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NHL Oddities: Marco Sturm to Los Angeles for Nothing

Marco Sturm was once traded for nothing

By Derek Zona
Being worth nothing is a tough burden to carry.
Being worth nothing is a tough burden to carry.
Christian Petersen

I was researching another article when I stumbled backwards onto the Marco Sturm trade from 2010.  Boston traded Sturm to Los Angeles on Saturday, December 11, 2010:

The Boston Bruins dealt forward Marco Sturm to the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday for future considerations. The trade is contingent upon Sturm passing a physical conducted by Los Angeles’ medical staff, and the Kings say he's expected to be back in the lineup by the end of the month.

Sturm passed the physical on December 14th:

Finally, the Marco Sturm trade is complete. The former Bruins' forward passed his physical, and is now on his way from Boston to Los Angeles. The Kings, who acquired Sturm for "future considerations," put Sturm through a set of multiple tests to ensure that both of his surgically repaired knees were alright.

Finally, the Marco Sturm trade is complete. The former Bruins' forward passed his physical, and is now on his way from Boston to Los Angeles. The Kings, who acquired Sturm for "future considerations," put Sturm through a set of multiple tests to ensure that both of his surgically repaired knees were alright.

Read more at: http://nesn.com/2010/12/marco-sturm-passes-physical-trade-to-kings-becomes-official/
Finally, the Marco Sturm trade is complete. The former Bruins' forward passed his physical, and is now on his way from Boston to Los Angeles. The Kings, who acquired Sturm for "future considerations," put Sturm through a set of multiple tests to ensure that both of his surgically repaired knees were alright.

Read more at: http://nesn.com/2010/12/marco-sturm-passes-physical-trade-to-kings-becomes-official/

What were the "future considerations" (note that Mike Cole put that in quotation marks)?  That's not so easy to suss out. I combed through the official Bruins site, the official Kings site, NHL.com, TSN.ca, talked to Quisp, and went through several NHL transaction tracking sites and couldn't find any mention of a return.  No players, prospects, draft picks, or rights to players changed hands between the Bruins and Kings.

So I went to the source:  I was able to confirm with the NHL that the trade is no longer open.

I was bouncing ideas off of Eric T, trying to figure out what would have closed this deal on the Kings' part and he brought up the Rick Nash trade:

Columbus Blue Jackets traded 2002 first round pick (#3-Jay Bouwmeester) and Panthers option to swap 2003 first round picks to Florida Panthers for 2002 first round pick (#1-Rick Nash). Panthers option to swap 2003 first round picks (not exercised) on 2002-06-22.

The Bruins just wanted cap space, the Kings had it.  It's entirely possible that the Kings sent the Bruins the option to swap 7th round picks in 2012 (or something without value mirroring this) in exchange for Sturm.  In the end, the Bruins traded Marco Sturm to the Kings for nothing.