Real Salt Lake's disappointing position in the table escalated the decision to move aging Alvaro Saborio, who wasn't in the future plans for a club looking to get younger.
Salt Lake won't see a return until at least next week after trading the franchise's all-time leading scorer, but the Houston Dynamo will be shorthanded on the defensive side as they look to extend host RSL's winless streak to five Saturday night.
The 33-year-old Saborio had three goals this season and scored 67 in MLS competition since 2010, but he had fallen out of favor with coach Jeff Cassar and was suspended for a 1-0 loss to the New York Red Bulls on June 24 for undisclosed reasons.
That defeat began an 0-2-2 stretch for Salt Lake (5-7-8), which didn't plan to re-sign Saborio when his contract expired following the season. RSL fell 3-1 at Colorado last Saturday and on Thursday traded Saborio to Eastern Conference-leading D.C. United in exchange for midfielder Luis Silva.
Salt Lake sits in ninth place in the 10-team West.
"When these decisions are made, they're never easy - and especially with a person that's meant so much to our club and to our fan base," Cassar told the team's official website. "He's been very instrumental in what RSL's about and it's not easy making these decisions. He's scored many important goals for us and it's not easy to make this move."
The 26-year-old Silva, whose contract also ends after the season, scored 11 goals for D.C. last year, but a hamstring injury limited him to just four starts in 14 appearances in 2015. He isn't expected to join RSL until next week and could play Friday against Sporting Kansas City.
Missing a scoring threat, Salt Lake will try to break through against a Dynamo team that sits just one point ahead of RSL in the West. Houston (6-7-6) scored once during an 0-2-1 stretch before beating San Jose 2-0 on July 10.
It marked the Dynamo's first clean sheet since beating Montreal 3-0 on April 11.
"We needed to get back to being difficult in respect to not giving up goals through individual errors," coach Owen Coyle said. "When I look back at the games, there's nobody that's really cutting us wide open. It's self-inflicted errors. We played very, very good against San Jose."
However, defender DaMarcus Beasley won't play in this contest as he competes for the United States in Saturday's Gold Cup quarterfinal against Cuba.
The Dynamo traded little-used defender Corey Ashe, who had been with the club since 2007, to Orlando City on Tuesday for a second-round pick and general allocation money.
Forward Rob Lovejoy and midfielder Boniek Garcia will sit out this contest due to injury. The Dynamo had Erick Torres at practice Friday and he will travel to Utah, but he's not expected to make his team debut until Tuesday's U.S. Open Cup match.
Torres signed in December after scoring 15 goals for now-defunct Chivas USA last season and had been on loan to a club in his native Guadalajara.
