the ice:
- Sylvain Lefevbre (not really the top pair guy you're thinking of, but he'd help)
- Hasek (lol)
- John Cullen
- Ray Sheppard
- Jeff Norton (I'd rather have Lefevbre, but he could help too)
- Fredrik Olausson (again...)
The scoring depth is... not exciting unless you're willing to up the ante for Dino Ciccarelli, who went for a solid everyday forward in Kevin Miller. The only top-pair defensemen who were really on the move was Housley, and then MacInnis the next season, for Housley again. That's not very much in the way of opportunity.