Mark Savard’s Trade Tree With the Calgary Flames in 1999
When I say Marc Savard, many fans will know him as the concussion sufferer. Those stories about being unable to open the curtains because the light hurt his head during the worst days of his concussion. While this is undoubtedly a sad story, this isn’t the one we’re covering here. A long, long time ago, Savard was a member of the New York Rangers. This was a long time ago, during a weird phase called the 1990s.
Savard was drafted by the Rangers with the 91st overall pick in 1995. Yes, there was hockey before the change of the millennium. During his 98-game stint in Manhatten, Savard scored ten goals and 41 assists for 51 points. Doing this during the late 1990s when scoring was through the floor is impressive, but priorities changed as we started to approach the 1999 NHL draft.
New York turned up to this draft with the 11th overall pick in a draft that was expected to be extremely good. However, with Brian Burke and the Vancouver Canucks causing all sorts of mayhem near the top of the draft order, the Rangers wanted to try and move up the pecking order themselves. So, we have a deal to announce on June 26, 1999.
Marc Savard and the 11th overall pick are sent to the Calgary Flames for the 9th overall pick in 1999, a 1999 3rd-round pick, and the rights to Jan Hlavac. This was a big trade on the draft floor to move up two spots, and there was pressure on Neil Smith to make this deal work for the New York Rangers going forward. There was no room for error with the pick they had. Moving up at the cost of a solid middle-six player hurts, so it had to be worthwhile.
Rangers Side
As it turned out, the 1999 stunk on ice. Like, it was awful. With the ninth overall pick, the New York Rangers selected Jamie Lundmark. If you’re sitting there questioning if that is a player name made up by EA on the NHL video games, I do not blame you. He played 114 games for the Rangers, scoring 11 goals and 19 assists for 30 points across four years in the Big Apple. Lundmark was traded to the Phoenix Coyotes on October 18, 2005, for Jeff Taffe.
Taffe played in two games as a Ranger. He’d be sent back to the Coyotes on January 24, 2006, for Martin Sonnenberg. Sonnenberg never played with the Rangers, and he was never dealt. For a first-round pick, that didn’t end particularly well, but that was the 1999 NHL draft. There were very few players that came out of this draft that were able to impact the NHL in a big way.
That 1999 3rd-round pick was the 90th overall pick. That was used on Patrick Aufiero. Shoutout to Steven on Twitter, who helped with this because this was not the pick it was supposed to be. It was supposed to be the 77th overall pick, but the Flames for the 90th overall pick from the Flyers to settle a different dispute between the franchises. The 77th overall pick was used on Craig Anderson, which is why it is important.
So what became of Patrick Aufiero? He never played in the NHL. He was also never traded. A rather stern ending to a branch, but it’s worth noting that this branch was exceptionally confusing to research. If you do wish to correct anything here, please reach out on any of our social media channels, whether it is mine personally or the websites.
Now, we get to the fun part. Jan Hlavac played in two seasons as a Ranger, scoring 47 goals and 59 assists for 106 points. During the height of the dead puck era, this player started to produce at quite a rate. This production saw him become quite the valuable commodity in the NHL, and the Philadelphia Flyers decided during the 2001 off-season that they wanted the Czech winger.
Hlavac was packaged with Pavel Brendl, Kim Johnsson, and a 2003 3rd-round pick used on Stefan Ruzicka and sent to the Flyers for a 2003 conditional 1st-round pick and the rights to Eric Lindros. Now, the conditions to the pick were never met, so in reality, this is just the package the Rangers gave up for Eric Lindros on August 20, 2001.
Lindros was long past the dominant force he was as a member of the legion of doom in Philadelphia. That does not mean he was a bad New York Ranger. Injuries had plagued him, but he got into 192 games with the Blueshirts scoring 66 goals and 92 assists for 158 points, which is not a bad return for a player who was truly on the downside of his career. He was never traded, and we can move onto the Flames side.
Calgary Flames Side
Let’s start with Savard. He was good in Calgary. In 221 games with the Flames, he had 60 goals and 94 assists for 154 points. It wasn’t the greatest return, but it was good enough to earn him a nice trade to Atlanta. This is a rare trade that Thrashers won as they got Savard from the Flames in exchange for Ruslan Zaynullin. If you’re going, “Sorry, who” that’s the point. He never played in the NHL.
As for that 1st-round pick that was 11th overall, the Flames used it on Oleg Saprykin. Saprykin played 187 games for the Flames, scoring 29 goals and 47 assists for 76 points. He was dealt to the Phoenix Coyotes alongside Denis Gauthier for Draymond Langkow. Langkow played for six seasons in Calgary, scoring 123 goals and 165 assists for 288 points in 392 games.
Langkow would be sent back to the Coyotes 7 years later, almost to the day, for Lee Stempniak. Stempniak played for three seasons in Calgary, scoring 31 goals and 52 assists in 160 games. He was then dealt to the Pittsburgh Penguins for a 3rd round pick in 2014. That pick was traded to Chicago for Brandon Bollig. That pick was used on Matheson Iacopelli. Bollig played in 116 games for the Flames, scoring three goals and six assists for nine points, but wasn’t traded.
This ends the Flames side of the Marc Savard trade tree. There’s not a lot to talk about here, but some of the names that appear in here because of this deal, like Draymond Langkow, are insane. This deal is rich for the Flames, and it made for an interesting deep dive into a minor deal from 24 years ago and how that affected the NHL for many years to come.