Predicting the Buffalo Sabres 2020 Roster

Every offseason I feel like I can write an interesting article on the Buffalo Sabres’ roster construction. This is the type of thing I thoroughly enjoy. It is a giant puzzle that has multiple pieces. Unlike a traditional puzzle, there are multiple ways the pieces could fit together to accomplish the same goal. Some combinations will probably look better than others but there is no exact solution to this problem.

Once again, I am going to try to discuss what my thought process would be if Kevyn Adams gave me a call and asked for my assistance (Kevyn, if you happen to be reading this, my contact info is on the website). Here, I am going to go through all the moves I would consider, in order of priority. Ultimately, I will come to some sort of roster that I think would give the team the best chance to be a playoff contender next season. I think getting there is possible but it will take some aggressive moves and some financial commitment.

Re-sign Sam Reinhart, Dominik Kahun, Victor Olofsson

Outside of Jack Eichel and Jeff Skinner, these three forwards may be the next three most important forwards for the Sabres next season, especially if they fail to add anyone significant at the position. The top priority HAS to be getting them under contract for next season. All three are scheduled to be restricted free agents with arbitration rights. Kahun and Olofsson are both young forwards who have shown promise in a limited sample of games (Kahun only ended up playing six games in Buffalo). 

Personally, I would look to sign Olofsson to a long-term contract. He has the type of shot that is going to allow him to be an effective goal scorer even as other abilities may decline. If Olofsson produces anything like he did in his rookie season and you sign him to a short-term deal, you might be pricing yourself out of him very quickly. The hope has to be to capitalize on the small sample size and flat cap to get Olofsson signed to a value contract. The problem is the team needs to be judicious with their spending as they have numerous areas of their roster where they need to improve. Striking a balance between spending more now and saving later will be critical. I have budgeted $4.5M for Olofsson. I would assume that would be enough to get him signed for some term.

Kahun is someone who is on his third organization in his only two years of playing in North America. He has shown promise but also doesn’t possess any unique skill that would make him impossible to replace if his future contracts start to get expensive. Unlike Olofsson, I would look to get a short-term deal done. For him, I have budgeted $2M, which is probably erring on the high end but that would be the correct way to go through this exercise. Underbudgeting would allow me to spend more money than I have. Being aggressive on the contracts would leave some wiggle room to either offer someone more or give the team cap space to work with through the season.

Sam Reinhart is probably the most interesting player in this group. I fully expect his name to be brought up in trade rumors this offseason. If the team is looking to make a major shakeup, he is one of the few players remaining in the organization that fit the bill. To me, Reinhart is not “untouchable” but a trade offer for him would need to be overwhelming. I am still not completely out on the idea of Reinhart playing center and would like to see him get a run as the second line center and play with good wingers. Even if you view Reinhart solely as a winger, it is undeniable that he is at worst a second-line winger and can more than hold his own on the top line. 

If you decide to trade Reinhart, you are basically looking for a Reinhart-like player in return. I think the only way you can trade Reinhart is if you get: 1) A clear-cut center to play on the second-line (almost should be capable of playing on the top line) or 2) A cheaper RW who can perform at a near identical level. Considering neither return is very likely, I think you are just spinning your wheels and gambling whatever player you bring in to replace Reinhart has similar chemistry with Eichel. As an aside, you already have a superstar player who has to be getting frustrated with the losing, I’m not sure trading his best friend on the team is going to stave off the frustration boiling over.

My goal is to lock Reinhart up to a long-term contract. I’ve set aside $7M to make that happen.

For these three restricted free agents, I would look to sign both Olofsson and Reinhart to long-term contracts. For Kahun, I would go short-term. For the three players, I have allocated $13.5M of cap space. To me, these are the no-brainer moves and with this business out of the way, I now have $20.5M in cap space to retool the rest of the roster.

Address 2^nd Line Center

How many times will I have to write about this until the Sabres get it right? There are a couple ways the team could address the position. If it were me, I would strongly consider giving Reinhart a look as the 2^nd line center. If he can handle the responsibilities, it would significantly balance the rest of the roster AND be the least costly option (both in terms of dollars and potentially assets). The problem is there simply isn’t enough data to form a conclusion that we can feel confident in. The last time Reinhart played center regularly was on the third-line between Seth Griffith and Benoit Pouliot. Assuming my memory is correct, those are not players that provide the best case study on whether Reinhart could be successful at center.  

Having said that, I highly doubt this will be the route Buffalo takes. Instead, I expect them to once again look to unrestricted free agency (UFA) or the trade market for someone under contract or to acquire the rights to a restricted free agent (RFA). I went through every player who I could envision being a possibility to acquire and coded them as green (go), yellow (proceed with caution), or red (avoid) based off how much better their team performed when they were on the ice, both in terms of shot quality and quantity. Although some consideration should be given to point production, I don’t think it should be the main factor for Buffalo. Whoever the team brings in is going to play with at least one of Jeff Skinner, Sam Reinhart, and Victor Olofsson. 

Ideally, the team adds a true second-line center but from my list of available options, I don’t see many realistic options to fill that role. If they can’t land one, fit becomes important. I think there are a couple of ways to approach fit. I think it is likely Kruger rolls Skinner on the second-line again. You need to find someone to compliment him. I do think Skinner’s two-way game is a little underrated. I don’t think he is a defensive liability by any means. That said, he also isn’t a defensive stalwart either. 

To compliment Skinner, I think the team needs to either find a creative offensive player and give the line favorable deployment or find a skater who can fly or find a responsible defensive center who would allow Skinner to “cheat” to offense. I am going to present the options I believe are realistic possibilities for the Sabres to acquire.

One consideration the Sabres have to discuss is the long-term outlook at the position. How high are they on Cozens taking over that role? Do they view him taking over after a season or further down the road? Obviously having an abundance of players who can fill the role of 2C effectively isn’t a problem but are you going to be comfortable potentially having $25M – $30M committed to three centers down the road? Are you comfortable with one playing on the third line or on the wing instead? This doesn’t preclude them from making any move but it does, in my opinion, impact the price they should be willing to pay and what players they might target.

Ideal Targets

If I were Buffalo, my first inquiries (in order) would be checking the availability of Anthony Cirelli, Phillip Danault, Andrew Copp, and Derek Stepan. 

Anthony Cirelli

I don’t know how available Cirelli would be but at some point, someone in Tampa will have to be the odd man out. Cirelli was good this year but borderline elite the year before. In the past two seasons, one of the best teams in the league did a better job controlling shot quality while Cirelli was on the ice. The Lightning also improved their shot differential last season but just about broke even this year when Cirelli was on the ice versus off. If available, I think the Sabres have to consider including Cozens in a trade for him. I would offer Colin Miller, Will Borgen, Casey Mittelstadt, and 2020 8^thoverall. I would assume Tampa would have their eyes on Jokiharju or Cozens. Acquiring Cirelli instantly gives Buffalo one of the best, young 1-2 punches down the middle. Because Eichel and Cirelli would fill the first two lines for a long-time, it makes parting with Cozens possible but still not desirable. I’m not sure parting with Jokiharju here would be the best move.

Likelihood: Low

Phillip Danault

When I was originally compiling my list, I didn’t include Danault because I didn’t think Montreal would have interest in moving him. However, after reading some of the reports out of Montreal this past week, it sounds like Danault could be more available than I originally anticipated. He would be an ideal target for Buffalo. I think a trade for him would have to come with an extension. On one hand, Danault is coming off an elite season where he should have been a Selke finalist, if not winner, so he might be looking to capitalize on that and parlay it into a nice contract. On the other, he has not consistently put up the numbers that traditionally lead to significant contracts. If you can get Danault for a reasonable price in a trade and sign him to a new contract, he would be a perfect addition for Buffalo. He would be a surefire 2^nd center for the next couple years. As he ages and Cozens begins to step into his prime, Danault is an elite two-way player who could easily slide down to the third-line and play a little more of a defensive role. If Danault can be traded for with an extension, the trigger has to be pulled.

I do not know how different players in general but especially prospects are valued by different teams in the NHL. If I’m Buffalo I look to offer Mathias Samuelsson, Rasmus Asplund, and Tage Thompson and see what Montreal thinks. Montreal might value one of those prospects highly or might prefer another. I would be hesitant to include Jacob Bryson but I think Samuelsson could be swapped for another defensive prospect. I think this trade partnership makes a lot of sense but them being in the same division makes me a little less confident of the teams making something happen. 

Likelihood: Moderate

Andrew Copp

The downside with Copp is he hasn’t been a major point producer and has mainly skated on the third line in Winnipeg. He did spend some time playing an expanded role during the restart and seemed to be perfectly fine. Pairing him with Skinner would allow Skinner some more freedom offensively and also give Skinner a center who can play with some speed. Winnipeg has been a better team with Copp on the ice for the past three seasons. I don’t see why the Sabres couldn’t count on him to help control play. Buffalo and Winnipeg have been connected as trade partners for over a year now. Is this the offseason where they finally pull off a trade?

I question how available Copp is. Winnipeg should look to swap a forward for a defenseman this offseason. I question if moving a quality center on a good contract is the way to go. To me, them moving a winger seems more likely. 

Much like Danult, Copp is a player who probably could handle the second-line until Cozens is ready to take that role. He could then move to the third line and be a great depth option. Contract wise, Copp probably would be reasonable as he will be arbitration eligible when his current contract expires. I would offer Ristolainen and Asplund for Copp. I would also consider Mittelstadt or Thompson instead of Asplund but I might need a little more in return.

Likelihood: Slightly more than Danault

Derek Stepan

Stepan will likely be available and I don’t think the assets needed would be too much either. Stepan didn’t move the needle much in Arizona either positively or negatively and is coming off a year with low point production. However, Stepan is still good enough to fill the role the Sabres would need him to and playing with Skinner might give him his best winger since his time with the Rangers. Stepan is probably on the wrong-side of the age curve but also is the type of player who seems like he could adapt if he loses some speed. There might be a little added motivation for him with UFA looming after next season. Lighting things up could pave the way for another nice contract.

I might like the idea of Stepan more than other observers. I think he would make the most sense from a pure asset management standpoint. First, he fills the needed role next season. Second, he should be fairly inexpensive to acquire. Third, he should serve as a good bridge to Cozens, who I think should be slotted into that spot for the 2021-2022 season. Finally, if the team once again finds themselves outside of the playoffs, Stepan probably could be traded at the deadline, possibly for a profit of assets. I think a 2^nd round pick gets it done. I also could see this trade evolving into something bigger.

Likelihood: Fairly

Other Options

I don’t think any of the solutions presented above are perfect as the perfect scenario is Dylan Cozens or Casey Mittelstadt coming in and grabbing hold of the position. However, going into the season with that as the plan again would be gross negligence. The next tier of solutions is a little more flawed than those above. Here I look at Erik Haula, Colin Wilson, Vlad Namestnikov, or Craig Smith who are UFAs, Dylan Strome, who is an RFA and might become a UFA with no qualifying offer. I think the most realistic trade option here is Alex Wennberg. 

I will not go as much into detail with these players but give a quick overview of why they could make sense. Craig Smith is probably the most attractive option but I am not sure how I feel about playing him at center. I could the Sabres signing him and it working out like Marcus Johansson where he is fine but plays out of his comfort zone. I don’t mind the idea of signing him but I don’t see him as an answer at 2C. Of these options, Wennberg probably is going to be the “safest” option as he has shown he can be a shot driver in Columbus but the quality of those shots has lacked. However, the point production has not been there and at $4.9M for three more seasons, I’m not sure that’s a contract I want to take on. I’m not sure I see Namestnikov as a fit in Buffalo. 

That leaves us with Haula, Wilson, and Strome. Haula and Wilson have had injury concerns. Of the two, I’d much rather roll the dice on Haula. Wilson would be low on my list. Strome is most interesting. First, he might not be as available as I think. If he is, putting him with Skinner would likely create a sort of glass cannon line. Strome has done better suppressing shots this past season but his value has largely come from his offensive generation. If the team went this route, they would certainly have to construct a good defensive line to help with matchups. 

Most likely other option: Erik Haula

Second Line Center Solution: Buffalo acquires Derek Stepan and the rights to goalie Adin Hill for 2020 2^nd round pick 

Sort out the Blueline

The Sabres currently have four right-handed defensemen under their control, Rasmus Ristolainen, Henri Jokiharju, and Colin Miller are under contract for next season while Brandon Montour is an RFA, who the team can retain by extending a qualifying offer to. The Sabres have $34M in cap space but I have just spent $20M of my cap space, leaving me with $14M to go about improving the rest of my roster. I would anticipate Montour’s next contract coming in around $4M. The team can’t go into next season with Ristolainen, Montour, and Miller accounting for over $13M, and one (or Jokiharju) will have to play on the left side. The Sabres will not get any better by having this happen again.

If I were working in the front office, I would go about determining who the odd man out should be in a logical manner. First, Jokiharju is the player I am least interested in trading. He is young, cost-controlled, and has shown he can be a positive play driver. I wouldn’t say he is untouchable but someone would have to blow me away with an offer to have me move him. That leaves us with Miller, Ristolainen, and Montour. 

I think an argument could be made for any of the three so it really comes down to fit and value for me. With Rasmus Dahlin coming into his third pro season, it is time to make him your unquestioned top-pair defenseman. The priority has to be putting him in the best position to succeed. If the team had more left-handed defensemen, I think an argument could be made to have Dahlin play on the right side but with a plethora of right-shot defensemen already, that makes little sense. Out of Montour, Miller, Ristolainen, and Jokiharju, Dahlin performed pretty well with the first two so one of those should have the inside track to play with Dahlin. Let me be clear, under no circumstances should Dahlin and Ristolainen be the team’s top pair next season. They haven’t shown the ability to spend more time in the offensive zone than their own end when paired together. Last season, Jokiharju was actually the worst partner for Dahlin so counting on that to work would be a risk that probably doesn’t need to be taken. I lean toward rolling Dahlin with Montour. They struggled with shot quality as a pair but were absolutely dominant in controlling the shot differential. Miller and Dahlin were very average together. I think there is a much better chance of Dahlin-Montour catching fire than Dahlin-Miller. 

Let’s pencil in a first pair of Dahlin-Montour. I think the chatter of Buffalo having some interest in Pietrangelo makes sense as they really could use a bona fide top RD to pair with Dahlin. However, unless someone unexpected becomes available, I just don’t see how the team can justify adding additional cost at a position where they have options already instead of spending to improve the roster elsewhere.

Next, we move onto the second pair. Here, we are currently looking at McCabe being the option on the left side and one of Jokiharju, Miller, or Ristolainen as the partner. Ristolainen and McCabe did not work last season so I don’t think that makes much sense. Out of Jokiharju and Miller, McCabe and Jokiharju did the most to improve the Sabres’ performance while paired together. That would then leave Miller and Ristolainen who played almost 60 minutes together last season and were an absolute disaster. To me, one of Miller or Ristolainen would need to be moved. I think Ristolainen will be viewed as more valuable by other teams around the league. I also would much rather shed his $5.4M cap hit than Miller’s $3.875M hit. Right now, I have penciled a blueline of:

Dahlin-Montour

McCabe-Jokiharju

Bryson-Miller

I think Jacob Bryson will be a really quality NHL defenseman and I believe he finished higher on the team’s organizational depth chart than Lawrence Pilut last season, which is one of the reasons I believe Pilut left for the KHL. These names are penciled in for a reason because I would be looking to see if there are options for improvement. 

I think the Sabres would be fine if they went into the season with that as their blueline. However, I think there are improvements that can be made. First, McCabe is entering the final year of his contract and will be a UFA next offseason. I’m not convinced he is a player that is part of a long-term solution. I would be very open to trading him this offseason and would definitely move him at the deadline if the team is out of playoff contention again. I also think there are a couple of current UFAs that would make sense to bring in on a short deal, allowing Bryson to start in the AHL and then be promoted during the season. Here, I would be targeting Brenden Dillon or Jon Merrill. However, the player I am most interested, who seems to be available is Vince Dunn from St. Louis. I might also inquire on the Islander’s Devon Toews. 

I think Dunn would be a tremendous pickup for Buffalo. His point production was not there last season but he has consistently been a tremendous possession and shot quality driver in his career. Sabres fans can think of him as a left-handed Henri Jokiharju. I am not sure exactly what St. Louis might be looking for to move Dunn so my offer in this exercise would be Jake McCabe, rights to Ryan Johnson, and Rasmus Asplund. In this case, St. Louis might want Buffalo to take Gunnarsson back. If I do that, I wouldn’t be happy to give up both Johnson and Asplund but I also am not letting that deter me from acquiring Dunn.

My other move on defense is to inquire on Merill and Brenden Dillon to see if I could sign one to a short contract. However, I have bigger moves still planned so I am not sure if one of those will be able to be fit in. If something else falls through, I might circle back. You will notice I haven’t addressed Ristolainen yet but know he will be traded shortly.

Trade: Buffalo acquires Vince Dunn for Jake McCabe, Ryan Johnson, and Rasmus Asplund

I have budgeted $4M to sign Dunn. I would hope it would be enough to lock him into a long-term deal. With Dunn coming off a season where he didn’t put up a lot of points, the team should be able capitalize and sign Dunn to a value contract. Dunn is a RFA without arbitration rights so the team could conceivably acquire him and play “hard ball” with his contract to save salary cap space.

Address Forward Group

My forward group for Buffalo is looking better with the acquisition of Derek Stepan but it is time for the team to get aggressive. Currently, here is how my lines would shake out

Olofsson – Eichel – Reinhart

Skinner – Stepan – Kahun

M. Johansson – Cozens – Thompson

Hole – Lazar – Okposo

First, I am bringing back Curtis Lazar and Tage Thompson. Lazar, I am giving a little raise to $800,000 and Thompson will get his qualifying offer of $874,125. Thompson showed glimpses of major improvement before getting injured late in his first NHL game of the season. With him still being waiver exempt, there is little risk in retaining him for another season. I am also open to including him in a trade if the opportunity presents itself but I am not counting on it. Lazar was a good fit last season and can work well on the 4^th line as a center and could move up in the lineup in event of injury. Much of what I said about Thompson also applies to Mittelstadt. The difference between the two is I anticipate Mittelstadt having more trade value.

I think Buffalo would be competitive with the above forward group but as I previously said, I would want to get aggressive and I think the moves I have made so far allow me some flexibility now. I have multiple forward targets that I think could slot into my forward group throughout the lineup. I break the UFA wingers I would have interest in into the following tiers:

1. Mikael Granlund, Tyler Toffoli
2. Craig Smith, Evgeni Dadonov
3. Hoffman, Fast
4. Maroon, Ennis, Nosek, Simmonds

Some other players that are on my radar are Andres Athanasiou, Chandler Stephenson, Jesper Bratt, Ryan Donato, Ryan Hartman, Nikolaj Ehlers, Mason Appleton, Alex Killorn, Jack Roslovic, and Johnny Gaudreau. I am realistically looking for right-wing solutions so Kahun can slide down to the third line and I don’t have to count on Thompson on being a regular. Since I have already traded away this year’s 2nd round pick, Ryan Johnson, Rasmus Asplund, and Jake McCabe my well is starting to run dry of assets that teams likely value enough to get an impactful player for while also leaving some sort of prospect pool. I still have all my 1st round picks, all my 2022 picks (less a 5th), and my 2^nd, 4^th, 6^th, and 7^th picks in 2021. As far as players go, I have Marcus Johansson, Kahun, Ristolainen, Mittelstadt, Thompson, Cozens, and all my defensive prospects outside Ryan Johnson. If I’m going to move Cozens, it has to be for a young player who has already established themselves as a really good player. Few teams are going to be willing to make that type of trade so I am not planning on moving Cozens. The other players are all firmly in play.

