Conversely, the Senators now are able to comply with the lower limit of the cap without signing or trading for any additional players.

Although, Ennis (PTO) at 1M could help them gain a bit of flexibility.

There's the cap space issue for one. Two, Sanford is insanely inconsistent in his play. He's like Patrik Berglund, when on, he can be a decent forward. But when he's not, ooof

the chances of Brown becoming an NHL regular are very slim. If you cant make a dent in the Ottawa roster after all this time, cant stay healthy...and have a overtly high self worth that doesnt reflect any accomplishment....youre not likely to succeed. his attitude killed what trade value he shouldve had. A high draft pick pedigree means little when you show no effort and zero results. just ask Jake Virtanen.

Blues needed cap space, they got it.

Ottawa wanted to unload a prospect who hasn't worked out, they did it and got someone they may be able to flip for futures at the deadline. Both teams got what they needed. Can't see how anyone would vote anything other than fair deal.

Sens win this trade easily. Hopefully brown does okay on a new team. I liked him a bit. But Sanford will be good in Ottawa.

Really can't see this deal becoming lopsided going either way, can't see either side winning the trade by much at all, so my vote is fair deal. Two roster players of relatively low value and a moderately valuable pick with reasonably lofty conditions to meet

Based on the comments I’m seeing here, neither of these guys are any good, so Ottawa loses by throwing in the draft pick.

By writing this I’m probably spending more time on this trade than it deserves, but if a prospect hasn’t made the team after a few years, most NHL teams will just let him go to give him a chance to try to catch on somewhere else, whether they get anything of value for him or not. Whether this is something unselfish they do as a favor to the player or just to get his contract off their books I don’t know, but I think that’s what’s happened here with Brown. They actually did get back a player they can use at the NHL level, even if only for one year, with a chance to extend him or trade him at the deadline if he does well, so that’s probably worth throwing in the conditional draft pick for. For the Blues I guess it’s primarily a salary dump and there’s not much chance Brown will play the 30 games needed for the Sens to keep the pick, but maybe they still see some potential for Brown.

One thing that does seem certain here is that Ottawa is no longer hoarding players named Brown.

While Brown hasn't blossomed, he has still performed well with STL, as you can see by his new contract. Sanford has also done what he's always done. This turned out to be a pretty fair deal after all.