Throwback Tuesday: Flames trade Robyn Regehr to the Sabres

On Thursday, the Calgary Flames will host the Buffalo Sabres, the last time the two teams will play this season.

In the past, there have been a handful of sizable trades between the two teams. The most recent trade saw the Flames acquire a fourth-round pick (goaltender Daniil Chechelev) for Michael Frolík. Another trade saw the Flames trade Toni Lydman to the Sabres for a third-round pick (John Armstrong), but you can read about Lydman here.

One of their biggest trades saw the Flames trade Steve Bégin and Chris Drury for our very own Rhett Warrener and Steven Reinprecht. Funnily enough, the second-round pick in the 1996 draft used to select Bégin was acquired by the team from the St. Louis Blues in compensation for signing Al MacInnis, which we looked at in last week’s Throwback Tuesday.

The trade we’ll look at in this edition of Throwback Tuesday is the Robyn Regehr trade on Jun. 25. But first, let’s take a look at Regehr’s tenure with the Flames.

Robyn Regehr’s career with the Flames

The Colorado Avalanche selected the Brazilian-born Regehr 19th overall in the 1998 draft, with the left-shot defenceman moving to the Flames in the Theo Fleury trade and making his debut with the Flames during the 1999-2000 season – just months after breaking both of his legs in a scary car accident. In his rookie season, he scored five goals and 12 points in 57 games. However, his production waned over the next two seasons, scoring three goals and 12 points in 149 games in 2000-01 and 2001-02.

Regehr finally hit the 12-point mark again in the 2002-03 season, picking up 12 assists in 76 games. The 2003-04 season was a breakout year of sorts, both for Regehr and the Flames, as he scored a career-high four goals and 18 points in 82 games, along with two goals and nine points in 26 post-season games as the Flames made it all the way to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final.

After the 2004-05 lockout, Regehr solidified himself as a top four defenceman, scoring a career-high six goals and 26 points in 68 games in 2005-06, with a goal and four points in seven post-season games. In 2006-07, he scored two goals and 21 points in 78 games, followed by five goals and 20 points in 82 games in 2007-08. Following the 2008 postseason, Regehr never played in the post-season for the Flames again.

However, he still found success in the following three seasons with the team. In 2008-09, the left-shot defenceman had eight assists in 75. The next two seasons, he had two goals and 17 points, playing an average of 80 games a season.

After the 2010-11 season, the Flames traded Regehr to the Buffalo Sabres, along with Aleš Kotalík and a 2012 second-round pick to the Sabres for Chris Butler and Paul Byron.

Let’s talk about the Regehr trade

Regehr’s stint with the Sabres was short, playing parts of two seasons with the team where he scored a goal and seven points in 105 games. Before the 2013 trade deadline, he was traded to the Los Angeles Kings for two second-round picks, winning the Stanley Cup in 2014 with the team. In parts of three seasons with the Kings, Regehr had six goals and 29 points in 158 games, before hanging up his skates after the 2014-15 season.

Kotalík was acquired in Feb. 2010 from the New York Rangers after signing a three-year, $9 million deal. At the time, he had eight goals and 22 points in 45 games and finished the 2009-10 season with three goals and five points in 26 games. After being waived in the off-season, Kotalík returned to the Flames in 2010-11 where he had four goals and six points in 26 games. The Flames threw in the second-round pick as a sweetener for the Sabres to take this trade and relieve the Flames of some cap.

The second-round pick was used by the Sabres to select Jake McCabe, the only active player remaining from this trade. He’s gone on to play for the Sabres, Chicago Blackhawks, and the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Interestingly, the pick used by the Sabres to select Butler (a fourth-round in 2005) was traded to the Sabres from the Flames in July 2005. The Flames moved up for the Sabres’ 2005 third-rounder (Daniel Ryder), giving up a third-round pick (Marc-André Gragnani) and the pick used to select Butler.

The left-shot defenceman played three seasons with the Flames, where he scored five goals and 39 points in 194 games (along with an NHL record -7 in one game) before signing with his hometown St. Louis Blues to begin the 2014-15 season until the end of his career in 2018-19.

In his first season with the Flames, Byron scored three goals and five points in 22 games in 2011-12, followed by four games in 2012-13. Byron started to produce in 2013-14 and 2014-15, scoring 13 goals and 40 points in 104 games They waived him a day before the 2015-16 season began, a big mistake in hindsight, as Byron scored 11 goals and 18 points in 2015-16 with the Montréal Canadiens and had two 20-goal seasons in 2016-17 and 2017-18. 

In part because they lost their second-round pick, the Flames traded down in the 2012 draft, moving the 14th overall (Mikhail Grigorenko) to the Sabres for the 21st overall pick (Mark Jankowski) and a second-round pick (Patrick Sieloff). Of the three players involved in this trade, Jankowski is the only player still playing in the National Hockey League.

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