Trading Ristolainen

Last offseason we wrote about how the team should trade Ristolainen only to see them keep him through the season. With Botterill fired and Adams taking over, the time is now. Winnipeg has been the logical trade partner for over a year now. It’s time to get that trade done. If I were Buffalo, I’d strongly consider doing Ristolainen for Andrew Copp one for one and then use the extra cap space elsewhere. However, I don’t see how Winnipeg could make that work from a salary standpoint. Copp is a really good player signed to a very reasonable contract. With them having many other really good players who they are paying more, I think they have to look to move equal or greater money in a trade. Maybe a swap of McCabe for Copp could make sense. Instead, I will re-visit the player who has been most connected in a Ristolainen trade, Nikolaj Ehlers.

Getting Ehlers would be a major coup for Buffalo. Ehlers is coming off an elite season but because Winnipeg has a plethora of good, young forwards who are going to take up a significant amount of their salary cap, someone is likely going to have to be traded to bring in some defensive help. Buffalo would go from a question at 2^nd line RW to being in the discussion for the best top-six wingers in the league with Olofsson, Skinner, Ehlers, and Reinhart. I don’t think Ristolainen alone is enough to get Ehlers at this point. I am more than happy to include Mittelstadt, Thompson, and/or possibly one of my remaining defensive prospects. I would not give up my 8^th overall pick but I would be open to swapping it for Winnipeg’s tenth overall. 

Trade: Buffalo acquires Nikolaj Ehlers, 2020 10^th overall in exchange for Rasmus Ristolainen, Casey Mittelstadt, Marcus Davidsson, 2020 8^th overall, 2020 4^th round pick

I am starting to build a quality roster but I think I can improve even more. Here is where my forward group now stands:

Olofsson – Eichel – Reinhart

Skinner – Stepan – Ehlers

M. Johansson – Cozens – Kahun

Hole – Lazar – Okposo

I think this forward group is solid but I also want to have an eye on the Seattle expansion draft. Right now, I would have Cozens exempt and would protect Olofsson, Eichel, Reinhart, Skinner, Ehlers, Kahun, and probably Thompson. I’m fine with leaving Thompson unprotected if I can bring in a player that will have more of an immediate impact. I have had my eyes on Craig Smith. He would bring some versatility to this lineup and if one of my other moves falls through, he can slot in that position instead. I have budgeted $4M for Smith and would go more if I can’t pull off one of my other forward moves. Signing Smith now moves either Kahun or Johansson to the fourth line. It also puts me in a precarious cap situation. In order to bring in Smith, I am trading Marcus Johansson. I am looking to replenish some of my draft capital in return. Minnesota and Nashville are two teams that could make sense but the only limitation I have is Johansson’s 10 team no-trade list.

Signing: Craig Smith 4 years; $4M AAV

Trade: Buffalo acquires 2020 4^th round pick from Nashville for Marcus Johansson

I am not actively seeking to trade Johansson unless I have to for salary cap purposes. I am perfectly fine going into the season with him as long as I can move him back to left wing, his position of comfort. I think he would be a very good fit alongside Dylan Cozens. However, I see an opportunity to improve my team now and in the future so I am moving Johansson to do so. If Smith is a good fit, he gets protected in the expansion draft. If not, he becomes exposed. My forward group now looks like this:

Olofsson – Eichel – Reinhart

Skinner – Stepan – Ehlers

Kahun – Cozens – C. Smith

Hole – Lazar – Okposo

At this point, I probably could plug just about anyone into the open fourth line spot. I might consider Arttu Ruotsalainen at center with Lazar and Okposo on the wing. However, I believe I still have a hole in my lineup and that is on the power play. About halfway through last season, the Sabres moved Reinhart to the perimeter and Ristolainen to the net front on their top power play unit. They also really lacked a net front presence on their second unit. Regardless of whether the Sabres move Reinhart back to net front, they still would benefit from someone to fill that role on their second unit. I also think it is important to acknowledge the type of hockey the Sabres’ fourth line is going to play. Last season, Kyle Okposo played with Johan Larsson and Zemgus Girgensons. They were incredibly effective because they played a physical, grinding game and were certainly not flying up and down the ice. Lazar certainly has some speed but Okposo is not going to be able to keep up with two guys flying up and down the ice. 

I look at how Vegas has built their fourth line as inspiration while also keeping in mind I could use a power play net front guy. Some fans reading this might think this idea is crazy but I would look to bring Wayne Simmonds back on the fourth line or might look at Pat Maroon instead. I have budgeted $2M to fill this role. If I end up having to pay more somewhere else, this becomes a luxury and someone on a deal that pays them less than $1M might be inserted. I think from a pure numbers standpoint, Maroon makes more sense. Our contract predictions have him a slightly less expensive option and I think he is a more impactful player. This season is the first time in five seasons that Maroon’s team has not been better with him on the ice than when he was on the bench. The concern with him is he does appear to be trending downward so I would not be willing to give him more than one year. The same would be true of Simmonds. 

Signing: Pat Maroon 1 year; $1.5M AAV

Goaltending

I have acquired Aden Hill from Arizona along with Derek Stepan. Is he going to be an upgrade on Hutton? Possibly. If so, I would bury Hutton in the minors. If not, Hill can go to the minors or possibly be moved to another team. Grabbing Hill also sets the team up to be in a good position for the expansion draft. I know fans were frustrated with Carter Hutton last season. Linus Ullmark also hasn’t shown to be a completely dominant force either. Although an upgrade to the goalie position should be considered, I think anything more than a marginal upgrade would be too costly. The only reason I am making a significant investment this offseason is if I am not confident in a long-term solution of Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen/Ullmark/Eric Portillo. In that case, I might look at acquiring Tristian Jarry or Casey Desmith from Pittsburghs or Alexandar Georgiyev from the Rangers.

I am very hesitant to acquire another stopgap goalie like Hutton was intended to be out of fear of ending up in a similar situation in another two years. I’m going to operate that I have improved my roster enough where a poor goaltending performance can be overcome. The only way I make a change at goalie is if I fail to significantly improve my roster in other places. 

Final Roster

Below is my final roster. Please note that players whose names are red would be protected in the expansion draft while green ones are exempt.

I think this team looks tremendous on paper. The issue will be the salary cap and whether the organization will be willing to spend this type of money. The roster I have constructed leaves very little wiggle room for extras. The first cost-cutting option is not spending $2M for Maroon or Simmonds. By replacing them with a minimal player like CJ Smith, there is plenty of cap space. Another option would be to sign Olofsson to a one-year contract that would come in way under $4.5M. One concern that I would have is fitting Dahlin’s next contract into this roster with a flat cap. Next season, you would have Stepan’s $6.5M and the $2M fourth line money coming off the books. I also try to get Seattle to take one of Okposo, Montour, or Miller to free up more space. A little more movement might have to be done but I think it is workable. I would rather have too many good players than be devoid of talent. As long as that happens, the team should be able to trade someone to clear space and replenish assets. It’s time for the Sabres to get aggressive and this roster would do just that. 

Stats are courtesy of naturalstattrick.com and contract data is courtesy of cap friendly.com.

KYLE STICH is the Director of AFP Analytics.  In addition, Mr. Stich is a tax specialist and Director of Operations at AFP Consulting LLC, whose clientele include professional athletes performing services on three separate continents. Mr. Stich earned his Master of Science in Sport Management with a Concentration in Sport Analytics from Columbia University in 2017. He earned his undergraduate degrees in Accounting and Sport Management from St. John Fisher College in 2015, where he has served as an adjunct professor teaching Sport Finance and Baseball Analytics.

Grading Buffalo Sabres’ GM Jason Botterill: Part 2, Signings

The Buffalo Sabres recently fired General Manager Jason Botterill. The decision to do so has come as a shock after they previously announced he would be retained. I personally haven’t thought that he has done a great job but I also don’t know if going through another regime change, especially given all of the uncertainty in the world right now would be the best course of action for the organization. In this article series, I am going to go through every single move he has made since taking over the organization and grade them. I am going to break the series into four parts: NHL trades, NHL signings, the draft, and minor league management, and overall organizational management. I will provide an individual grade for every move, a grade for each segment, and finally an overall grade.

Before I begin grading, I should set my rubric and the guidelines on how I will arrive at the grade for every move. A good general manager needs to do two things well. First, they need to make good decisions. Second, they need to have good results. In my opinion, when grading a general manager, more weight should be placed on the decision-making process as it needs to be sound to lead to positive results. That said, there are some results that can be predicted and it is a decision maker’s job to do so. As I work through my grading, I will do my best to be objective. I will consider everything from advanced metrics to the current situation of the team. Ultimately though, these will be my opinions that I will try to back with reason.

The second part of the series will look at the signings he made during his tenure. I have discussed the signings in chronological order from oldest to most recent.

Victor Antipin, 1 year $925,000 AAV

In the first month and a half on the job, Botterill added three new defensemen, Nathan Beaulieu and Marco Scandella via trade, and Victor Antipin via free agency from the KHL. Antipin did not work out in Buffalo. A lot of the blame for that could fall on Phil Housely and the rest of the coaching staff. Botterill probably didn’t help the matter either but this grade is mainly based on the thought process and decision-making in signing Antipin. Antipin was a young defenseman who had been excelling in the KHL. He was another puck mover that the Sabres lacked. It seems like a lot of the leg work had been done by Botterill’s predecessor, Tim Murray, but much like the expansion draft trade, Botterill still had to execute and complete the signing. 

The idea of Antipin was tremendous. His signing had virtually no risk and a significant reward if things worked out. The signing of Antipin was Botterill’s best shot at finding a young, cheap, immediate impact puck-moving defenseman that could have slotted into the top four sooner than later. Antipin never got a fair shake in Buffalo but that doesn’t mean the signing was bad though it does prevent me from giving this signing an “A.”

Grade: B+

Linus Ullmark, 2 years, $750,000 AAV

This was a great signing for Botterill. It was pretty obvious that Ullmark would be in the NHL full-time during this contract and whether that was as a starter or backup, a $750,000 AAV would be a tremendous value. Ullmark had shown in the AHL that he was capable and was projecting well. This was a low-risk, high-reward signing for Botterill and one that was frankly a no-brainer. Any contract for Ullmark at or under a $1M AAV would have been acceptable.

Grade: A

Taylor Fedun, 2 years, $650,000 AAV

Fedun had previously proven to be an extremely valuable depth player for the organization and at times probably should’ve been one of the Sabres’ regular defensemen. There would definitely have been some demand for him had he hit the open market so being able to sign him to a deal worth the minimum (even if it guaranteed him more money in the AHL), was a nice get for Botterill. Ironically, things went south for Fedun in the organization soon after signing this contract. However, I think Botterill gets credit for getting the deal done as it seemed like a smart idea at the time of signing.

Grade: A-

Chad Johnson, 1 year, $2,500,000 AAV

The Sabres had been plagued by poor goaltending since the great purge in 2014-2015, where superb goaltending almost derailed the team’s run to the bottom. Since then, they struggled in net and Johnson was one of the issues from his first run with the team. Ironically, it was the goaltender in between Johnson’s stints, Andres Nilsson, who was probably the most consistent of the goalies. Addressing the backup goalie position was a necessity. I would have preferred seeing them keep Nilsson as he ended up signing a deal for the same AAV with Vancouver (though it was two years). However, the market that summer was fairly thin with other options so Botterill did well to get one of the better free-agent options. Of course, there are other routes he could have went to address the situation but I don’t think he did too poorly either. I generally don’t mind one-year contracts as they have little risk and the NHL salary cap system is use it or lose it so you might as well use it. Ultimately, Johnson turned out to be one of many of the problems the team had in route to another last-place finish so Botterill was fortunate to be able to walk away from him after only one season.

Grade: B

Benoit Pouliot, 1 year, $1,150,000 AAV

One of the Sabres’ weaknesses, when Botterill took over, was a major lack of depth. They had some good top-end skill players in Eichel, O’Reilly, Kane, Okposo, and Reinhart but things really fell off after that with an aged Brian Gionta and Matt Moulson being the only other forwards to produce more than 30 points (in all situations) on the season. Pouliot had shown flashes of scoring ability in the past as well as an ability to make his team better when he was on the ice. 

However, he was coming off a brutal season in Edmonton so he was able to be signed to a relatively cheap contract. The problem with the signing is it seemed more likely than not that his recent season was the start of a trend opposed to an abnormality because of his age. Signing Pouliot was a risk worth taking, however, Botterill should have anticipated he wouldn’t be much more than a third-line forward due to his aging curve. He had been trending downward the past few seasons and some research and the use of analytics would have indicated that would continue to be the case.

I like Botterill’s idea of signing Pouliot in an effort to provide more depth scoring, especially considering it was a low-risk deal. However, the results should have been more anticipated.

Grade: B

Jacob Josefson, 1 year, $700,000

Another signing aimed at improving organizational depth though there was nothing in his previous performances to suggest that he would add much. Realistically, Josefson should’ve strictly been a player for the Rochester Americans but he somehow played 39 games in Buffalo while missing a good amount of games with injuries. The Sabres were significantly worse with him on the ice. Overall, it was a low-risk move that seemed more aimed at improving organizational depth but circumstances changed that.

Grade: C-

Matt Tennyson

Basically, the same that was said for Josefson applies here. Phil Housley seemed to have some sort of favoritism toward Tennyson that had no statistical evidence to support. Had he strictly been an AHL player, this wouldn’t have been such an issue. Botterill could’ve pushed the issue as well by demoting Tennyson.

Grade: C-

Johan Larsson, 2 years, $1,475,000 AAV

Larsson has been an adequate fourth line player and good penalty killer for the Sabres over the years but shouldn’t be counted on to be much more than that. This should also be reflected in his pay. Although not horrible, Larsson was a restricted free agent (RFA) who had little negotiating leverage when Botterill signed him to this contract. The AAV on his contract shouldn’t have come in over $1M. I don’t think retaining Larsson was a major issue (and still don’t) but at the time, Botterill overpaid and needed to play more hardball in the negotiations.

Grade: C-

Robin Lehner, 1 year, $4M AAV

Tim Murray dealt Botterill a losing hand with Lehner and the overall goaltending situation. Botterill really had no other options than to retain Lehner and the way Lehner’s previous contract was structured forced Botterill into a contract with an AAV of at least $3,125,000 so Botterill bumped him further. Lehner was not bad prior to signing this contract but he also hadn’t shown enough to warrant this high of a salary, which would further increase in the team decided to retain him in any subsequent season. Botterill was stuck between a rock and a hard place with the goaltending situation. His options were to roll with Chad Johnson and one of Lehner or Ullmark. At the time, Lehner was the clear choice.

Grade: B-

Evan Rodrigues, 2 years, $650,000 AAV

At the time, Rodrigues had shown some signs that he could be an effective NHL player but also hadn’t shown enough to have complete confidence in him either. Botterill did well to get him signed to a two-year contract that paid him the minimum both years. His most effective season was easily his second year of the contract when he was arguably one of the team’s best forwards during the 2018-2019 season. He generated tremendous surplus value for the team. Frankly, there is nothing to find fault in for this contract. The worst case is Rodrigues was a depth player for the organization, shuttling between Rochester and Buffalo. Even if that had occurred, he was getting paid the minimum to do so.

Grade: A

Nathan Beaulieu, 2 years, $2,400,000 AAV

Botterill upped the price of this contract by simply trading for Beaulieu, who was arbitration-eligible. It is pretty hard to argue in an arbitration case that a player isn’t valuable when you just traded an asset to acquire him. I don’t think this contract was great but it wasn’t terrible either. I further discussed Beaulieu in the first part (the trades) of this series so I will not rehash it here. Had Beaulieu slotted onto the second pair, this would have been a fantastic contract. However, as a third-pair or worse defenseman, the value isn’t great. 

Grade: C

Zemgus Girgensons, 2 years, $1,600,000 AAV

Much like Johan Larsson, Girgensons has been a perfectly fine role player for the Sabres in his time with the team. He doesn’t make the team a whole lot better or worse when on the ice and is a fine penalty killer. He will never live up to his draft status but he will probably carve out a nice career in the NHL as a role player, whether that be in Buffalo or elsewhere. However, having a single role player take up $1.6M of cap space is not great cap management. It is even worse when you consider Botterill earlier in the offseason signed Larsson for $1.475M so he committed over $3M to two players who projected to be at best third line players and more realistically fourth liners. Girgensons has shown a little more than Larsson so it makes sense that he would be paid a little more. The problem with both is that it sets the floor for their next contract.

Grade: C-

Jack Eichel, 8 years, $10,000,000 AAV

Jack Eichel will arguably be the best player to ever wear a Sabres’ jersey. He was going to get paid at some point and it seemed like a contract around this was a foregone conclusion. In most cases, it makes more sense to sign a player to a long-term contract after their entry-level contract (ELC) EXPIRES. The keyword being expires. Eichel signed this contract before the final year of his ELC. Connor McDavid had set the bar for young superstars. Unless Eichel literally carried the Sabres to a Stanley Cup, I don’t think he was getting paid much more than the $10M AAV regardless of when he signed the contract. However, had he had a down year, the Sabres might have been able to save some money on his contract. It was unlikely to happen but there really was no reason to rush on this contract. No team was going to extend Eichel an offer sheet that the team wasn’t going to match. Retrospectively, this contract has proven to be better as more and more young players sign new contracts off their ELCs for more and more money.

Grade: B

Casey Nelson, 2 years, $812,000 AAV

I will say I might personally overvalue Casey Nelson. I think he has been a quality depth defenseman in the Sabres’ organization and provided a stabilizing presence when playing along some of the team’s young, puck-moving defensemen, namely Brendan Guhle and Rasmus Dahlin. However, he has never put up eye-popping numbers either so his contract was never going to be that high either. I think overall this was a solid deal for Botterill.

Grade: A-

Lawrence Pilut, 2 years, $925,000 AAV

I have generally avoided entry-level contracts but since Pilut was more of a free agent, I want to include him here. Pilut was chosen to be the Swedish Elite League Defenseman of the year (ahead of Rasmus Dahlin) so he clearly had the ability to play at the top level. The knock-on him was his size and the question of whether his game could translate. His stats indicated it likely would. This was a great move by Botterill to bring him into the organization. There was no risk in bringing Pilut into the organization and potential for a high reward. I will later address the management of Pilut in another part of the series so this grade will strictly be based on his signing.

