In the middle of last season, Chris Stewart was traded to the Buffalo Sabres in the Ryan Miller trade. Many people thought that he would be able to contribute for Buffalo on a pretty consistent basis. However, it has been pretty much a disaster for him since joining the squad. The free agent to be is not exactly fitting in with Buffalo right now, and many people feel like he is going to be gone at the end of the year.
At 27 years of age, Stewart is supposed to be in the prime of his career. He was very productive for St. Louis last year, and Buffalo thought they were getting a pretty talented right winger when they pulled off the trade. He did not score a single goal last year, and he is off to another slow start in fantasy hockey in 2014-2015. He doesn’t really fit into the rebuilding plans for Buffalo right now, so it doesn’t really make sense for him to come back.
Not only does Stewart probably not want to come back, but Buffalo is likely not going to throw a lot of money at him if he is going to have so little success. It just does not seem like a working relationship that is going to have a happy ending for either side.
Since he is not playing particularly well, the value per Stewart on the trade block is not all that high. Ideally, Buffalo would like to get something out of him and see where everything falls as far as that’s concerned. However, more than likely he is just going to play out the season and then tried to catch on with another squad. He has the ability to be a standout in fantasy hockey, and he did score 18 goals in 48 games just last season for a contending St. Louis team. He just needs to be surrounded by better players and be in the right situation.