The Sabres needed a lot of things to go right in order to make the playoffs this season. Reliable goaltending. A competent power play. Stouter defense thanks to offseason additions. And, a healthy lineup.
Buffalo’s health issues started in training camp, keeping the likes of Zach Benson and Michael Kesselring out of the lineup to open the season. It took about 50 minutes of game one for Josh Norris to wind up on the shelf with a long-term and Justin Danforth went down shortly after. Now, the team is managing the absence of four key forwards and a leave of absence of their captain and best player.
Kevyn Adams had a productive deadline, pulling one of the more significant trades of the window for the second year in a row. Friday’s fireworks means that Buffalo’s swap won’t grab as many headlines as last year’s Casey Mittelstadt for Bowen Byram trade, but swapping Dylan Cozens, Dennis Gilbert and a second round pick for Josh Norris and Jacob Bernard-Docker is a significant shake up of the team’s core.
Similar to 2024, Adams struck for a hockey trade to help reshape his roster. Cozens was a notable piece of Buffalo’s core, locked up long term and wore an A this season. Trading him is a significant decision that almost certainly is meant to strike a chord in the room in a massively disappointing season. On the ice, Norris will step right into Cozen’s role as the team’s second center. He’s a quality contributor on the power play and should be a big upgrade over Cozens with the man advantage. Norris’ 12 power play points outpace Cozens’ 4 points of power play production this year. For their careers, Norris has 60 points (33+27) with the man advantage compared to 42 (12+30) for Cozens. For a team that struggles on the power play, that’s a helpful addition.
Norris’ injury history is the concern here. He has missed significant time with shoulder issues the last few years, though he is on pace for the highest games played total of his career this season. If the Sabres can keep him on the ice, they’ll be in good shape.
With the trade deadline just a few days away, we run down the players on Buffalo’s roster who may be on the move by Friday. We touch on Jordan Greenway, Henri Jokiharju and Jason Zucker while also devoting some time to Alex Tuch as trade rumors around Buffalo’s assistant captain won’t seem to go away.
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Overthought is a semi-regular series that takes a look at some of the more interesting and notable tidbits shared by Elliotte Friedman in his weekly 32 Thoughts column. Each edition will feature some unique thoughts on the state of the Sabres or league as a whole before digging in on some of the notes from Freidman’s weekly column.
One piece of the post mortem on Hockey Canada and the World Junior Championship that I found particularly interesting was the focus on their decision to lean into role players over skill. Canada has some of the deepest skill to draw from for the WJC but opted for a more well rounded roster. Many have pointed out that they would’ve been better off leaning into their skill for a short tournament. I believe something to the effect of “In a short tournament, skill can grit but grit can’t skill” was said with respect to their roster.
It made me think about the final choices made by the Team USA roster for the 4 Nations Face Off. While the players who rounded out the US roster are still proven producers at the NHL level, they do draw some parallels to what happened with the Canadian WJC team. Brock Nelson, Vincent Trocheck and Chris Kreider are more than capable NHLers, but will the Americans regret not having Clayton Keller or Cole Caufield once the tournament is rolling? It’s something I referred to when the rosters came out, but as this is a bit of fan service that will tease interest for next year’s Olympics, there was a perfect opportunity for the various decision makers to be more creative with their choices. It didn’t need to be a Very Serious tournament, yet the rosters were built as such. As we just saw in an event with actual stakes, trying to find a perfect fit for every role vs. finding the best possible players didn’t work out for the Canadians. Hopefully the US. doesn’t fall victim to the same issue.
The Marcus Johansson signing was reason enough to get together for our tentative season-ending podcast, but then Jason Botterill served up a whopper on Tuesday afternoon. The Sabres acquired Herni Jokiharju from the Blackhawks in exchange for Alex Nylander. It’s a big deal that sees a pair of former first rounders swapped and another young, puck-moving defenseman added to the Sabres stable. It also slots in another solid, right-hander to an already crowded blueline. We run down the acquisition of Jokiharju, potential Ristolainen deals and how the Sabres blueline could shake out.
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For a team hoping to reshape their identity this offseason, the Buffalo Sabres are seriously short on talent and assets which can be parlayed into the type of deals which would bring about any sort of marked improvement.
Outside of Ryan O’Reilly, who could fetch a king’s ransom should he be traded, the Sabres have scant few assets they can give up in trades. They’re short on picks and expendable prospects with value. O’Reilly is the name on the tip of everyone’s tongue and San Jose’s first round pick is another valuable option but there isn’t much beyond that.
One avenue available to Botterill is a path he’s ventured down once during his time as the Sabres GM. Taking on salary to land the player he’s seeking. Even with the added cap hit that Jason Pominville carried, the deal that brought Pominville and Marco Scandella to Buffalo was a coup for the Sabres. Botterill was able to acquire a solid defenseman for his top four for a pair of forwards who were quickly becoming spare parts in Buffalo. The Sabres took on about $3mm in cap when it was all said and done, a minor uptick to unload dead weight and seriously upgrade the blueline.
It’s a tactic Botterill is in position to take advantage of once again this summer. Continue reading →
Two in the Box 