Grade: A

Carter Hutton, 3 years, $2,750,000 AAV

Let me remind you that I am grading Botterill more on the decision-making process than the results. Going into the 2018 offseason, it was abundantly clear the Sabres needed to improve their goaltending situation. Ullmark appeared ready to be a full-time NHL goalie but being thrust into the full-time starter role didn’t seem like the best decision. The options on the market at the time were former Sabre, Jaro Halak, Petr Mrazek, Anton Khudobin, Jonathan Bernier, Cam Ward, and Hutton. If I had been in charge, I would have been targeting one of Halak, Mrazek, Khudobin, or Hutton. Mrazek signed for a little less than the other three but ultimately the contract for Hutton seemed to make sense. The only question is whether Botterill got his top choice. If so, we can question a little bit why he favored Hutton over the others. Ultimately, many analysts liked the signing at the time as many thought he could fetch another million-plus per year. Even though the results haven’t been ideal, Botterill gets high marks for this signing.

Grade: A-

Scott Wilson, 2 years, $1,050,000 AAV

Scott Wilson had proven to be a useful depth player for the organization but also hadn’t shown anything to indicate he was more than a bottom line player. If Wilson is in the minors, his salary doesn’t impact the Sabres’ cap situation. However, if the team does choose to recall him, they are paying a fourth-line player $300,000 more than the league minimum. When you consider Wilson along with his signings of Girgensons and Larsson in the previous offseason, he has likely cost himself over $1M in cap space by overpaying fourth line players. The good news is Wilson has been a quality player in his role bouncing between the NHL and AHL and has provided what the team has expected from him.

Grade: C+

Sam Reinhart, 2 years, $3,650,000 AAV

If we simply look at this contract as relative value, Botterill does fantastic here as Reinhart would clearly provide more value than $3,650,000 per season. The problem is signing Reinhart to a bridge contract was a HORRIBLE decision. I have written and research extensively on why bridge contracts for good players are bad ideas. Reinhart had put up good box score metrics but his real value was in the metrics that measure how he drove play. In Ryan O’Reilly’s last season with Buffalo, the only time the team was better during 5v5 play with O’Reilly on the ice was when Reinhart was one of his wingers! The easiest way for a GM to create future value for his team is to take advantage of a player putting up lower box score statistics while being a strong possession driver. In most negotiations, the contract value will be depressed if a player’s traditional stats are not as strong. 

At the time of signing, we at afpanalytics had predicted a long-term contract for Reinhart would be six years and carry an AAV between $5.5M and $6M. If the team had Reinhart locked in for that price, it would answer a lot of questions the team faces this coming offseason, where Reinhart will likely get a minimum of $8M per year. Botterill might have saved approximately $2M over two years but will now likely have to pay an extra $2M to $3M over the next four years. Remember when Botterill overpaid Larsson and Girgensons to a tune of at least $1M (combined)? That money could have been used instead to give Reinhart a long-term contract. Being generous with contracts for role players while playing hardball in negotiations for your top-line players is not going to be a long-term formula for success. Overall, the only reason this signing does not get a failing is that Botterill did well on the contract he did give.

Grade: D

Arttu Ruotsalainen, 3 years, $925,000 AAV

Much like what I have written for Lawerence Pilut and Victor Antipin, this signing comes with relatively low risk for a player who has shown he can produce against high-level competition. I think there is a little more uncertainty with Ruotsalainen than the others but I will never knock rolling the dice on younger players who have produced in Europe and can be signed for cheap contracts. If Ruotsalainen doesn’t pan out, the team isn’t out anything. If they find a hidden gem, it could be a big help in moving the team forward. I knock Botterill slightly for giving Ruotsalainen the ability to go back to Europe this year as he is a smaller player that will probably need to adjust to the smaller ice in North America.

Grade: A-

Jeff Skinner, 8 years, $9,000,000 AAV

Botterill had backed himself in between a rock and a hard place with this negotiation. By keeping Skinner and seeing him score 40 goals, Botterill had to retain Skinner. In order to do so, Botterill was going to have to pay and pay him enough to not test the free-agent market. We had predicted Skinner’s market value to be $8.5M per year on a seven-year contract. In order to deter Skinner from talking with other teams, Botterill was going to have to give him an offer he couldn’t refuse and the contract he signed was just that. Had Skinner left for nothing, it would have been a major hit to a team that is desperately seeking goal-scorers. On the flip side, it was apparent that Skinner was not going to continue to score 40 goals a season so his value to the team was never going to be as high as the contract. 

Overall, Botterill left himself little choice with Skinner once he was on the roster past the trade deadline. The problem is Skinner’s contract is going to be one of the main reasons the team is not as comfortably under the cap as they should be. The team needs more scoring production out of Skinner than they got this season. They need him to be part of the solution and not further their problems. I don’t mind that Botterill chose to keep a good player who has shown he can produce. I do take issue with how they managed him this year but that doesn’t severely impact the grade too much as this is based mainly on the decision at the time of signing. Had Skinner scored 40 or more goals again this season, the narrative is completely different.

Grade: C+

John Gilmour, 1 year, $700,000 AAV

I have generally skipped AHL signings but Gilmour spent enough time in Buffalo to warrant discussion. Gilmour was signed as a depth defenseman for the organization and he filled that role well. He provided speed and puck-moving abilities from the blueline. If Botterill hadn’t created such a logjam of defensemen, Gilmour had shown enough, in a limited sample, to be a bottom-pair player and the team probably would’ve been better for it. The knock here is Botterill added another defenseman to an already packed position in the organization.

Grade: B+

Curtis Lazar, 1 year, $700,000

Much like Gilmour, Lazar was signed to provide depth to the organization. Unlike Gilmour, Lazar spent a significant amount of time in the NHL and was a fine depth player. When Lazar was on the ice during 5v5 play, the team was outshot in quantity a little more than when he was on the bench but the Sabres’ took better quality shots. Lazar was also used on the penalty kill. When he was first called-up, he provided better-shot suppression but ultimately finished the season getting shelled on the penalty kill. Realistically, Lazar should have been playing over Sobotka for the entire season as he was a better version of a similar player.

Lazar also brought some intangibles that the team lacks. Every shift Lazar was on the ice, he played like it could be his last. He was never the most talented player on the ice but provided an energy that not everyone else on the team always brought. Lazar will never be more than a depth player but can play in the NHL. As long as Botterill realizes that going forward, everything will be ok.

Grade: A-

Zemgus Girgensons, 1 year, $1,600,000 AAV

Botterill previously signed Girgensons to a contract that set his qualifying offer at this price so he had already backed himself into a corner. The alternative would have been to not tender the qualifying offer and let Girgensons become an UFA. There is a chance that Botterill would’ve been able to bring him back at a lower price but it also would have given Girgensons the opportunity to negotiate with other teams and potentially sign with one of them. At the time, I didn’t think the team losing Girgensons would have been detrimental but I don’t know if it would have been a positive development either. Ultimately, Girgensons, Larsson, and Kyle Okposo combined to form a formable line that struggled to score but consistently controlled play. Could have the results been similar if one of Girgensons or Larsson were replaced? Possibly. To be consistent, I will grade mostly on the decision-making process and I am not 100% confident that Botterill made the best decision at the time but did do well to keep Girgensons with the qualifying offer.

Grade: C+

Marcus Johansson, 2 years, $4,500,000 AAV

I liked this signing for Botterill a lot. Johansson was the type of secondary scoring player the team had been lacking. According to our contract predictions, Botterill slightly overpaid on AAV but gave a year less in term than we anticipated so the contract was pretty solid. The downside is this contract pushed the Sabres into salary cap danger. The other problem with this signing is Botterill basically forced Johansson into playing center, a position that he hadn’t played in years and was left comfortable with, especially against the strong competition he faced on the second-line. Botterill will be knocked more in a future part of the series than he will be here as this was overall a good signing. The failure to properly address the second-line center position takes a little away but not enough to make this a poor grade.

Grade: B+

Johan Larsson, 1 year, $1,550,000 AAV

It seemed logical that the team would move on from at least one of Sobotka, Girgensons, or Larsson as they frankly fill a very similar role. Going into the offseason, an argument to lose any of them could have easily been made. Sobotka was clearly the weakest of the three players but the other two were the easiest to move on from. It seemed the team was poised to lose Larsson to Europe but ultimately things got done with the Sabres. Of the three, Larsson is probably the most valuable player so I don’t fault Botterill for bringing him back, especially since he was able to pay him less than Girgensons. I do have a problem with him bringing all three back. Larsson ultimately had a quality season and the team is going to be in a similar situation with him and Girgensons this offseason as they were last year. Although both players are replaceable, the two departing would create additional holes. I like the signing of Larsson slightly better than Girgensons but a lot said under each applies to both.

Grade: B-

Evan Rodrigues, 1 year, $2,000,000

In our contract predictions we had Rodrigues’ value at ~$2.3M AAV on a two-year contract so value-wise, Botterill did well. During the 2018-2019 season, Rodrigues was one of the team’s most impactful forwards. I thought there was a chance that he could’ve solved the team’s second-line center woes in the short-term. Instead, entitlement took hold and he became a toxin in the Sabres’ locker room. Despite his strong underlying metrics during the 2018-2019 season, Rodrigues quickly became a player who the team needed to move on from. Botterill gets high marks on the signing that will be slightly reduced because of poor results.

Grade: B+

Jake McCabe, 2 years, $2,850,000 AAV

I still don’t know what to think of Jake McCabe. He has had stretches of a season where he has been the Sabres’ best defender and also stretches where he has been the team’s worst defender. There were times when he was paired with Rasmus Ristolainen and it worked incredibly well and others where they were a complete disaster. In two of the past three seasons, the Sabres have overall been better with him on the ice. However, I fully expect McCabe to be at the top of the list of players available partly due to his inconsistent play throughout the season and partly due to the number of defensemen the team has. That is a discussion for another article.

Overall, I don’t have a problem with the Sabres retaining McCabe as it would have made no sense for them to let him walk for nothing. I also don’t think the contract was a huge overpayment. I don’t think Botterill can be knocked too much for this signing. He paid McCabe bottom four money, which is exactly what McCabe deserved.

Grade: A-

Linus Ullmark, 1 year, $1,325,000 AAV

Linus Ullmark came off a successful first season as an NHL regular so getting a new contract was a no-brainer. We had predicted Ullmark to get a one-year contract with a slightly higher AAV but overall this contract seems right in-line with where Ullmark’s value was. I think the only knock here is that the contract was only for one year. Going for multiple years might have been a gamble that would have been worth taking for Botterill, though it takes two to tango and I’m not sure it would have made sense for Ullmark to take something with more term as his stock was most likely going to rise as he received more playing time.

Grade: A

Dalton Smith, 1 year, $700,000 AAV

Even though the impact was minimal, this was a disgraceful signing by Botterill. He signed Smith to play and start a fight against Tampa Bay. Smith had never played an NHL game before and skated less than two minutes in the game. For a team who was starting to slide, wasting a roster spot, even for just a game on a useless player is inexcusable. The last time the Sabres’ did something like this was signing John Scott in 2012. They haven’t sniffed a playoff spot since.

Grade: F

Botterill grades out slightly better for his signings than his trades as his GPA was 2.83 for the signings while only 2.77 for the trades. Though both ultimately land with the same letter grade.

Overall Grade: B-

With the recent news of Botterill being fired, I may condense the remaining planned articles into one. Please follow @afpanalytics and check back to read the remaining articles in the series. Feel free to share your thoughts with @afpanalytics or @k_sticher on Twitter.

Please note all salary figures and trade compensations are courtesy of Capfriendly.com and all statistical information is courtesy of Naturalstattrick.com. Featured image is via the Buffalo News.

KYLE STICH is the Director of AFP Analytics.  In addition, Mr. Stich is a tax specialist and Director of Operations at AFP Consulting LLC, whose clientele include professional athletes performing services on three separate continents. Mr. Stich earned his Master of Science in Sport Management with a Concentration in Sport Analytics from Columbia University in 2017. He earned his undergraduate degrees in Accounting and Sport Management from St. John Fisher College in 2015, where he has served as an adjunct professor teaching Sport Finance and Baseball Analytics.

Grading Buffalo Sabres’ GM Jason Botterill: Part 1, Trades

The Buffalo Sabres recently announced that they would retain General Manager Jason Botterill for a fourth season. The decision to do so has not gone over well with the fans of the team as most believe that he has done a generally poor job in his role. I personally haven’t thought that he has done a great job but I also don’t know if going through another regime change, especially given all of the uncertainty in the world right now would be the best course of action for the organization. In this article series, I am going to go through every single move he has made since taking over the organization and grade them. I am going to break the series into four parts: NHL trades, NHL signings, the draft, and minor league management, and overall organizational management. I will provide an individual grade for every move, a grade for each segment, and finally an overall grade.

Before I begin grading, I should set my rubric and the guidelines on how I will arrive at the grade for every move. A good general manager needs to do two things well. First, they need to make good decisions. Second, they need to have good results. In my opinion, when grading a general manager, more weight should be placed on the decision-making process as it needs to be sound to lead to positive results. That said, there are some results that can be predicted and it is a decision maker’s job to do so. As I work through my grading, I will do my best to be objective. I will consider everything from advanced metrics to the current situation of the team. Ultimately though, these will be my opinions that I will try to back with reason.

The first part of the series will look at the trades he made involving regular NHL players. I have discussed the trades in chronological order from oldest to most recent.

Trade for Nathan Beaulieu

Details: Buffalo Acquired D Nathan Beaulieu from Montreal for a 3^rd round pick (68^th overall)

Botterill’s first player move as a general manager was to add more speed and mobility to the blueline, something that was desperately lacking from the team he inherited. Beaulieu is a defenseman with great speed and puck-moving abilities. He was an odd man out in Montreal but still young enough where it seemed like he could improve. During Beaulieu’s first three years in the league, the Canadiens improved in controlling both shot quantity and quality while he was on the ice. The next two seasons, leading up to him being traded, saw things go south.

When Botterill acquired Beaulieu, there were signs of things going the wrong direction but there had also been signs of strong play earlier in his career. He was a player that had “change of scenery” written all over him. I think overall Beaulieu fit a need for the Sabres and Botterill was able to acquire him for a reasonable price of a third-round pick. Once Beaulieu got to Buffalo, he seemed to fall out of favor for glaring mistakes. However, his metrics were pretty solid for a bottom four defenseman and really did not get a fair chance in Buffalo. It isn’t Botterill’s job to make day to day lineup decisions but he should have had some organizational support/structure in place to assist the coaching staff with lineup decisions. I think there is a lot to like about the process and decision to make the trade but the results did not work out.

Grade: B

Enticing Vegas to take Carrier Opposed to Ullmark

Details: Buffalo gave Vegas a 6^th round pick to take William Carrier instead of Linus Ullmark in the expansion draft

This “trade” had mostly been put in place by the previous general manager, Tim Murray, but ultimately Botterill still had to finalize it and could have pulled the plug if he wanted. The Sabres had exactly two desirable assets in the expansion draft, William Carrier and Linus Ullmark. Carrier has turned into a nice role player for Vegas and probably would have been the same in Buffalo. However, allowing Vegas to take Ullmark for nothing would have devastated the organization as he has been the best goalie (not a super high bar to clear) in the organization for the past couple of years. Giving up a 6thround pick to lose a 4th line player instead of a potential number one goalie is a major win. The team got a peek at what life was without him when he was injured this season and the results weren’t pretty. Some of you reading this will probably think I gave Botterill too much credit here but in most group projects in school, everyone gets the same grade. Here, Botterill benefits from having someone else do much of the work but not messing it up at the end.

Grade: A

Trade for Jason Pominville & Marco Scandella

Details: Buffalo acquires Jason Pominville, Marco Scandella and a 4^th round pick from Minnesota for Tyler Ennis, Marcus Foligno, and a 3^rd round pick.

Jason Botterill’s first couple moves as GM were aimed at shoring up the team’s defense. Much like his trade for Beaulieu, he identified a team that seemed to have a surplus of defensemen and were open to trading them. The best piece in this trade ended up being Jason Pominville. The idea of acquiring a Wild defenseman made a lot of sense. The price of Tyler Ennis and Marcus Foligno was not steep. If anything, trading them away was a net positive for Botterill as injuries had dramatically reduced Ennis’s effectiveness and he was under a contract that paid him more than the value he was providing. Although Foligno had a tremendous season in 2018-2019, he was nothing more than a 3^rd line winger, which isn’t overly valuable in terms of trade value, and didn’t project any higher either.

The knock Botterill gets for this trade is that he settled for Scandella. Minnesota likely would have traded one of Scandella, Brodin, or Spurgeon (more likely one of the first two). Of those Scandella was clearly the weakest. Much like Beaulieu, Scandella had started off strong but saw a drop in play in the two seasons leading up to the trade as the Wild did worse in both shot quantity and quality with him on the ice. Had Botterill viewed Scandella as the bottom four defenseman he really was, this trade would have been a home run. However, Botterill thought Scandella could handle playing on the top pair with Ristolainen and matchup with the opposing team’s top players. That was never going to be the case and his failure to realize that was an issue. Botterill still gets high marks for this trade as a lot of the thought process behind this makes trade made a lot of sense.

Grade: B+

Trades Away Evander Kane

Details: Buffalo acquired Danny O’Regan, a conditional 1^st (conditions met), conditional 4^th (stayed as 4^th) for Evander Kane.

The Sabres’ play early in the season quickly signaled that they would miss out on the playoffs so the clock was ticking on making a decision on Kane early in the season. I think Botterill could have justified re-signing him or trading him. Under no circumstances could he allow Kane to walk away for nothing. In my opinion, the total return was very underwhelming as the Sabres were not guaranteed a 1^st-round pick. I’m sure Botterill took the best offer at the time but there were probably better trade offers to be had earlier in the season that he failed to make. Kane was not the most tradeable player in the league but he did produce offensively and should have had some appeal as a rental. Botterill turned him into a low-level prospect who had shown no indication of being able to be a full-time NHLer and two draft picks that he later traded away. Botterill doesn’t fail this trade but he certainly doesn’t get high marks either.

Grade: D+

Acquires Matt Hunwick and Conor Sheary

Details: Sabres acquire Matt Hunwick and Conor Sheary from Pittsburgh for a conditional 4^th round pick that became third based on player performance (stayed a 4^th)

In this trade, Botterill had cap space and a need for some depth scoring. He weaponized the cap space to add Sheary for a low cost by also absorbing Matt Hunwick’s contract. The addition of Sheary made complete sense. He had success playing along highly skilled centers (Crosby and Malkin) in Pittsburgh so pairing him with Eichel seemed great in theory. The worst-case would be provided some scoring depth for a low price. Hunwick inexplicitly played some games for Buffalo and was not good in the few games he played. That was probably more of a coaching issue though Botterill gets some blame for even providing the option.

The results of this trade were not good as neither player contributed much at all. The good news is the draft pick was conditional and did not get upgraded. Although Botterill gets knocked a little for that, this was a home run trade on paper at the time the trade was executed. Sheary was decent when looking beyond his basic box score statistics as the Sabres were better when he was on the ice BUT he just couldn’t produce points which was a major issue.

Grade: A-

Ryan O’Reilly Trade

Details: Sabres acquire Patrik Berglund, Vladmir Sobotka, Tage Thompson, a conditional 1^st round pick and a 2021 2^ndround pick

Everyone knows this was Botterill’s worst move as GM and probably the main reason fans are still so upset with him as the team has not recovered from it. There is no doubt this was bad but at the time, there was some rationale for trading O’Reilly but the return he got was dreadful. The Sabres were a top-heavy team that was in desperate need of forward depth. O’Reilly was coming off a down season (when he wasn’t playing with Sam Reinhart, the team was worse with him on the ice during 5v5 play) and he had expressed his displeasure publicly. There also was (and still is) some concern with the length of his contract and his future value. 

