The Carolina Hurricanes added forward Stiven Sardarian on Monday, acquiring him from the Buffalo Sabres for future considerations.
A trade for future considerations is hockey's version of a garage sale sticker. Mostly, it's just clearing cap space.
Carolina finished last season second overall in the league, going 53-22-7 with 296 goals for and 240 against.
Head coach Rod Brind'Amour has run that operation since 2018, and general manager Eric Tulsky has overseen the front office since May 2024.
Buffalo finished 50-23-9 and fourth in the Atlantic, but new general manager Jarmo Kekalainen has been reshaping the roster since taking over in December.
Sardarian doesn't show up in either team's active stat file right now. That tells you plenty about what kind of asset this actually is.
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Nobody's rewriting a media guide over a future considerations trade. It's roster math, not a headline swing.
Why the Sabres keep cleaning house under Kekalainen
Buffalo closed out its season with a 3-4 loss to Dallas, dropping its final game of the year.
Carolina, on the other hand, won seven of its final ten games and beat Buffalo twice in three head-to-head meetings this season.
That includes a 2-1 win over the Sabres back in January. Sardarian wasn't on the ice for any of those games.
Is this trade going to matter by October? Almost certainly not. But it's another small data point on how often Tulsky works the phones, even for scraps.
Buffalo clearly didn't see enough in Sardarian to protect him. Whether Carolina finds something in him is a completely different question.
Do you think Stiven Sardarian will ever play an NHL game for the Hurricanes?
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