{"id":11131,"date":"2017-06-17T13:54:36","date_gmt":"2017-06-17T17:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=11131"},"modified":"2017-06-17T13:54:51","modified_gmt":"2017-06-17T17:54:51","slug":"nathan-beaulieu-traded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2017\/06\/17\/nathan-beaulieu-traded\/","title":{"rendered":"Nathan Beaulieu Traded to the Buffalo Sabres"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Montreal Canadiens have traded defenceman <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/beaulna01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nathan Beaulieu<\/a><\/strong> to the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for the Sabres third round pick in the 2017 NHL Draft, 68th overall. The 24-year-old defenceman just wrapped up his fifth season with the Habs, but will now be entering his sixth in a Sabres sweater.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Canadiens acquire BUF&#39;s 3rd-round pick (68) in 2017 , in return for N. Beaulieu.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Canadiens Montr\u00e9al (@CanadiensMTL) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CanadiensMTL\/status\/876134850692083714?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 17, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Nathan Beaulieu Traded to the Buffalo Sabres<\/h3>\n<p>Beaulieu was drafted 17th overall by the Canadiens in the 2011 NHL Entry Draft. He made his\u00a0NHL debut in 2012-13, skating in six games with two assists. The next season he saw slightly more ice time, playing 17 games. Once again he tallied two assists before returning to the AHL.<\/p>\n<p>In 2014-15 however, Beaulieu finally found himself in a top-six role. He played 64 games and scored his first career NHL goal, also adding eight helpers. The following\u00a0season, he played in 64 games yet again, scoring twice and adding 17 assists for 19 points.<\/p>\n<p>This past year with Montreal was his best to date. He played in a career-high 74 games, scoring a career-high four goals and 28 points in a more advanced role in the Canadiens&#8217; lineup.<\/p>\n<p>At the conclusion of this past season changes needed to be made after a disappointing postseason. Beaulieu&#8217;s name was in the mix, and it seems that those rumours were right. Even if the Habs wanted to keep Beaulieu long term, their hands were forced due to the upcoming Expansion Draft. The Habs only had one spot open after protecting <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/p\/petryje01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jeff Petry<\/a><\/strong> (NMC) and <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/w\/webersh01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shea Weber<\/a><\/strong>. With <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/bennjo01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jordie Benn<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/d\/davidbr01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brandon Davidson<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/e\/emelial01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alexei Emelin<\/a><\/strong> and Beaulieu all potential options to be protected, moving a defenceman to recoup assets was a must for general manager Marc Bergevin<\/p>\n<p>Over the past few seasons, Beaulieu has had some bright moments, playing a physical game. He can get in the way of an opposing player and force a break in the oncoming play. However, he struggles with consistency, as do most young players. He began the 2016-17 season on the top pairing with Shea Weber but fell to the bottom pairing and was even a healthy scratch at times. With Buffalo, Beaulieu can fill a bottom defensive pairing role. He can still play a great game, and just needs the time to mature.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.ca\/detail\/669180578\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/669180578?et=ZyatxcnwQK5Ig7CoJQy3bw&amp;tld=ca&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=e_bOzzBJe4WWNo73HpemW9F-92hOvWLd7lXLiAh0tiQ=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nathan Beaulieu has been traded to the <INSERT> in exchange for <INSERT>. Another move motivated by the Expansion Draft, Beaulieu still has potential at 24.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1187,"featured_media":11189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"Beaulieu Stub","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34,3,7],"tags":[37,152,1196,38],"class_list":["post-11131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-sabres","category-canadiens","tag-hockey","tag-montreal-canadiens","tag-nathan-beaulieu","tag-nhl"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1187"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}