To me, the idea of trading O’Reilly could have been defendable but the return is not in any way. Patrik Berglund and Vladmir Sobotka were never going to be impact players. They were going to come in and be, at best, third line players. If both players needed to be included for financial reasons to get a better overall package for the Sabres, it would have been one thing. However, those two players were centerpieces of the trade and didn’t help improve the Sabres’ haul. With those two players included, the Sabres should have demanded Robert Thomas be included in addition to Thompson or multiple unprotected 1st round picks. Additionally, Botterill needed to have a better plan for the second-line center than Berglund and/or Mittelstadt (maybe it should have been Sam Reinhart). Ultimately, nothing about the trade made sense or worked out and the team is still recovering from this trade.

Grade: F

Acquire Jeff Skinner

Details: Buffalo acquires Jeff Skinner for Cliff Pu, 2019 2^nd round pick, 2020 3^rd round & 6^th round picks

Just like everyone knows the O’Reilly trade was awful, everyone knows the Jeff Skinner trade was a homerun. I think people forget about how lopsided this trade was. It is incredible that Botterill was able to make a horrible trade and follow it up not long after with an excellent trade. Skinner was everything and more for what the team needed. The line of Skinner, Eichel, and Reinhart kept the team in the playoff mix into March almost singlehandedly. The assets Botterill gave up had little value.

Grade: A

Acquire Brandon Montour 

Details: Buffalo acquires Brandon Montour for Brandon Guhle and the higher of previously acquired 1^st round picks

This was an interesting trade by Botterill. Even after some changes to the blueline, the Sabres were still in need of a fast-skating, puck-moving defenseman and that is exactly what Montour brings. However, Guhle also provides some of those same traits but was much less polished. The idea of “upgrading” from Guhle to Montour made sense. It also helped the team balance their left and right shots. However, Montour has still not settled into a role in Buffalo mostly because Botterill has failed to alleviate a logjam he created. Montour should ideally be playing second pair (or maybe top pair) minutes (on the right side) and quarterbacking the second power-play unit. 

I question the price Botterill paid to get Montour. To me, the price should have been a mid-round pick or prospect plus one of Guhle or a 1^st round pick. Using the 1^st round pick to marginally upgrade Brandon Guhle seemed a little strange to me but I also don’t think this was a terrible trade either.

Grade: C

Trades Away Nathan Beaulieu

Details: Buffalo acquires a 6^th round pick in exchange for Nathan Beaulieu

As discussed above, Beaulieu never found his footing in Buffalo and the coaching staff deserves a lot of blame for that. However, his underlying numbers were solid for a bottom four defenseman. Beaulieu publicly made his displeasure known and once that happens the returns are fairly limited. It seems like Beaulieu’s value was hurt somewhat by Botterill holding on for him for so long. A sixth-round pick for a serviceable defenseman with a decent contract and RFA status is not great compensation but something is better than keeping him and letting him walk for nothing in summer.

Grade: C-

Acquires Colin Miller

Details: Buffalo acquires defenseman Colin Miller in exchange for a 2021 2^nd round pick and 2022 5^th round pick.

On paper, this trade had the markings of another homerun trade for Botterill. When Miller was on the ice, an already good Vegas team performed even better. His advanced metrics were very good. It seemed like Miller would be a perfect fit in the top four in Buffalo and maybe even on the top pair as Rasmus Dahlin’s partner. It seemed like Miller’s acquisition would finally allow Buffalo to move on from Rasmus Ristolainen and recoup or even add assets as they had just found a better, cheaper option. 

It took Miller some time to find his footing in Buffalo and finished the shortened season by seeing the team was overall better with him on the ice than when he was off. Miller was not the immediate impact player that Buffalo was hoping and him and Dahlin together early in the season was a disaster (some of that blame also falls on Dahlin). Part of the problem for Miller was his usage was less than ideal for much of the season. Although there were signs that he could maybe slot on the top pair, it became clear that it wasn’t a good idea. Miller also had been given significant power-play time in Vegas as he has a bomb of a shot from the backend. However, Buffalo preferred to use Dahlin and Ristolainen over Miller so he was forced to share the remaining time with Brandon Montour. Confidence goes a long way in hockey and Miller’s seemed shot early but he did rebound as the season went on.

Overall, Botterill gets high marks for this trade as he again capitalized on a team tight to the cap and acquired a quality player for a reduced price. The problem with this trade is it added to an already stocked blueline and created a bigger logjam than one that already existed. Please note, I will have a grade specifically for this aspect of roster management later on so this grade will mostly reflect the acquisition of Miller.

Grade: B+

Acquires Jimmy Vesey

Details: Buffalo acquires Jimmy Vesey for a 2021 3^rd round pick

This was an interesting trade that isn’t as easy to grade as many may think. Vesey did not produce many points and was not more than a third-line player. However, over the course of the shortened season, the team was better when Vesey was on the ice, both in terms of shot quantity and quality. He provided the same for a bad New York Rangers team during the 2018-2019 season. 

Botterill identified the Sabres as a team that lacked depth and has gone about acquiring players to address that. Vesey is a good depth option. However, Botterill viewed him as more than that as he, on more than one occasion, referred to Vesey as a top-nine forward opposed to middle or bottom six, where he should properly slot. Though Botterill thought he could skate on the top line, the compensation he gave up reflects more of a middle-six player, though I still think that was still too much. The positive is the risk of acquiring Vesey was fairly low as he was signed to a relatively small, one-year contract so if he had a breakout season, the Sabres would have gotten some great value. 

Overall, the signs were there that Vesey was nothing more than a third-line player who wouldn’t kill your team if he had to slot higher in the lineup on occasion but shouldn’t have been counted on doing so. Botterill overvalued Vesey and ultimately added another player to the mix of many replacement level players he already had. However, the relatively low-risk nature of the trade, the thought process to improve depth, and the acceptable results of Vesey’s play help this grade.

Grade: C

Acquires Henri Jokiharju

Details: Sabres acquire Henri Jokiharju in exchange for Alexander Nylander

If I were to poll Sabres’ fans on what their favorite trade made by Botterill was, I bet a lot would point to this one. Alex Nylander had quickly fallen out of favor with Sabres’ fans and many were happy to see the team move on and I am guessing many would’ve been happy with a much lower return than what the team got. Jokiharju passes all the tests for a young player you would want to acquire. He is still on his entry-level contract, was a high draft selection, dominated the AHL, and has played time in the NHL and has been successful in doing so. The fact that he plays the highly-valued right defense helps as well. On paper, this seems like another home run for Botterill.

Jokiharju was a very steady performer on the blueline for the early part of the season but showed some decline as the season wore on. When he was on the ice, the Sabres gave up more shots but the quality of those shots were less than the quality the Sabres produced. Considering Jokiharju is still incredibly young and many thought he would play most of this season in the AHL, management and fans have the right to be hopeful.

I have two issues with this trade that prevent it from being an “A.” First, Jokiharju was the second right-shot defenseman acquired in almost as many weeks. Botterill now had Ristolainen, Montour, Miller, and Jokiharju on the right side alone. It is perfectly fine that the team allowed Jokiharju to earn his NHL time but his superb play created a further logjam on the blueline. So, like the Miller trade above, this will negatively impact his grade. Second, I am not against the idea of trading Nylander but the trade created a new hole and added to a problem in the organization. The Sabres’ biggest weakness right now is they are lacking prospects that project well as Top Six forwards. The only four players who may fit that mold are Casey Mittelstadt, Tage Thompson, Victor Olofsson, and 2019 first-round pick, Dylan Cozens. The former two are probably middle-six players at best. Olofsson showed tremendous promise in his rookie season but has not solidified himself either. The signs are positive for Cozens but he has no sample playing against “men.” Though Nylander did not project as a surefire Top Six, he had the skill set that could translate to that spot. With Olofsson “graduated” and Nylander traded, the Sabres have a whole in their prospect pipeline at forward. Trading Ristolainen could (have) solved two problems at once. Instead, an excellent trade in a vacuum exasperated a big problem for the Sabres.

Grade: B+

Acquires Michael Frolik; Trades Marco Scandella

Details: Buffalo traded Marco Scandella to Montreal for a 4^th round pick that was subsequently traded to Calgary for Michael Frolik

Though there may be some recency bias, this trade is probably the one most fans would pin as second-worst to the Ryan O’Reilly trade. However, I don’t have nearly as big of an issue with this trade as many fans. Many fans will point to Scandella’s subsequent trade to the Blues for a 2^nd round pick in addition to Frolik providing next to nothing for the Sabres as a clear black-eye for Botterill. However, I can’t fault Botterill for 1) The return Montreal got for Scandella, 2) Frolik providing nothing for the Sabres. In order to fairly assess the trade, we need to look at it at the point of time it was made and not play the “what if” game after it was made. For all intents and purposes, Botterill traded Scandella for Frolik and that is how I am going to assess the trade.

Both Scandella and Frolik are impending unrestricted free agents (UFAs) who probably were going to be nothing more than rentals. The Sabres definitely would not be retaining Scandella at the season’s end and needed to add someone to their forward group. Frolik graded out well analytically over the course of his career BUT was having a down season this year. The question is whether he could bounce back with an increased role or whether age had gotten the best of him. Ironically, the opposite of Marco Scandella was true. He had been down the past couple of seasons but was tremendous this season for Buffalo, which is probably attributable to playing a less demanding role and with a better partner. He had quickly become one of the more attractive assets from the Sabres’ crowded blueline.

If we look at this trade as Scandella for a 4^th round pick, it isn’t great but not bad either. Everyone in the league knew Botterill had defensemen to deal so they weren’t going to be aggressively bidding for any of them so it was going to be difficult to get full market value for Scandella, which was probably a 3^rd round pick at the time. Yes, Scandella was traded at the deadline for a 2^nd round pick and a conditional 4^th round pick but the devil is in the details. There are four reasons Montreal was able to get a better return. First, the trade deadline adjusts the supply and demand of the market so the price was going to be naturally higher. Buffalo could’ve waited it out for a slightly better return but Botterill would’ve been crucified for that too. Second, Montreal retained salary. The salary retention likely bumped the pick up a round because it was critical for St. Louis and the same would’ve been true of any other playoff contender that might have acquired Scandella. Third, Scandella proved he could play effectively in a different situation in Montreal. Although that wasn’t likely a major factor, it probably didn’t hurt either. Finally, Botterill was always playing from behind because of the logjam of defenseman he had. No opposing GM was going to allow him to “win” a trade of a defenseman. The one knock I do have on the return is the lack of a conditional pick. Every trade made in-season should include some performance, trading, or re-signing clause. This would better allow teams to capture the value the player is providing.

If we look just at the Frolik side of the trade, there is nothing wrong with the price of a 4^th round pick. Frolik’s salary certainly isn’t great and likely delayed the trade until the Sabres could move some salary but the idea of acquiring him was not bad. He was a relatively low-risk acquisition who could have provided a decent reward for the Sabres. Overall, I look at this trade as a trade of Frolik for Marco Scandella, a trade of a bottom-four defenseman for a middle-six forward, with similar contract situations. This is what people like to call a hockey trade. I don’t think Botterill made a brilliant trade but he did what he needed to do. The question is whether he did it involving the correct players.

Grade: B

Acquires Wayne Simmonds

Details: Buffalo acquires Wayne Simmonds (with 50% salary retained) for a 2021 5^th round pick 

I know there are people that don’t like this move but frankly, it was an incredibly low-risk move that could lead to a reward. Simmonds is no longer the player he used to be put still brought some unique skills to Buffalo. Although the coaching staff continued to use Rasmus Ristolainen as the net-front man on the power play, that area was a major weakness for the team. Sam Reinhart has proven to be effective in that position but he can be equally effective on the perimeter as well. Simmonds should have come in and been immediately inserted in that position. Everything else he could’ve provided would have been a bonus. Had he somehow caught fire, Botterill would’ve looked like a genius. He didn’t, as expected, but Botterill is only out a 5th round pick in next year’s draft, which is basically nothing. At worst, Simmonds would have filled the hole that would soon be created by trading Conor Sheary.

Grade: B

Acquires Dominik Kahun

Details: Buffalo acquires Dominik Kahun in exchange for Evan Rodrigues and Conor Sheary

This is a home run of a trade for Botterill and the creative type of trade he needs to do more of. Both Rodrigues and Sheary were on expiring contracts and neither were going to be back in Buffalo (Rodrigues wouldn’t have received a tender as an RFA). Both were assets that would have been gone at the end of the season for nothing and were nothing more than rentals at the trade deadline. I also don’t think either player had much value in the trade market. Sheary was probably going to return a 4^th round pick (3^rd if lucky or retaining salary) and Rodrigues was probably a 5^th or 6^th round pick. In essence, both players would have returned a nearly worthless asset. Instead of shopping both separately, Botterill packaged them and got an intriguing asset, Dominik Kahun, in return. Kahun is young, cheap, and has shown he can play in the NHL. He is probably a middle-six forward but is a fairly safe bet to be no worse than that. Though the results are very limited with the Sabres, he did seem to be fitting in well. Regardless, he is a much better asset to have now and likely in the future than whatever those middle to late-round draft picks would have become.

Grade: A

Summary

I think a lot of the flack Botterill receives comes from the singular focus on one horrible trade and his acquisition of Jeff Skinner gets overshadowed by the subsequent contract he signed him to, which was a home run of a trade. I think the biggest issue Botterill has had is many of the trades that have looked good on paper, haven’t produced the expected results. In some instances, it should have been anticipated. However, in many instances, it is somewhat mystifying as to why players have performed so poorly in Buffalo. The other problem in Botterill’s trading history is there are very few trades where the Sabres are the clear “winners.” He has made plenty of fine and balanced trades but he needs to do more to swing trades in his favor. He should take more advantage of adding conditions to trades. Overall, Botterill grades out as very average on his trades.

Overall Grade for Trades: B-

Please note all salary figures and trade compensations are courtesy of Capfriendly.com and all statistical information is courtesy of Naturalstattrick.com. Featured image is via the Buffalo News.

Please follow @afpanalytics and check back to read the remaining articles in the series. Feel free to share your thoughts with @afpanalytics or @k_sticher on Twitter.

KYLE STICH is the Director of AFP Analytics.  In addition, Mr. Stich is a tax specialist and Director of Operations at AFP Consulting LLC, whose clientele include professional athletes performing services on three separate continents. Mr. Stich earned his Master of Science in Sport Management with a Concentration in Sport Analytics from Columbia University in 2017. He earned his undergraduate degrees in Accounting and Sport Management from St. John Fisher College in 2015, where he has served as an adjunct professor teaching Sport Finance and Baseball Analytics.

Friday Focus: October 11th

Welcome to the second edition of AFP Analytic’s Friday Focus section. In the Friday focus post I hope to highlight some of the most interesting events from a numbers perspective during the past week in the NHL. If something catches my eye from other sports, I might mention it here as well. I am intending on this being more of a quick hitter type of read that I hope everyone enjoys. I would also invite any readers to shoot us questions (@afpanalytics) and we will try to answer them every week. We are still early in the NHL season so we want to be careful to speak on definite terms but there are definitely some interesting trends developing that we need to keep an eye on.

Last Week’s Player to Watch – Rasmus Sandin

I previously raved about Rasmus Sandin’s NHL debut against the Ottawa Senators and noted that he is a player to keep an eye on to see if he could sustain his impressive play from his NHL debut. He has still been good but not elite. The Maple Leafs have not allowed a 5v5 goal while he has been on the ice but have also only scored one. The team has controlled the shot share at a 54% rate while basically breaking even in xGF%. Those numbers are perfectly acceptable for a bottom six defenseman but are not super exciting either.

Last Week’s Game to Watch

In last week’s post, I highlighted Tampa Bay-Carolina on Sunday as a game to watch. It did not turn out how I expected. Tampa Bay got absolutely throttled by the Hurricanes. They had no shots on goal in the second period. Carolina had a very nice 69% adjusted shot share and 71% xGF%. It is incredible that Tampa was able to take that game to overtime as they had no business being in the game with the numbers they posted. Again, it is early but Carolina, in my opinion, has announced they have arrived as a legitimate Stanley Cup contender. To me, this game says more about Carolina than it does Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay started slowly last season as well until storming to a historic regular season. But there has to be some concern because…

The Atlantic Division Looks to be a Gauntlet 

Again, it is too early to press the panic button or plan the parade but the Atlantic Division is setting up to be absolutely brutal for its members. Ottawa seems like a lock to finish last based on their roster on paper though after having a strong game against St. Louis, they might be pesky enough to not be complete push overs and could sneak into seventh in the division but that would not be ideal for them. Their adjusted xGF% is actually a respectable 50%. Their adjusted CF% is not as strong at 46.58%. They are taking a quantity over quality approach in their defensive zone. They are allowing a high percentage of shots but their decent xGF% means they are likely not as strong in quality. 

After Ottawa, things in the Atlantic get very interesting. Montreal and Florida have not gotten off to good starts. Their xGF%s, which is the best predictor of future success, are 45.22% and 41.85%, respectively. The next worst in the division is Toronto at 49%. Boston isn’t much further ahead at 50%. Tampa Bay vaulted themselves to 53.49%, which is tenth best in the NHL despite their dreadful performance against Carolina. The other top two Atlantic division teams in xGF% are two of the biggest surprises in the NHL. Detroit has the eighth best xGF% at 54.6% and the best team in the Atlantic and second best in the NHL is the Buffalo Sabres, who are sporting an impressive 59% xGF% through their first four games. Please keep in mind those are score adjusted numbers. 

With Buffalo getting points in every game and Boston, Detroit, and Tampa getting points in three of four games, the early season struggles by Montreal and Florida must be highlighted. Montreal’s early season schedule hasn’t done them any favors, starting on the road against Carolina, Toronto, Buffalo before playing their home opener a night after a tough overtime loss to Buffalo. They at least get a few days of rest before they have to play the St. Louis Blues, the defending Stanley Cup Champions. I think Montreal is a good team on paper and I would expect to see both their underlying metrics and team point total tick upwards. However, the early season hole they find themselves in could be the difference at season’s end. Florida is in the same spot as Montreal as they played Tampa Bay twice and Carolina once. Getting one win out of those three games is commendable. I don’t like saying a team’s fourth game out of 82 is a must win but Florida losing to Buffalo tonight would not be good for the Panthers. Buffalo is likely to be one of the teams they will be directly competing with for a playoff spot and spotting them a seven-point lead might be a problem. It would also keep them in seventh place in the division so they would have to pass at least two Atlantic teams. Hockey fans, especially Sabre fans, will remember Buffalo got off to a fast start last year before choking down the stretch. Last season, their play seemed unsustainable based on how they were winning games. This season their metrics are strong enough that a regression is less likely. Again, it’s early but early season deficits are surprisingly difficult to overcome, especially for teams that were thought of as bubble teams at the beginning of the season.

What is up with San Jose?

San Jose was a popular pick to make a deep playoff run this season. The team lost Joe Pavelski but was able to maintain the rest of their core and now have a healthy Erik Karlsson. For a team that was only six wins from the Stanley Cup and decimated with injuries during the playoffs, it did not seem unreasonable to expect them to be strong once again this season. However, they could not have started worse. They started with two losses to Vegas, the first of which they were throttled (which we detailed last week). They have gotten better each game, even dominating against Nashville and finally got their first win in dominating fashion against Chicago last night, a game they almost had to win. 

Although San Jose finally got a win, their underlying metrics are still a major cause for concern. They have just a 51% CF% and a very poor 46% xGF%. Those are both adjusted metrics. The Sharks are going to have to go on a run at some point because Vegas, Arizona, Anaheim, and Los Angeles all rank in the top half of the league in xGF%. Calgary has a decent xGF% and has banked some team points, while Edmonton has worse metrics than San Jose but has still managed to start 4-0. In what will likely be a tough Pacific division and an even tougher Western Conference, San Jose’s slow start has to be looked at critically. 

Five Teams Remain Unbeaten

Heading into Friday’s action, we see five NHL teams, the Carolina Hurricanes, Colorado Avalanche, Edmonton Oilers, New York Rangers, and Philadelphia Flyers remain unbeaten but their performances could not be more different. Since New York and Philadelphia have only played two games, I do not want to discuss them further here because of a small sample. I have already touched on Carolina but I once again want to reiterate how impressive they have been early on. They rank fourth in xGF% (57%) and eighth in CF% (53%). As long as they continue to get adequate goaltending, they may want to hold off on scheduling any events in their arena for April and May. Colorado just had an impressive win over a good Bruins’ team, where they had a slight advantage in shots and broke even in xGF%. Their underlying numbers are very average. They were expected to be a top team coming into the season and have only played three games so I wouldn’t be surprised to see their numbers uptick slightly to match their results. Edmonton, the third unbeaten team, instill the least confidence. As previously mentioned, their numbers are not strong. They are the early candidate to be this year’s 2018 Buffalo Sabres, start hot and limp to the finish. Their underlying metrics during 5v5 play have to improve if they hope to make the playoffs.

Player(s) to Watch

Last week I highlighted Rasmus Sandin to see if he could continue his incredible play that he showed against Ottawa and I discussed the results above. This week I want to highlight Travis Konecny and the Buffalo Sabres’ “4^th line.” Konecny is a player I have been high on since he was drafted. He has flashed moments of strong play but has not taken the next step in performance. However, he is still young and is playing his first season on a new long-term contract. Although it is still early (2 games), he has been on the ice for 35 shots for and only 13 against (73% CF%). His xGF% is an impressive 85.39%. He has also scored two goals. 

The other players I would like to highlight are players that have often drawn the criticism of #SabresTwitter. I mentioned Kyle Okposo last week and want to once again highlight him and his line mates, Johan Larsson and Zemegus Girgensons. The three of them compose Buffalo’s “fourth line” but the trio has arguable been the best line in hockey, by advanced metrics, through the team’s first four games. Okposo ranks second, Girgensons fifth, and Larsson sixth, among players who have played at least ten minutes in xGF%. When it comes to CF%, Okposo is third, Girgensons ninth, and Larsson 16^th. For three players who fans didn’t want to be on the opening night roster, they have been extremely steady and impressive. It would be nice to have some goals come from their strong play but for a team that played strong during 5v5 hockey in their first two games and dropped off in their second two their steady play has to be appreciated. 

Game to Watch

Like last week, there are some strong contenders for the game to watch this week. On Monday, we have Colorado at Washington, Tuesday there is Tampa Bay at Montreal and Nashville at Vegas, Wednesday has Colorado at Pittsburgh and Toronto at Washington, while Thursday has Tampa Bay at Boston. Last week I highlighted a potential Eastern Conference Final matchup so this week I am going to go for the potential Western Conference Final matchup and go with Nashville at Vegas. 

If you have any thoughts or would like to submit questions for next week’s Friday Focus, tweet us, @afpanalytics, or me, @k_sticher.

All data is courtesy of naturalstattrick.com and capfriendly.com 

KYLE STICH is the Director of AFP Analytics.  In addition, Mr. Stich is a tax specialist and Director of Operations at AFP Consulting LLC, whose clientele include professional athletes performing services on three separate continents. Mr. Stich earned his Master of Science in Sport Management with a Concentration in Sport Analytics from Columbia University in 2017. He earned his undergraduate degrees in Accounting and Sport Management from St. John Fisher College in 2015, where he has served as an adjunct professor teaching Sport Finance and Baseball Analytics.

The Curious Case of Rasmus Ristolainen: What is his value?

We previously wrote an article series (part 1 & part 2) looking at the Buffalo Sabres and their logjam on defense. We concluded that the Sabres best option would involve a trade of Rasmus Ristolainen. In the second part of the article series, we looked at nine teams that could have varying degrees of interest in the 24-year-old, right-handed defenseman. There was one burning question that remained, what is Rasmus Ristolainen’s value and why would the Sabres trade him. In this article, I will do my best to provide an unbiased assessment of Ristolainen’s play to help answer those questions. As the regular season quickly approaches, it is critical the Sabres make the smartest lineup decisions to give them a chance to get off to a good start.

Last season, there were nine defensemen who were under the age of 26 and had a cap hit between $5M and $6M on a long-term contract for next season. These players will demonstrate what level of play the Sabres should expect out of Ristolainen and can be found in the table below.

Comparing Player Performance

The first step I want to take is to look at Ristolainen’s performance compared to these other players as that provides us an insight into what level of play similar players provide. The question I want you to continue asking yourself as you work your way through each section of the article is would you be willing to trade one of these players in a one for one trade from both teams’ perspective. If your answer to that question is a resounding no, the player is not performing at the expected level.

To assess these players’ performance, I am going to focus on three “underlying metrics,” their scoring metrics, and then any other individual metrics that I see as relevant. I will focus on the previous three seasons for each player and only look at their play during 5v5 play. Please note that all statistics have been sourced from NaturalStatTrick.com As I work my way through the performance analysis, I will explain what metrics I am using, why I think they are important, and what they are telling us about the player.

“Underlying Metrics”

I will start with metrics that are most predictive of team success. Here, I will look at Corsi For% (CF%) Relative (Rel), Goals For% (GF%) Rel, and Expected Goals For% (xGF%) Rel. For each metric, I will also include their components (For and Against) so we can understand why a player is performing how they are. Let me start by explaining why I am using Relative metrics. Relative metrics are a way to look at players on a more equal scale. It will be much easier for a player to have a 50% GF% on a team that has a 55% GF% than it would be to have a 50% GF% on a team with a GF% of 45%. To put things in simpler terms, it would be easier for a player to have had a positive goal differential while playing for the 2018-2019 Tampa Bay Lightning compared to playing for the 2018-2019 Ottawa Senators. The relative metrics are looking at how much better the team performed with the player on the ice versus when he was off the ice. A relative metric near zero, means the team performed virtually the same with the player on and off the ice. Let’s stick with our example of having a player with a 50% goal differential. If that player were playing on a team with the 55% GF%, his relative GF% would be -5%, since the team is 5% worse when he is on the ice. If that same player were on a 45% team, he would have a relative GF% of +5% since he was making his team 5% better when he was on the ice. One important thing to note about the relative metrics is that those that are against metrics are better to be negative. You want to see a player give up less shots or less goals when on the ice, which is what a negative relative metric would indicate.

The first metric I will look at is Corsi. Corsi is measuring every time a shot is taken, whether it be on goal or toward goal. I prefer to refer to Corsi as shots and traditional shots as shots on goal. From here on, I will interchangeably use Corsi and shots to refer to the same thing. I will always refer to shots on goal as just that. This is the logic used in soccer and there is no reason to not apply the same in hockey.

Now that I have established what Corsi is, I will explain why it is important. With no easily accessible time of possession tracking, Corsi gives us the best ability to estimate who is consistently playing in their offensive zone and who is consistently playing in their defensive zone. If your team is taking more shots against your opponent while you are on the ice, your team has to be playing in the offensive zone. If your opponent is taking more shots, you are spending more time in the defensive zone. There are flaws with the metric, namely, you are influenced by the teammates you are playing with and the situation you are playing in. However, over the course of a season and certainly multiple seasons, most of these concerns will tease themselves out. Let’s take a look, starting with the 2016-2017 season. Remember that for the orange bar, representing shots against, the lower the number is better.

When looking at the 2016-2017 season, we see that the Sabres got absolutely caved in when Ristolainen was on the ice. Some of these other players hurt their teams’ performance but none as negatively as Ristolainen. It might be acceptable to see decent shot generation while getting shelled in his own zone because that would lead me to believe that with more favorable deployment he could be effective. One of the arguments in Ristolainen’s favor has always been he had been saddled with terrible partners for many of his early years in Buffalo. In 2016, Ristolainen played the most minutes with Jake McCabe followed by Josh Gorges and Dmitry Kulikov. The latter two defenders are definitely not possession drivers and McCabe is not a defender known for driving play himself either so on the surface it is not surprising to see the Sabres’ numbers worse when Ristolainen was on the ice considering who he had to play with. However, a deeper dive into the pairings show that each defender was actually BETTER when away from Ristolainen. Ristolainen was the one dragging their play down. That should not happen. However, I would not want to draw conclusions based off of one season. Let’s look at the 2017-2018 season next, which was kinder to Ristolainen.

During the 2017-2018 season, Ristolainen showed signs of being passable. The Sabres saw a very slight uptick in play when Ristolainen was on the ice versus when he was off. Considering they were sixthworst team in controlling the shot counter, this isn’t overly impressive. This season Ristolainen saw most of his minutes with Marco Scandella. The pair’s performance was similar to Ristolainen’s overall performance. However, when looking at Ristolainen’s performance compared to the other players in our sample, it is still really poor. Only him, Dumba, and Theodore did not significantly improve the team, though all three did improve from 2016 to 2017. Let’s look to the 2018-2019 season where we will see Ristolainen take a significant step back.

We now see three straight years where Ristolainen’s team gave up significantly more shots when he was on the ice versus when he was off. This is the first year in which he was not the weakest of our comparable group in this area, though Morgan Rielly was so strong offensively that he virtually canceled out the team’s poor performance in their own end when he was on the ice. We do not want to draw absolute conclusions based on one metric but as things stand now, I would say Ristolainen is not performing at the level he should. I would have a hard time envisioning any of the teams of these other players trading one of them one for one for Ristolainen. One of the questions the team would have to consider is if they are selling low. With just looking at one metric, last offseason would have been the best one to trade Ristolainen.

The next metric I will assess is GF% Rel. This metric is very straightforward. It is looking at whether or not your team is outscoring the opponent’s team while a player is on the ice. Keep in mind the relative aspect, which will show whether your team’s goal differential is getting better or worse while the player in on the ice. The positive of this metric is it is indicating actual outcomes. To win games, you have to outscore the opponent and that is what this metric measures. The negative of this metric is it is highly reliable on outcomes outside of a player’s control, namely the goaltending, both for and against. Save percentage is incredibly inconsistent from season to season and tremendous luck is involved. With the goal of any player analysis to be to isolate individual skill, we need to look beyond GF% to accomplish that. However, I still want to present the GF% Rel and its components because it will help us tell the most complete story about a player. I will again start by looking at the 2016-2017 season.

In 2016, we see that the Sabres were slightly better in goal differential when Ristolainen was on the ice versus off. He slotted in the middle of the comparison group for this season. As I discussed above, this is not a metric that I want to put a ton of stock in but one of the positive takeaways here is despite getting shelled by shots when Ristolainen was on the ice, the actual results were actually ok. Let’s move on to the 2017-2018 season.

Above, we see another moderately strong performance from Ristolainen, which better follows his shot metrics. Once again, we see Ristolainen slotting favorably among the comparison group. Ristolainen’s strong performance in two out of two seasons is a good trend but as we move to the most recent season, we will see a very concerning outcome.

Last season, Ristolainen performed the worst among the comparison group. Because of the unpredicatability of goaltending his poor performance here could be the result of the Sabres’ goaltending tandem of Carter Hutton and Linus Ullmark playing dreadful hockey after the Sabres’ improbable hot start. However, Ristolainen was paired with his most competent partners during the 2018-2019 season but put up his worst results. I really want to emphasize that looking at goals for and goals against do not paint a true picture of the player’s abilities and is highly dependent on the randomness of goaltending. Out of the three metrics I will present in this section, it is the one I would put the least emphasis on.

The final metric I will present in this section is xGF%, which is a more theoretical measure that does a fantastic job of speaking to an individual’s independent skill. Not only does it provide a strong individualized look at a player, it strongly correlates to team success. Every shot has many different factors, such as distance, angle from goal, type of shot, etc. that will influence how likely it is to result in a goal. A model has been created that takes those factors and assigns every shot a probability of resulting in a goal. We can then aggregate those results to determine how many goals are expected to be scored. We then look at it in the exact same manner as GF%. The advantage of this metric is it strips away luck involved in goals and provides the best individual look at a player. The one downside is it is influenced by who you play with. Let’s start by looking at 2016.

The Sabres were the fourth-worst team in expected goals during the 2016 season at 47.44% and the team was more than 2% worse when Ristolainen was on the ice. That is brutal. The other players who had negative results in 2016 played on teams that had xGF% above 50% so they were not playing at the same level as their teammates on a good team while Ristolainen made one of the worst teams in the league significantly worse. Though it is just one season, that is not a ringing endorsement for Ristolainen. Let’s move on to 2017 next.

The good news in 2017 is Ristolainen slightly improved his team’s performance. The bad news is the Sabres had the worst xGF% in the league at 46.17%. In simple terms, Ristolainen barely moved the needle in a positive direction on the league’s worst team. He was replaceable on the worst team in the league. After two seasons, there are only three players (Dumba, Theodore, and Rielly) who could be thought of in the same tier as Ristolainen. We will look to 2018 to see if the same players appear again in the bottom.

In 2018 we see some much different results than the previous two seasons. The only two players who remain near even or negative for the three seasons we looked at are Morgan Rielly and Rasmus Ristolainen. It’s interesting that the strong performers from previous years were weak this year and some of the weak ones (Dumba and Theordore) were much stronger. In the last three years, the only player we could argue as being close performance wise, based off the relative metrics I have discussed here, to Ristolainen is Rielly. 

Individual Metrics

Now that I have been through the relative metrics I want to turn your attention to some individual metrics. We will start with individual scoring and touch on some other metrics that speak to some of the other impacts the players have when they are on the ice. For some brevity, I will not go into as much depth as I did for the above metrics, mostly because these metrics are going to be more familiar to all hockey fans. I will emphasize that I will present all of these metrics as per 60 metrics so the players are compared on an equal scale. Using per 60 metrics looks at how each player would perform if they each played 60 minutes. If a player averages a goal per 60 minutes and each game played 20 minutes, we would expect them to score a goal every three games.

Scoring Metrics

Here we will look at goals, assists, and total points. When looking at defensemen, I do not like breaking assists into primary versus secondary even though the math behind it indicates we should. Primary assists are more repeatable from season to season because there is more skill involved. Players directly setting up goals have much more control over the outcome rather than relying on another player to do it for you. However, one of a defenseman’s main jobs is to make stretch passes to move the puck out of the zone. In a perfect sequence, a defender makes a stretch pass to trigger an odd–man rush that results in a goal. The defender perfectly executed his responsibility so he should not be penalized if he gets a secondary assist versus a primary assist. As such, I will not separate the two. Let’s take a look at these defenders’ scoring metrics.

One way to overlook some of Rasmus Ristolainen’s defensive deficiencies would be if he was contributing to more goals than his counterparts. Ristolainen has been a good point producer on the power play but when we look at his point production compared to the other comparable players, it is lacking. Out of the three seasons I have presented, this past season is the only one where we see Ristolainen’s 5v5 point production not be the worst of the sample. With the emergence of Rasmus Dahlin and the additions of Collin Miller and Brandon Montour, Ristolainen may struggle to get significant power play minutes so he will have to continue to produce during 5v5 play. Last season Ristolainen produced 21 points during 5v5 play, which was 47^thbest among defensemen. That was one less point than Dahlin and the same as Victor Hedman, Charlie McAvoy, Shea Theodore, and Ivan Provorov. That is respectable company. The problem is that is three points higher than his previous high of 18, which occurred in 2015-2016. Right now, I would consider last season as an outlier and wouldn’t expect Ristolainen to produce over 20 points during 5v5 play. If he is placed in favorable circumstances, I could be wrong but if I was forced to bet I would take under 20.

Points are not everything to a player but it would be easier to overlook relatively average production if Ristolainen offset his point production with quality underlying metrics but that is not the case. I would also be more willing to overlook his poor relative metrics if he produced points at a high rate. This is where I think Morgan Reilly separates himself. So far, we have not seen Ristolainen perform well compared to the other players in our sample. I will present two more set of graphs to look at some other measures that could speak to how Ristolainen has performed. 

Impact Metrics

In this next section, we will take a look at how the players performed in giveaways, takeaways, penalties taken, and penalties draw. These are all metrics most hockey observers will be more familiar with. Here we would want to see players taking the puck away more than giving it away and drawing more penalties than they take. One critical caveat to make here is giveaways and takeaways is a subjective stat. They are recorded by each arena’s off-ice officials, each of which could have their own definition of what constitutes a giveaway or takeaway. Subjective metrics are becoming more reliable every year but there is still a human element involved so there is potential for error. Once again, I will present the previous three seasons and after the graphs provide commentary on them. 

In these graphs we see Ristolainen show well in puck responsibility, which I have to admit surprises me a little. My gut reaction is many of Ristolainen’s possession struggles come from poor puck management. When looking at his numbers though, giveaways are one of the areas he performs stronger than the other players in this sample. Maybe he benefits from generous off-ice officials in Buffalo that don’t penalize him as much or his struggles come from other poor decision-making. Another possible explanation for his poor underlying metrics is his inability to take the puck away. When watching Ristolainen, I often see him giving up zone entries far too easily. Too often he will back away from the opposing attacker when they reach the blueline. Plays through the neutral zone and zone entries are the most opportune time for defenders to record takeaways. Another way that defenders can record turnovers is by physically bullying players off the puck. Ristolainen should excel at this. 

The other metrics I presented in this section relate to penalties, both taken and drawn. Considering Ristolainen plays a very physical and aggressive style of play, he compares well in penalties taken. Based off the comparable players, I expected Ristolainen to rank near the top in penalties taken in every season. Instead, he is very much in the middle. One thing many supporters of Ristolainen like to point to is he does a good job of getting under opposing players’ skin. In the future there may be some ways to better quantify that sentiment but for now I will look at penalties drawn. This is obviously not perfect and I must acknowledge that currently much of that impact is intangible. However, I do think supporters who use that argument need to use it a little less enthusiastically. In 2017, Ristolainen finished near the top of the group in penalties drawn. However, in the other two seasons he was bottom two. If he was truly getting under players’ skin, he should be drawing more penalties. Too often I have seen Ristolainen pestering an opponent while also taking himself out of the play and not getting a penalty out of it. I want to see Ristolainen draw more penalties since it would help make up for some of his poor underlying metrics.

In this section, we don’t see anything that moves the needle either for or against Ristolainen. With his poor underlying metrics, I would like to see him provide some other contributions that can help his team during 5v5 play. At this point, I am still searching for that area of his game.

Physicality Metrics

One reason many NHL observers like Ristolainen is he plays with an edge and is a grit and grind player. In this final section of metrics, I will present statistics to assess that and discuss what they mean for Ristolainen as a player. Here, we will look at blocked shots, hits given, and hits taken. All of these are once again per 60 minutes and during 5v5 play. Please keep in mind that hits, like takeaways and giveaways, are a subjective statistic. I will once again present the three graphs and then move into my commentary.

It should come as no surprise that we see Ristolainen as the player who delivers the most hits. He also takes his fair share of hits. However, there is a downward trend in the number of shots he has blocked. If I am being blunt, performing well in any of these measures don’t really positively impact the team’s ability to win games. Ristolainen’s play style is definitely more physical but one reason he is able to deliver so many hits is because he is chasing the puck more than any of these other players. The only way a player can deliver a hit is if the other team doesn’t have the puck. As a defenseman, it is more likely that most of these hits are coming in his own zone, meaning his team is constantly getting pressured while he is on the ice. One reason that Ristolainen’s blocked shots could have fallen from 2016 to 2017 is the coaching change the Sabres made and the mentality on blocking shots could have changed. 

Conclusion

The Buffalo Sabres have a decision to make on Rasmus Ristolainen and it could be directly tied to Dustin Byfuglien’s decision in Winnipeg. Back in July we wrote about why Ristolainen to Winnipeg would make sense. It would make even more sense if Byfuglien decides to retire. It also appears that Anaheim might be looking for a right-shot defender and might be willing to include Ondrej Kase in a deal. If that is true, the Sabres should have made that trade already. With Carolina recently trading a right-handed defender, Justin Faulk, all eyes are now on Buffalo.

Carolina’s trade of Justin Faulk has a direct impact on Ristolainen. Ristolainen is now the most desirable right-handed defenseman that is likely available. The trade of Faulk also sets a baseline for what a potential Ristolainen trade could look like. I think Ristolainen likely has a higher trade value than Faulk and the Sabres, in my opinion, would need to achieve that to go through with a trade. I also don’t think the Sabres have to get a roster player, especially if it is a player like Joel Edmundson. The team does not need another “throw-in” type player in a trade. If anything, they need to be the ones “throwing” a player in. Faulk has been a better defenseman in recent years but Ristolainen’s age and contract status should make him the more valuable asset.

The obvious trade would be to use Ristolainen as a way to upgrade the forward group. Kase or one of Winnipeg’s young forwards would do just that. However, there is another option that might not be as popular among Sabre fans but I think could be a wise move. Dylan Cozens appears to be a good, young forward prospect. However, after trading Alex Nylander and likely promoting Victor Olofsson, the team is suddenly devoid of forwards, especially wingers with high offensive upside. Tage Thompson looks to be the closest to fit that description and he is far from a sure thing. Using Ristolainen to fill that void might be a better decision than many fans might believe. Even though the team does not have tons of future money committed, there are some upcoming contracts (Dahlin, Reinhart, Montour) that could see their future cap space disappear quickly. If the team could move Ristolainen’s entire salary, while getting a cost-controlled forward who could contribute in a year or two, could turn out to be the smarter long-term move.

So, what should Sabre fans want them to do? If you’ve read my analysis, I think I have painted a pretty clear picture of the impact Ristolainen has on the Sabres and how he compares to other defensemen around a similar age, being paid a similar amount. I don’t think he compares well. For the age Ristolainen is and the cap hit he commands, the Sabres could better allocate their resources. They could flip Ristolainen for a forward that could have an immediate impact and make it a cap neutral move. The team also could flip Ristolainen for future assets at some point to clear additional cap space that the team may need. 

Having said that, do I think Ristolainen is a worthless asset? No, I don’t. Ristolainen’s ideal role is probably as a second-pair defenseman who could drive a team’s power play and see minimal penalty kill minutes. Ristolainen will provide the most value to a team as a powerplay driver. The opportunity to do that in Buffalo should be gone. Rasmus Dahlin should be the defenseman with the Sabres’ top unit and Miller, Montour, and Ristolainen should compete for time on the second unit. There is no denying that Ristolainen has been put in some tough situations in Buffalo and he has handled everything well. However, if he was going to become a true top pair defender, he should be improving his team’s play while he is on the ice by now. Dahlin did so as an 18-year-old. 

Maybe Ralph Kruger will finally be the coach Ristolainen needs to channel his physical gifts and make him a quality NHL defenseman. If I’m in the Sabres’ front office, I wouldn’t hold my breath on this happening. This offseason might have been a bad time to trade him because he had a brutal end to the season and the team likely would have been selling low. The best outcome for the Sabres could be Ristolainen getting off to a good start while a team like Winnipeg gets off to a slow start and realizes they have a need for a player like Ristolainen.

If you have thoughts on this article, tweet us, @afpanalytics, or me, @k_sticher with your thoughts, comments, questions. If you enjoyed this article, please give us a follow as we will try to produce some quality content as the hockey season arrives. Finally, it is my hope to do a follow-up to this article that includes some video clips. I can’t promise that it will come any time soon or if at all.

All stats are courtesy of naturalstattrick.com and contract data is from capfriendly.com.

KYLE STICH is the Director of AFP Analytics.  In addition, Mr. Stich is a tax specialist and Director of Operations at AFP Consulting LLC, whose clientele include professional athletes performing services on three separate continents. Mr. Stich earned his Master of Science in Sport Management with a Concentration in Sport Analytics from Columbia University in 2017. He earned his undergraduate degrees in Accounting and Sport Management from St. John Fisher College in 2015, where he has served as an adjunct professor teaching Sport Finance and Baseball Analytics.

Who Will Surprise During the 2019-2020 Season? – Part 2: Eastern Conference

Each year, there are players throughout the NHL who seem to come out of nowhere. Jonathan Marchessault is a recent case of a player taking an unexpected step towards stardom. For the upcoming 2019-2020 season, I have taken an in-depth look throughout the league and have identified nine players in each conference who are most likely to be the next Marchessault. Each conference’s group of nine players has been broken into three groups based on their likeliness to exceed expectations next season: probable, coin flip, and possible. These groups represent what I believe to be the likelihood that each player breaks out like Marchessault. I did not want to have this centered on one team more than another, so I avoided picking multiple players from the same team.

This process is not as simple as looking at how many points someone has scored. While that may have some importance, there are many other underlying statistics that can provide a hint as to who may be able to take the next step forward. Other than total points (goals and assists) and TOI (time on ice), I will look specifically at 5v5 statistics (provided by naturalstattrick.com) for each player, as that helps take away any influence by “unfair” situations like the power play and penalty kill. Those situations tend to inflate the numbers of players. Looking at 5v5 ultimately tells us how well the player performed in the basic game of hockey. The analysis of each chosen player will involve the consideration of these statistics, as well as the overall situation and circumstance that they find themselves in. The age listed with the player is the age that they will play the majority of the 2019-2020 season as. I have tried to look at players who were not high draft picks as these players are expected to take a step forward. Instead, the goal was to identify some under the radar players.

Probable:

Marcus Pettersson, 23, LD, Pittsburgh Penguins

Marcus Pettersson is a player who might be a stretch for this list because it may not be such a huge surprise if he takes the next step. However, his small sample size in the NHL lands him on this list. A former second-round pick of the Anaheim Ducks, the left-handed defenseman did not impress enough in Anaheim to earn a spot on their roster for the long-term. Just this past season, the Ducks traded him to the Penguins after just 27 games in exchange for forward Daniel Sprong. This was a swap of prospects who weren’t quite fitting in with their organizations. In those 27 games in Anaheim, he had six assists. His CF% (Corsi For %) was 46.29% and his relative CF% (relative to his teammates) was 1.65%. His overall play was not great, but he improved his team when he was on the ice. Once Pettersson arrived in Pittsburgh, his statistics improved. He had two goals and 17 assists in 57 games. His CF% in those games was 51.35%, while his relative CF% was 3.12%. His overall play improved, while the impact he had on his team in relation to his teammates was greater. His average TOI (time on ice) increased from 14:01 to 17:57. He was given more of a shot in Pittsburgh and it paid off for the team.

Moving into the 2019-2020 season, Pettersson should have an opportunity to continue his success with Pittsburgh. The Penguins have Kris Letang, Justin Schultz, and Brian Dumoulin locked into their top two defensive pairs. That leaves one spot for the likes of Pettersson, Jack Johnson, and Erik Gudbranson. Assuming Pettersson can return this upcoming season at the same level he left off on, He should have no problem securing the last spot in the top four. Currently, he is an unsigned RFA and the Penguins are just about out of cap space. This is certainly a situation to watch. Assuming the contract situation gets resolved, Pettersson is in a prime spot to have a great season on the Penguins’ blueline.

Christian Wolanin, 24, LD, Ottawa Senators

Wolanin, a fourth round pick in 2015, had a great first full pro year this past season. He did very well in the AHL, producing 31 points (seven goals, 24 assists) in 40 games as a defenseman. That play earned him a call up to the Senators. He saw 30 NHL games, producing four goals and eight assists for 12 points. His underlying numbers impressed too. He had a CF% of 45.92% and while that is not good, his relative CF% was 2.50%. He was playing for the worst team in hockey. He made the team better in relation to his teammates. After being a very productive AHL defenseman and showing he belonged in the NHL on the Senators in just one professional season, Wolanin is in a prime position to take a step forward.

For a young defenseman looking for an opportunity at a bigger role, there may not be a better team to be on than the Senators. While you might struggle to win some games, there are a lot of open spots on defense. Thomas Chabot is locked into the top pair, while Dylan DeMelo most likely has a top four spot. That leaves two top four spots up for grabs. Christian Jaros, another young defenseman, could definitely be given a shot. There are also veterans Nikita Zaitsev, Ron Hainsey, and Mark Borowiecki who are looking for that type of role. However, none of these defenseman are sure locks for a top four spot. Ideally, they would all be playing bottom pair minutes. If Wolanin can continue at the level he is at, or take another step forward, he could have a 2019-2020 season that puts him on the map for a long-term spot on Ottawa’s blueline.

Oskar Lindblom, 23, LW, Philadelphia Flyers

The 2015 fifth-round pick had his first North American hockey season in 2017-2018. He spent most of the year in the AHL, producing 16 goals and 18 assists for 34 points in 54 games. That same season, he did see 23 games in the NHL. However, he was not as productive. He had two goals and four assists for six points in 23 games. This first season was enough for the Flyers to give Lindblom a shot the following season. In the 2018-2019 season, Linblom played in 81 games for the team. He did fairly well in a third-line role, posting 17 goals and 16 assists for 33 points. Not only was he productive in his role from a scoring standpoint, but his underlying numbers were also good. He had a 50.99% CF%. His relative CF% was 3.40%. Lindblom brought a good two-way game to the Flyers third line. His presence on the ice made the Flyers a better team. Entering the upcoming season at just age 23, Lindblom is in a prime position to take another step and provide the type of value that a top six winger would.

The situation in Philadelphia may lead to Lindblom being stuck on the third line for another season. Down the middle, the Flyers will most likely have Sean Couturier, Kevin Hayes, Nolan Patrick, and Scott Laughton. There are four spots on the wing in the top six. Those spots will most likely belong to Claude Giroux, Jakub Voracek, James van Reimsdyk, and Travis Konecny. Unless Lindblom can take a role from one of those wingers or one of them gets hurt, he will find himself back on the third line for another season.

Coin Flip:

Denis Malgin, 22, C/RW, Florida Panthers

Malgin has played in three seasons for the Panthers. However, he has played just over half of the games in each season. The past two seasons may be the most important for the progression of Malgin’s career. In the 2017-2018 season, Malgin played in 51 games and had 11 goals and 11 assists for 22 points. He had a CF% of 50.94%, with a relative CF% of 2.02%. The next season, in 50 games, Malgin produced only seven goals and nine assists for 16 points. While his production fell slightly, his underlying statistics were very similar. He had a CF% of 51.40% and a relative CF% of 2.45%. Each season, he ultimately was a serviceable player on the ice, and he made his team better when he was playing. The decline in points wasn’t huge, so it shouldn’t cause too much concern for the team when evaluating what type of player Malgin can be.

For the Panthers, two forwards may be going back and forth between the second and third line: Brett Connolly and Frank Vatrano. However, if Malgin can take another step and start producing points more regularly, he could push for that last spot on the second line. The attention will most likely be on those other two forwards, but the fact that there will be some competition there means there is an opportunity. At worst, Malgin should be battling for a third-line role, which would be an improvement on his fourth-line role this past season. There should be a spot on the wing and at center up for grabs on the third line. Malgin’s ability to play both positions helps his chances to lock in a third line role. While there is a chance Malgin will break out this season, it is also just as possible that he gets stuck in his fourth line role once again.

Jesper Bratt, 21, LW/RW, New Jersey Devils

Bratt, a sixth-round pick in 2016, burst onto the scene during the 2017-2018 season that saw the Devils all of a sudden look like a very impressive team. The rookie Bratt contributed to that, as he produced 13 goals and 22 assists for 35 points in 74 games. However, Bratt seemed to have a bit of a sophomore slump in the 2018-2019 season. He only made it into 51 games due to injury. In those games, he was able to get close to his previous point total. He had eight goals and 25 assists for 33 points. His CF% ws 48.23, which isn’t ideal. His relative CF% was 0.78%. While that isn’t a great number, it isn’t bad either. He ultimately made his team better when he was on the ice in relation to his teammates. The big thing that sticks out in this season was the injury that kept him from playing.

Bratt is in a good situation in New Jersey. Taylor Hall, Kyle Palmieri, and Wayne Simmonds will most likely take three of the four wing spots in the top six. That leaves one spot open and there is not a clear option to take it. Along with Bratt, the Devils will have Miles Wood and Blake Coleman fighting for that spot. If Bratt can return to the form he s, he should be able to secure that last spot on the wing in the top six. The opportunity is certainly there for Jesper Bratt to take another step and breakout this upcoming season.

Peter Cehlarik, 24, LW/RW, Boston Bruins

A bit of time has gone by since Cehlarik was a third-round draft pick in the 2013 draft. Throughout the past three seasons, he has become a decent AHL forward. He had 38 points (20 goals, 18 assists) in 49 games during the 2016-2017 season, while the 2017-2018 season saw him produce 23 points (11 goals, 12 assists) in 35 games. in the 2018-2019 season, he had 38 points (12 goals, 26 assists) in 53 games. He also saw his longest NHL look this past season. In 20 games as a fourth-line forward, he had four goals and two assists for six points. The advanced statistics on Cehlarik paint a bright picture in those 20 games. His CF% was 59.50%. While that could be attributed to the fact that he was on a great Bruins team, his relative CF% of 6.69% shows that he made the team better when he was on the ice. While it is a small sample size, it is the type of production that you want to see from young forwards when called upon.

While Cehlarik showed he may be ready for a shot at an NHL role, the team has quite the forward group. There are 13 other NHL forwards who Cehlarik will have to fight with for a roster spot, and that doesn’t consider any prospects. While Cehlarik may be able to beat out players like Par Lindholm and Chris Wagner, it may be tough to find anything more than a fourth-line role. While he may be ready to make the jump to the NHL and excel, the roster logjam at the forward position hinders the likelihood that it actually happens. If he were available in a trade, he could be a saavy pickup for another team.

Possible:

Evan Rodrigues, 26, C/LW, Buffalo Sabres

The Sabres should be loving that Rodrigues has been the type of player he is considering he was an undrafted free agent. Other than Jeff Skinner, Jack Eichel, and Sam Reinhart, there is a case to be made that Rodrigues is the fourth-best forward on the Sabres’ roster. This past season, he saw time from the fourth-line to the first-line and he played well in whatever role he was asked to play. While he had only nine goals and 20 assists in 74 games, it is important to note that he was often playing with teammates like Vladimir Sobotka, Johan Larsson, and Zemgus Girgensons. None of those players had a positive impact offensively on the team. Rodrigues has good underlying numbers. His CF% was 51.59%, and he posted a relative CF% of 2.26%. The team was better when he was on the ice. The ability is there for Rodrigues to take another step and become a strong two-way player who can produce around 40 points. He has proven he has the ability to fill in on the top forward lines. He is anything but a liability on the ice.

Rodrigues has been a good fill-in option in the top six. While it’s possible he takes another step, he is most likely that player who is a great third-liner who doesn’t look out of place on higher lines. Skinner, Eichel, Reinhart, and Marcus Johansson are locked into the top six. Chances are, players like Victor Olofsson, Conor Sheary, Jimmy Vesey, and Casey Mittelstadt will be given a shot in higher roles before Rodrigues. While Rodrigues should improve, it is likely he continues to be the good middle six forward that he has been.

Kenny Agostino, 27, LW, Toronto Maple Leafs

Agostino was a fifth-round pick in 2010. He did not get into the NHL until the 2013-2014 season. Agostino has consistently been a dominant presence in the AHL, with three seasons in a row of at least 50 points. In the 2016-2017 AHL season, he had 83 points in 65 games. He didn’t see more than a handful of games in the NHL until this past 2018-2019 season. He played for both the Montreal Canadiens and New Jersey Devils. With the Canadiens, he had two goals and nine assists for 11 points in 36 games. He had a CF% of 56.70% and a relative CF% of 3.44%. He was then claimed on waivers by the Devils, where he went on to have four goals and nine assists for 13 points in 27 games. While his CF% with the Devils was less at 48.86%, his relative CF% was greater at 5.25%. Agostino made both teams better when he was on the ice compared to his teammates.  

Agostino signed as a UFA (unrestricted free agent) with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Toronto is close to the cap, so signing Agostino to a deal at the veteran minimum was appealing to them. For Agostino, there is an opportunity to earn a nice NHL role. The top-six will be filled, but the third line is not completely set. Alexander Kerfoot will be the center, but the two wing spots could be up for grabs. Agostino will have to battle with Zach Hyman (who is likely to start the season on injured reversed), Trevor Moore, and Nicolas Petan. While Agostino isn’t guaranteed to beat them out, it wouldn’t be crazy to see. Agostino having a consistent third-line role will be the best role he has been in. While his recent success and the Leafs’ logjam may point to a chance that he breaks out, he is also already 27 years old. Taking the next step at age 27 does not happen often, but Agostino couldn’t have asked for a better situation to make the unlikely happen.

Dean Kukan, 26, LD, Columbus Blue Jackets

Kukan was signed as an undrafted free agent out of the SHL. He never really saw NHL time until the end of the 2018-2019 season and into the playoffs. In a small sample size, he had five assists in 25 games during the season. His underlying numbers, albeit in a small sample, were good during those 25 games. He had a CF% of 53.24% and a relative CF% of 1.53%. Kukan’s most common defensive partner was Scott Harrington, showing that he played in a bottom pair role. What is impressive is the impact Kukan had on Harrington. With Kukan, Harrington had a CF% of 53.29%. Without Kukan, Harrington’s CF% dropped to 37.63%. Kukan made that defensive pairing formidable. Moving forward, Kukan could take a step and look to have a bigger, more consistent role on the Blue Jackets.

An opportunity could be there for Kukan. Columbus had Seth Jones, Zach Werenski, and Ryan Murray locked into the top four. David Savard was the other top-four defenseman, but he has started to fall off. Kukan needs to beat out Savard, Markus Nutivaara (who didn’t have a great season) and Scott Harrington for the last top-four spot. It is clear based off the statistics that Kukan has the edge over Harrington. The opportunity should be there for Kukan to earn second-pair minutes. If he can continue to play like he did at the end of the 2018-2019 season, he should be able to breakout and prove he belongs in the top four of the defense.

Conclusion

Ultimately, it is very possible that none of these players make it to the level that Jonathan Marchessault did. However, when looking at each team in the east, these nine players were determined as most likely to do so. While some may be more likely than others, these nine are the players to watch closely throughout the 2019-2020 season. There may have been some players excluded simply because of them playing on a team where another player was deemed to be more likely to take a step.

What are your thoughts? Tweet us, @afpanalytics, to share.

Image courtesy of Jay LaPrete / Associated Press

James Finch is an analyst at AFP Analytics. James graduated from St. John Fisher College in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in Sport Management with a minor in Economics. His background with sports and economics have brought about an interest in gaining experience and finding his niche within the sport analytics field.

What Should Evan Rodrigues’ Next Contract Look Like?

On July 21st, the team offer and player ask in arbitration for Evan Rodrigues were reported and Sabres’ fans on Twitter did not seem happy with what the team might end up paying Rodrigues. The Sabres were at $1.5M while Rodrigues’s camp was at $2.65M. I would expect a deal to be reached prior to arbitration but if it isn’t, it is likely the arbitrator would award the mid-point between the two sides, which would be $2.075M. Based on our contract projections, this would be a team friendly contract as we projected Rodrigues to be just under $2.3M on a short-term contract. If I were running the Sabres, I would look to get Rodrigues locked up to a longer-term contract that would take him to age 29. This would be a four-year contract, worth $3.5M per season. If Sabres’ fans thought Rodrigues’s ask of $2.65M was crazy, they probably think I am insane. To me, the craziest part of this negotiation is Rodrigues’ agent has asked for an amount that is far too low. Let’s take a look at how we came to our valuation for Rodrigues. Please note that all statistics discussed are sourced from naturalstattrick.com and are 5v5 statistics unless otherwise noted. All salary data is courtesy of capfriendly.com.

The Structure of a Long-term Contract

When looking at the list of comparable players who signed their long-term contract at age 25 or 26, many of the strong comparisons signed contracts that took them to age 29. This means a four-year contract would make sense. As far as comparable players go, I would look at Lars Eller and Bryan Rust, who both signed four-year contracts with a $3.5M average annual value. If we were to look at these contracts in terms of cap hit percentage, the average of the two is 4.735%. That translates to a $3.93M average annual value (AAV). Next, we will discuss how Rodrigues compares to Eller and Rust and if the cap hit percentage should be used or if Rodrigues should slot slightly below these players in cap hit percentage, which would occur with a $3.5M average annual value. The recent four-year contract, carrying an AAV of $2.75M for Oscar Sundqvist does throw a little wrench in things, maybe to the Sabres’ benefit.

Both Rust and Eller have played a critical role as middle-six players on top teams. They are players who have shown an ability to play top line minutes if called upon, but their primary roles are to be quality two-way players who can add some offense. Sundqvist has played a role that is a step down from the other two, playing mostly bottom six minutes, with little time on a top line. I see Evan Rodrigues in a more similar light to Rust and Eller. Rodrigues has demonstrated versatility, playing everywhere from the first-line to fourth-line. He has also shown an ability to be effective at both wing and center.

When looking strictly at point production during 5v5 play, Rodrigues’s total point production in his platform season is between Eller and Rust, with very similar goal production. Sundqvist’s goal scoring propelled him to a clear point advantage over these players. We can all agree that Rodrigues has played on much inferior teams than Eller, Rust, and Sundqvist leading into their four-year contracts. I don’t think it would be completely unreasonable to chalk Rodrigues’s inferior assist totals in his platform season to playing with line mates who struggled to generate offense. If Rodrigues wasn’t the one scoring or directly setting up the goal, chances were the Sabres were not going to score, given Rodrigues’s incredibly low secondary assists. If given the opportunity to consistently play with line mates who can better generate offense, he should be able to pick up some additional secondary assists. The season before provides some evidence for this hypothesis. I also think Rodrigues is an example of a player where using beyond the box score statistics can help paint a clearer picture of the player’s individualized impact. Below you can find a comparison of Rodrigues to Eller, Rust, and Sundqvist’s scoring metrics in their platform seasons.

Next, I want to look at the on-ice metrics. In Rodrigues’ last two seasons with the Sabres, the team struggled to control the shot differential so it would be perfectly reasonable to see Rodrigues have poor metrics as well. However, he does not. When Rodrigues was on the ice, the Sabres broke just about even in the shot counter over the past two seasons. Control of the on-ice shot counter is typically related to controlling the goal differential while a player is on the ice. All four of the players we are assessing here have a similar trend in this aspect. Rodrigues and Rust see their goal differential slightly worse than their on-ice shot differential, while Sundqvist’s is slightly better. Eller is the only one who saw a dramatic shift from shot differential to goal differential. However, it is critical to consider the teams each player plays on when looking at these metrics. Below you will find the comparison for their on-ice metrics.

In order to control for the fact that Rodrigues’ Sabres are a far inferior team to the teams that Eller and Rust played on, we want to look to the player’s relative statistics, which are measuring how much better or worse the team performs with the player on the ice. Please note that when looking at CA/60 Rel or GA/60 Rel, lower numbers are better. This is indicating that the team is giving up X% less when the player is on the ice. When looking at Rodrigues’ relative metrics, I see a player who is valuable to his team, especially considering the role he has been asked to play. Rodrigues and Rust look incredibly strong here, while Eller and Sundqvist struggle.

With Rodrigues having strong underlying metrics, it is curious that his scoring numbers decreased this past season until you look at his usage. When Rodrigues’s scoring was up, he was starting just under half of his shifts (that started with a faceoff) in the offense zone. In his platform season, he received more ice time but only started 40% of his shifts in the offensive zone. A side effect of being asked to play more of a defensive role is playing with players who are “offensively challenged.” That will certainly hinder his ability to generate points.

Overall, I think Rodrigues compares very well to both Eller and Rust. I think Rodrigues could be more productive offensively if given an opportunity to do so. A focus on taking shots in higher danger areas could also help. The big question is whether that opportunity is there under a new coach. As things currently stand, I would probably slot Rodrigues slightly behind Eller and Rust, given he has only played close to one full season in Buffalo and the others had more of a proven track record at the time of signing. If we were to look at things in terms of cap hit percentage, an AAV of $3.5M probably makes sense as it comes in at a cap hit percent of 4.58%, which is lower than both Eller and Rust. The recent signing of Sundqvist does throw a wrench into things. He probably signed for slightly less than his market value on a four-year contract as he also compares well to both Eller and Rust so he should have been able to get closer to the $3.5M than he did. For Rodrigues, this probably knocks his value down into the range of $3M to $3.25M, which I think would be an absolute steal for the Sabres. I would still be comfortable with paying Rodrigues $3.5M on a four-year contract, though if the team can save some money because of Sundqvist’s signing, then they absolutely should.

Rodrigues’ Value on a Short-Term Contract

When constructing an arbitration case, each side presents comparable players that they believe justify their position. In a perfect world, player performance and salary would be perfectly correlated. Obviously, that does not happen. Inferior players get paid more and superior players get paid less. This allows both sides to latch onto one or more players that they believe they can use to make their case. There are plenty of options to use for either side. I will highlight one player Rodrigues’ side should use, one the Sabres should use, and the player who is probably most similar to Rodrigues.

Player Most in Rodrigues’ Favor – Vladislav Namestnikov

If I were on Rodrigues’ side, I would be using Vladislav Namestnikov’s contract from last season (two years, 5.03% of the salary cap) to drive up his value. I would have asked for $4M in arbitration and been able to present a strong argument to get very close to that value. Below, you can see the comparison of the players in terms of their Scoring, On-Ice and Relative Metrics from their platform seasons.

Namestnikov appears to be the slightly superior player as he scored goals at a better rate and had superior on-ice metrics. However, a strong argument could be made that Rodrigues did more to improve his team’s performance. He had a far superior primary assist rate, meaning he was directly setting up goals and was incredibly strong in improving the team’s shot and goal differential. It is likely that Rodrigues will ultimately end up getting paid $2M less than Namestnikov, which would be incredible value for the Sabres.

Player Most in the Sabres’ Favor – Marcus Kruger

Let me preface this by saying I think Rodrigues’ numbers are superior to Kruger. The problem is the difference is somewhat minimal. To me, the difference between Rodrigues and Kruger is very similar to the difference between Namestikov and Rodrigues. If you were to present the argument that Rodrigues should be paid a little less than Namestikov, then I would counter with Rodrigues shouldn’t be paid much more than Kruger’s (one year, 2.05%). This could be the argument the Sabres present as they came in very close to Kruger’s contract under today’s cap hit ($1.67M). They also will likely attach themselves to Vinnie Hinostroza’s two-year, $1.5M AAV contract. However, Rodrigues is a vastly different player and is asked to play a significantly different role so I am going to highlight Kruger who plays a more similar role to Rodrigues.

When looking at Rodrigues and Kruger in their platform seasons, I would argue that the two players performed very similarly but Kruger benefited from playing on a stronger team as shown by his relative metrics. While Rodrigues improved his team when on the ice, Kruger weakened his. He also lagged behind in primary assists, which in turn lessened his total point production. Let’s take a look at the numbers.

There should be little doubt that Rodrigues should be paid more than Kruger, though how much more is the looming question. It probably isn’t significant enough to approach Rodrigues’ ask of $2.65M, but it is significant enough to get Rodrigues to around the $2M he will likely receive.

Most Comparable Player to Evan Rodrigues – Joonas Donskoi

The top comparable player for Evan Rodrigues is Joonas Donskoi at age 25. He signed a two-year, 2.53% contract. Under today’s salary cap, that would be $2.06M, which is nearly identical to the arbitration midpoint. I think Rodrigues’ stats could warrant a slightly higher salary than Donskoi but if I were to pick the most comparable player for Rodrigues, Donskoi is where I settle. Their on-ice and relative metrics are very similar. Rodrigues scored at slightly better rates. The one area where Rodrigues has a clear advantage is his team improved their goal differential while he was on the ice while Donskoi’s team got worse in their platform seasons. Let’s look at their numbers.

In their platform season, Rodrigues looks superior. However, when looking at each player’s platform minus one season, Donskoi had far superior advanced metrics in a full season, while Rodrigues had better point production in a condensed season. Though I have not previously highlighted more than one season in any section to keep this article more streamlined, I think it is critical here so you can see why Donskoi is the most comparable player.

One question that has to be answered is which of the past two seasons is more representative of Rodrigues’ scoring abilities. Based on comparable players, I would guess Rodrigues should score around a rate of 1.5 points per 60 minutes. That has been his scoring rate for his career. Over the course of a season, that should translate to roughly 25-30 points during 5v5 play. With some special team production, I think Rodrigues could be around a 40-point player.

Rodrigues also has shown to be a fairly strong penalty killer, while Donskoi has not seen penalty kill minutes at all. As such, we would argue Rodrigues should be paid slightly more than Donskoi, but probably not a significant amount.

I should also discuss how I see the two players comparing beyond the statistics. I see both players as high-end third line players, who can slot higher in the lineup if needed. Although neither player is going to carry or drive a team, they are high quality depth players. In today’s NHL, players with Rodrigues’ and Donskoi’s skill sets and diversity are critical pieces in building championship level teams. If given the choice of having Rodrigues or Donskoi on my team at the same salary, I would take Rodrigues. However, if Rodrigues were making more than $500,000 more than Donskoi, I would take Donskoi.

Other Considerations

Penalty Killing

I generally think most players can kill penalties if given the chance as most will produce average results. This is generally why I would not put too much value into penalty kill minutes. To explore this idea, I created a histogram, plotting every player’s Corsi against per 60 while the player is on the ice, showing forwards with at least 25 minutes. This was 227 players in total. The data is normally distributed meaning the principles of a bell curve will apply. This means that 68.2% of all players fall within one standard deviation of the average, so in my opinion they are basically interchangeable. When looking at players who provide a significant improvement in penalty killing, I would focus on players who fall more than one standard deviation below the average. This would be approximately 16% of the players. Rodrigues falls just above one standard deviation below the mean, as he was on the ice for 81.84 Corsi against per 60. Put into simple terms, I would consider Evan Rodrigues to be better than 81.5% of players who killed penalties in 2018-2019, which is 42 players in total. The Sabres used four main players on the penalty kill. Those four were Zemgus Girgensons, Johan Larsson, Vladimir Sobotka, and Rodrigues. Rodrigues was by far the most effective of them. The only Sabre to play enough minutes to qualify in my sample and perform better than Rodrigues was Jack Eichel. Below, I have included and illustrated the histogram to visualize what I just narrated.

Teammate Considerations

Because of Rodrigues’ versatility, detractors might point to some of his strong numbers being the result of playing with top end players. I will attempt to determine how valid that argument is. Here, I will look at Rodrigues’ relative shot metrics with and without a player. During the 2018-2019 season, Rodrigues played at least 50 minutes with 10 forwards. Those 10 forwards were Conor Sheary, Vladimir Sobotka, Kyle Okposo, Sam Reinhart, Jason Pominville, Jeff Skinner, Zemgus Girgensons, Casey Mittelstadt, Johan Larsson, and Tage Thompson. Only three of them (Jason Pominville, Zemgus Girgensons, and Johan Larsson) performed worse with Rodrigues than when they didn’t play with him. Additionally, the Sabres were a better team when Rodrigues was paired with everyone except Larsson, Girgensons, and Sobotka. Of course, Rodrigues played the second most minutes with Sobotka. Though we will never know, I would be interested in seeing how much better Rodrigues would have been had he not been saddled with the Sobotka anchor.

Conclusion

Last season, Evan Rodrigues was the Sabres’s fourth most valuable forward behind Eichel, Reinhart, and Skinner (in no particular order). He was one of the strongest forwards in improving the team’s performance while he was on the ice. He also was the team’s best regular penalty killer at forward. Sabre fans may look at Rodrigues’ point production and wonder why in the world would a team commit more than $2M to a player who only had nine goals and 29 assists across all situations and only seven goals and 14 assists during 5v5 play, while only just becoming a lineup regular at the end of the season. This is why we need to consider more than just his goals and assists. When we do, we see a player who compares well to versatile role players on Stanley Cup winning teams.

If the Sabres hope to take major steps forward, it is critical that they have bargain players who can provide lineup versatility. Right now, Rodrigues is that player. The team would be wise to avoid arbitration and lock Rodrigues up through his prime. Although you may see this as a risky move, I think it is the safest move the Sabres could make. We will soon see how the team feels about Rodrigues. For a team that has made some smart, numbers driven moves this offseason, securing Rodrigues would keep things moving in that direction. If they don’t, it will be another case of a step or two forward and a step back in their embrace of analytics.

Feel free to tweet us your thoughts, @afpanalytics.

KYLE STICH is the Director of AFP Analytics.  In addition, Mr. Stich is a tax specialist and Director of Operations at AFP Consulting LLC, whose clientele include professional athletes performing services on three separate continents. Mr. Stich earned his Master of Science in Sport Management with a Concentration in Sport Analytics from Columbia University in 2017. He earned his undergraduate degrees in Accounting and Sport Management from St. John Fisher College in 2015, where he has served as an adjunct professor teaching Sport Finance and Baseball Analytics.

James Finch is an analyst at AFP Analytics. James graduated from St. John Fisher College in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in Sport Management with a minor in Economics. His background with sports and economics have brought about an interest in gaining experience and finding his niche within the sport analytics field.

The Best Options for a Sabres Trade of Rasmus Ristolainen

After looking at the options the Buffalo Sabres have to fix their roster logjam, we have taken the process a step further to identify possible outcomes for our most common prediction: trading Rasmus Ristolainen. It’s arguable that the Sabres have surpluses at both forward and defense but it is undeniable that the team has to do something with their defense. We previously discussed how the team has eleven defensemen and six spots to play them. We concluded that Rasmus Ristolainen was likely the odd man out. We did play out a scenario where he is still on the roster come opening night, but it seems unlikely. Teams around the league have to have come to the same conclusion as we have and are likely checking in with Buffalo to see if they can get their hands on Ristolainen. In this article, we will touch on nine teams that we think could have already checked in on Ristolainen or will if they haven’t already. We have ordered the teams based on the likeliness of a trade between Buffalo and them happening.

Before we discuss the teams that could be in play, we need to discuss our views on Ristolainen. When looking at Ristolainen’s underlying metrics, he performs at the level of a bottom-pair defenseman and that might be generous. However, those metrics likely do not reflect what the Sabres and possibly many other teams place his value at. It is very possible that teams view Ristolainen as a top four defenseman. Throughout our analysis, we consider that the perceived value of Ristolainen may very well be higher than we think it should be. Ultimately, a player’s value is what someone is willing to pay and reports are the Sabres are going to demand that price to be high. We have taken the approach that the price settles somewhere in the middle. Based on our previous article, we concluded that the Sabres would likely be looking for a top-six forward, a left-handed defenseman, or a high-end forward prospect, in that order. With that in mind, we will move into the teams and some players that a trade would likely center around. We should add two caveats. First, we don’t know how teams value certain players. We could be much higher or lower on a given player, especially prospects. Second, we have discussed what we think would be the main parameters of a trade but there is a good chance that other pieces get included from each side for a multitude of reasons.

9. Colorado Avalanche

Once Colorado moved Tyson Barrie, the right side of their defense doesn’t look nearly as strong. Currently, they have Erik Johnson and Cale Makar. If having a balance of right and left shots is important to them, they could look to make another move to achieve that balance. Ristolainen might not be the best fit for them as he and Johnson would become a 2a and 2b. They would then have ~$11M committed to their bottom two right shot defenders. However, the team does have the salary cap space to fit Ristolainen and might consider the move if they feel they can bring Ristolainen in without giving up too valuable of assets. When looking at Colorado’s roster and prospects and considering what the Sabres would likely desire, we think the best Colorado would be willing to offer is one of JT Compher or Tyson Jost, and Ian Cole. If the Sabres can’t find a better offer, they might be better off holding on to Ristolainen. A trade like this creates a bigger logjam of middle-six forwards and doesn’t significantly improve the team anywhere.

8. Chicago Blackhawks

Chicago is another team with an unbalanced left-right blue line. However, it is a problem they recently created with the acquisitions of Calvin de Haan and Olli Maatta. On paper and in a vacuum, the Sabres trading Ristolainen to Chicago for one of de Haan or Maatta would make a lot of sense, maybe the most out of any scenario. Either player would be an ideal second-pair left defender for Buffalo and Ristolainen might instantly become Chicago’s best right-handed defender (a scary thought but likely true). The issue here is things don’t happen in a vacuum. Chicago recently acquired both players and if they were going to flip either, they likely would have done so shortly after acquiring them. Chicago and Buffalo also just recently swapped a defender (Henri Jokiharju) for a forward (Alex Nylander) so the optics of them acquiring a right-shot defender from the same team is terrible. We would never say never here but the probability of this trade happening is low. If it did, a straight swap of either de Haan or Maatta makes sense.

7. Vegas Golden Knights

Again, we are touching on a team that just sent a right-handed defender to Buffalo so a trade to get a different one back seems unlikely. However, Vegas has a glaring hole on their right side and with their salary cap situation clearer, Vegas could circle back to Buffalo. In a deal with Vegas, the Sabres would need to salary match or take back more than they send. In this situation, the conversation would likely have to revolve around one of Reilly Smith, Johnathan Marchessault, or Alex Tuch. The Sabres should salivate at the idea of acquiring Tuch but Vegas isn’t likely to do a one for one swap. If a trade fit were there, Smith would likely be the player that makes the most sense. Again, we want to emphasize the unlikeliness of these teams working out another trade that involves a right-shot defenseman. The optics of trading a cheaper, right-handed defensemen to a team and then circling back to the same team and acquiring a more expensive right-handed defensemen, who is arguably a worse player, would make absolutely no sense. If we were strictly looking at roster fits, Vegas might be the most likely scenario but when considering the optics of another trade, they get bumped far down the list.

6. Detroit Red Wings

On paper, the Detroit Red Wings could really use a right shot defenseman. They are a young, rebuilding team, so a 24 year old Rasmus Ristolainen would fit well when considering the path of the team. The only problem that we see with these teams matching up for a deal is that there are not many assets that Detroit would be willing to move that would interest Buffalo in a trade for Ristolainen. The one name that sticks out is forward Andreas Athanasiou. Starting a few seasons ago, there were trade rumors around Athanasiou. However, they seem to have cooled over the past year or so. That makes sense considering he is a 24-year-old forward who just put up a 30-goal season this past year. He has become the type of player that Detroit should be holding on to. Pair that with the fact that Detroit now has a new decision-making group in the front office and it seems unlikely that they’d be looking to move Athanasiou. However, that also could be a wild card as new GM in Steve Yzerman could be looking to put his own stamp on the roster. Overall, we believe that it would be tough for these teams to find a deal, especially as division rivals. There could be a fit though, so never say never.

5. Anahiem Ducks

While looking at the Anaheim Ducks, the recent trade factor (similar to our Vegas analysis) appears. During the past season, the Sabres acquired Brandon Montour from Anaheim. While this is similar to the Vegas situation, there are two key differences. First, the amount of time that has gone by may make it more likely a deal could happen. Second, the Ducks got a good return for Montour (Guhle and a 1^st round pick). Vegas did not get a great return for Miller. The Ducks getting an adequate return might make them more comfortable with making another trade. Anaheim is in need of a top four right handed defenseman, as Josh Manson is the only option on their current roster. There are two current NHL players that could interest Buffalo in Rickard Rakell and Ondrej Kase. Both players have shown they can be capable top six options. Rakell is a 26 year old forward capable of playing both center and the wing. He also has two 30 goal seasons and is on a cheap contract. Kase, a 23-year-old winger, was injured this past season, but produced 11 goals and 20 points in 30 games. Rakell would be the first ask, but the Sabres would do well to acquire either player. While those two are great for a rebuilding team like Anaheim, they may be willing to trade from their forward depth in order to strengthen their defense with a long-term option like Ristolainen.

Another way to possibly acquire Ristolainen would be to use prospects. While we think Anaheim is unlikely to do this because of their status as a rebuilding club, it is important to highlight the prospects Buffalo would be interested in. This group includes center Isac Lundestrom, center Sam Steel, winger Maxime Comtois, and winger Max Jones. While some of these prospects may be more available than others in a trade for Ristolainen, these four would be of interest to the Sabres.

4. Edmonton Oilers

The Edmonton Oilers have been looking for top four, right shot defenseman for a few years now. There have been rumors in the past linking them to Rasmus Ristolainen. On paper, there are multiple options that the Oilers could look at to acquire Ristolainen. Buffalo could use a left handed defenseman, so a possible trade including Oscar Klefbom or Darnell Nurse may interest the Sabres. On the forward side, the Oilers have both Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jesse Puljujarvi to offer. Trading RNH would be pretty detrimental to an already mediocre offense, so the prospect of Puljujarvi may be the more realistic option. The Sabres would be looking at either a left-handed defenseman for their second pair or a possible question mark of a prospect who could end up being a bust or pay off greatly.

Another avenue the team could look is to use prospects. While we don’t think this is likely, there are a couple prospects that would interest the Sabres: wingers Kailer Yamamotto and Tyler Benson. Regardless of the likeliness of these options, there are possibilities here that could bring about a deal between Edmonton and Buffalo.

3. Tampa Bay Lightning

The first time that Tampa Bay was connected to Ristolainen was during the 2018-2019 season. While there hasn’t been much linking them lately, the fact that there was interest in Ristolainen means that there still could be interest. Tampa could certainly use a top four right shot defenseman, as they are currently deploying Hedman, McDonagh, and Sergachev, who are all left shots. While there are not left shot defensive options to swap for Ristolainen, there are plenty of forwards who could find their way to Buffalo. Buffalo would have interest in NHL forwards like Anthony Cirelli, Mathieu Joseph, Tyler Johnson, Yanni Gourde, Ondrej Palat and Alex Killorn (in that order). Cirelli would be the ideal target as he is a young center who seems ready for a top six role, but it may be hard to pry him away from Tampa. It is important to acknowledge that Johnson, Gourde, Palat, and Killorn all have full no-trade clauses that would allow them to block any trade. Tampa has an abundance of forwards and are missing a top four right shot defenseman. Eric Cernak may soon be ready for that role but adding another established defenseman may help the teams’ defense in both the short term and long term.

While Buffalo may have their favorite targets on Tampa’s roster, the main problem is many of them have the ability to block a possible trade. Regardless, if Tampa was really interested in Ristolainen, they have enough NHL assets to find a deal that would work for both teams. If they wanted to deal from their prospect pool, it would need to include one of Taylor Raddysh or Alex Barre-Boulet. For a deal with prospects to work, the Lightning would need to shed salary in the form of Ryan Callahan’s contract and possibly add another roster player. A deal like Johnson, Callahan’s contract, and Raddysh for Ristolainen and Sheary (50% retained) could be close to where a deal like this would need to end up.

2. Columbus Blue Jackets

Columbus is a team that could certainly have interest in a top four right shot defenseman. They have Seth Jones and David Savard at the position. Any other defensive player would be playing on their off side if deployed on the right side of a pairing. Four players stand out that would make sense for Buffalo: Ryan Murray, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Alexander Wennberg, and Markus Nutivaara. Chances are, Ryan Murray wouldn’t be an option as it would create another hole on the left side of the top four defense. If the Sabres could grab Bjorkstrand in a deal, they should absolutely do it. At this point, they might be a season or two too late as he has become a 40 point player who can score goals at age 24. That would leave Alexander Wennberg and Markus Nutivaara.

Wennberg has been rumored to be on his way out of Columbus for quite some time, as he took a step back after the 2016-2017 season and hasn’t returned to be the same player. He is only 24, so there is still potential for him to regain top six form. Nutuivaara is a decent option for a bottom pair. If the Sabres could acquire these two in a deal, they’d be looking at a possible top six option and a bottom pair defenseman that would allow the team to not have Marco Scandella in their lineup. Buffalo would be improving two parts of their roster, while Columbus would be getting the top four defenseman that they need.

If Columbus was looking to trade out of their prospect pool instead of using NHL roster players, the conversation with Buffalo would begin and stop with center Alexander Texier. After him, Columbus’ prospect pool doesn’t have a talent that would interest Buffalo in this type of trade.

1. Winnipeg Jets

The Winnipeg Jets currently have some cap space, but they will be very close to the cap once they get top players like Patrik Laine and Kyle Connor signed. After doing that, they will still have a glaring need on defense. After Joshua Morrissey and Dustin Byfuglien, there are question marks on defense. Newly acquired Neal Pionk could play a top four role, but ideally he would be best fit on the bottom pair. Prospect Sami Niku projects as a top four defenseman, but putting him there at the start of this season may be asking a bit much of him at this point in his development.

If those two were on the second pair, that would mean deploying a bottom pair that consists of two of Nathan Beaulieu, Tucker Poolman, and Dmitry Kulikov. Kulikov should not see NHL minutes, and the other two are bottom pair at best guys who could easily be scratched. There is a clear need for another top four defenseman and, in a perfect world, two more top four defenseman. The Jets match up fairly well with the Sabres. They have forward depth and need to balance out their roster.

The odd man out in their forward group seems to be Nikolaj Ehlers, as he has been in trade rumors for the past year. In order to acquire him the Sabres may need to send Ristolainen and a player like Conor Sheary (retained salary) to Winnipeg. Buffalo would be acquiring a top six forward, while Winnipeg would be getting a top four defenseman and a depth scorer. If Ehlers is not an option, two other forwards stand out: Jack Roslovic or Mason Appleton.

While these two would be great gets for Buffalo, it wouldn’t clear salary for Winnipeg, so they most likely would need to have a possible deal include a bigger contract to make the financials work. Buffalo would most likely be interested in a Roslovic and Lowry/Copp package. While that would further jam up their forward situation, the Sabres would then be able to deal Sheary or even flip Lowry/Copp. If Winnipeg wanted Buffalo to take a player like Mathieu Perreault, the rest of the trade package would need to be greater than Roslovic. It seems that Ehlers would truly make the most sense, but a deal could be found around a different package of players.

Conclusion

We ultimately think a trade of Ristolainen and Conor Sheary (some salary retained on Sheary) for Nikolaj Ehlers makes the most sense for both parties. If we were handicapping where Ristolainen starts the season, we would give Winnipeg around a 35%, Columbus 20%, Tampa Bay 15%, Buffalo 10%, Edmonton 10%, Anaheim 5%, and the field as 5%. We also need to emphasize, the Sabres’ biggest need in a trade might be a left-handed defenseman. There are two questions the team needs to answer. First, can they sign Jake Gardiner, who would be a dynamite addition? Second, can they count on Lawrence Pilut? Although his underlying metrics were strong in a limited sample with Buffalo, there is an injury question as well as a question if his limited sample in Buffalo is sustainable. We aren’t as ready to anoint him as many others and think the Sabres would be wise to look for a more known option. Additionally, the team would still be an injury away from Marco Scandella or Matt Hunwick playing. That cannot happen.

Our current lineup prediction has Jimmy Vesey playing on the first-line. That is definitely not ideal. However, Jack Eichel may be able to drive offense enough to overcome that deficiency. It also has Marcus Johansson as the second-line center. If the team can acquire a better option at center, they should explore it. While the package of Ristolainen and Sheary (or Evan Rodrigues) would work for a top line winger, it likely doesn’t net more than a short-term solution at the center position. If they are looking to acquire a younger, long-term solution at the center position, Casey Mittelstadt probably has to be packaged with Ristolainen. This would make sense from an asset management standpoint as Mittelstadt’s future role would suddenly be filled. However, this seems unlikely to happen. The team gets one shot at moving Ristolainen and they need to ensure they choose the correct return. We have thoroughly been through all the scenarios in our previous article, as well as this one. We now sit and wait to see when the dominoes start to fall. 

Image courtesy of Bill Wippert / Getty Images

James Finch is an analyst at AFP Analytics. James graduated from St. John Fisher College in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in Sport Management with a minor in Economics. His background with sports and economics have brought about an interest in gaining experience and finding his niche within the sport analytics field.

KYLE STICH is the Director of AFP Analytics.  In addition, Mr. Stich is a tax specialist and Director of Operations at AFP Consulting LLC, whose clientele include professional athletes performing services on three separate continents. Mr. Stich earned his Master of Science in Sport Management with a Concentration in Sport Analytics from Columbia University in 2017. He earned his undergraduate degrees in Accounting and Sport Management from St. John Fisher College in 2015, where he has served as an adjunct professor teaching Sport Finance and Baseball Analytics.

Solving the Sabres’ Depth Chart

At this moment, the Buffalo Sabres have multiple logjams on their current roster. Both the forward group and the defensive group still have some questions that need to be answered this offseason. At the end of the season, GM Jason Botterill mentioned the team will be looking for a top six winger and second line center.

The Sabres signed Marcus Johansson, who recently played mainly at wing but does have history at the center position. For the purpose of this exercise, he is penciled in as the second line center. This may not be ideal, and it is possible that other options could be chosen. Another assumption that is made is Vladimir Sobotka is not on the roster. He is either in the AHL or leaves for Europe. Another important decision to note is that newly acquired Henri Jokiharju is in the AHL for all of our options. This is done for multiple reasons. First, he is waivers exempt. He can be assigned to the AHL without risk, while others may be lost to other teams. Second, with the logjam that is on defense, it would not make sense to put him in a situation where he could possibly be scratched. Allowing him to see top minutes in the AHL is the best option for his development.

There is still a major domino that needs to fall to really see how the roster may look at the start of the season. The fate of defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen will certainly have an impact on how the Sabres’ roster will look on opening night. Many believe he will be traded, but until he is, we also need to look at what could happen if he isn’t.

Seven options have been identified to help fix this logjam on the Sabres’ roster for opening night. Within these options, it is factored in that both Zach Bogosian and Lawrence Pilut are not expected to be healthy at the start of the season. For the purpose of looking at the roster, we have assumed they will start the season on the injured list and not count against the number of 21 roster skaters. With the Sabres needing to get off to a fast start, we are looking to build the best roster for opening night. Although Pilut could be a contributor this season in the NHL, he also is still waivers exempt and if the team can find someone who can start from day one on the left-side, Pilut could be AHL bound.

Current Situation

Below is the current situation that the Sabres find themselves in.

Each line has been pieced together strategically based on the past seasons’ 5v5 player performance with one another. To start, an assumption is made that the Sabres will play Eichel and Skinner together. When a winger is signed to a pricey deal, they tend to be played with the teams’ top center. While Reinhart is very good with Eichel, the Sabres have acknowledged that they believe Reinhart can drive play on his own line. While in a small sample size (83:10 TOI 5v5), Reinhart and Olofsson have looked very good together, as they posted a 59.74 CF% when they were both on the ice. Exploring this combination could pay off well for the team. Sliding Johansson into the second line center role puts two good puck distributors (Johansson and Reinhart) with a young goal scorer in Olofsson. On paper, that line seems like a good fit. The current third line will have Mittelstadt at center. Hopefully playing on the third line helps him develop more naturally, but it would be good to surround him with players he has had success with. In 426:37 TOI 5v5, Mittelstadt posted a 51.45 CF% with Conor Sheary. In 114:04 TOI 5v5, Mittelstadt produced a CF% of 55.92 with Evan Rodrigues. In comparison, Okposo was a bad fit for Mittelstadt, as the pair produced a 44.20 CF%. Sheary and Rodrigues on the wing surrounding Mittelstadt is the best combination for Mittelstadt to play well on the third line. These top three lines are almost complete, with one spot on Eichel’s right wing. The Sabres acquired Jimmy Vesey and it was not to play on the fourth line. To start the season, Vesey should slot in with Skinner and Eichel on the top line. The fourth line then becomes where the Sabres can juggle multiple players and test out different combinations to see what works best. Assuming the Sabres keep Larsson, he slides in as the fourth line center with Okposo on his right wing. Girgensons would be the left wing forward, with C.J. Smith or Scott Wilson possibly rotating in or ultimately taking over Girgensons’ spot. With the defensive situation, there is only space for one scratched forward, meaning players like Tage Thompson and Vladimir Sobotka will find themselves in the AHL.

The defensive side of the roster is interesting because of the logjam and the possible pairings that could be used. Currently, we know that Dahlin could basically make anyone better on the top pair. First, finding a good fit for Ristolainen is important. In only 17:24 TOI 5v5, Ristolainen and Montour produced a 56.57 CF%. While Montour was forced to play his off side, this pairing worked. It would be worth exploring this combination to see if they could replicate this strong play. With that as the second pair, finding the next best known fit is the priority. That fit is Jake McCabe and Casey Nelson. In just 19:58 TOI 5v5, the pair posted a 54.55 CF%. While this is also a small sample size, it is worth exploring. Both players fit best as bottom pair defenseman, and it is encouraging that they’ve had some success together. For the start of the season, it should be a pair that is used. That leaves Rasmus Dahlin and Colin Miller for the top pair. Playing with Dahlin could help Miller produce at a higher level than he has before. Without having any data to show a connection, it is a pairing that one would predict should be very productive.

Marco Scandella is the odd man out here, as he would be scratched as the extra defenseman on the roster. The defenseman in green will find themselves on the AHL roster to start the season. Henri Jokiharju may be good enough to be in the NHL, but there is not a clear spot for him to play. That being said, it is important for him to see time in the AHL and not be a healthy scratch at the NHL level. Based off of this current depth chart, it is safe to say that more moves need to come in order to clear the logjam.

Below we will discuss what moves could be made to clear the logjams and, in our opinion, give the Sabres the best opportunity to contend for a playoff berth next season.

Option 1: Trade Ristolainen and Sheary for Forward; Sign Jake Gardiner

Option 1 includes multiple moves to improve the roster. With a weaker left side on defense, bringing in Jake Gardiner would allow for McCabe to slide down into a role that fits better. All of a sudden, the Sabres can be pretty confident with each pair.

Ristolainen certainly has value as a young, controllable defenseman, but adding Sheary to the deal could help acquire a bonifide top six forward and eliminate the logjam on the roster. If this forward is a center, Johansson can move to wing. If the forward is a winger he could slide onto Eichel’s wing and push Vesey back to a more reasonable fit on the third line. In this scenario, one of Girgensons, Wilson, or Smith could slide into the fourth line left wing role while the other two are kept as scratches on the NHL roster.

Defensively, the Sabres can run with a top pair of Dahlin and Montour, which is the most ideal combination for the two. In 120:21 TOI 5v5, the two posted a 57.38 CF%. They are both expected to be top defenseman on the team, and their success together last season showed that the team can rely on them as the top defensive option. Gardiner and Miller are two top four defensemen new to the team. To start the season, they are the natural tandem for the second pair. This allows McCabe and Nelson to play together. In reference to what was previously mentioned, this bottom pair has shown the ability to play well together. It is reasonable to believe they could replicate that.

Option 2: Ristolainen for prospect (likely forward); Sign Jake Gardiner

Option 2 allows the Sabres to add to their prospect pool, while still improving a part of their team. Jake Gardiner is signed for the defense, and the corresponding move is Ristolainen being traded for a good forward prospect that is either ready or close to ready for the NHL. Gardiner is an upgrade over Ristolainen. It also helps to move a right-handed defenseman in Ristolainen and then bring in a left-handed one in Gardiner to better balance the defensive corps. The forward group does not change from its current self, but the defensive group sees an upgrade. Like our first option, it allows the Sabres to have McCabe on the bottom pair and create three strong pairs. Scandella is the odd man out and would likely be scratched in this situation. After trading Alex Nylander and likely graduating Victor Olofsson, the Sabres’ prospect pool at wing is Tage Thompson (and possibly Dylan Cozens). They certainly could use another winger with a high ceiling.

Option 3: Ristolainen traded for LHD (left handed defenseman)

The third option here involves a defenseman for defenseman trade. The Sabres do not have a balanced defense. In theory, you can enter the season with McCabe on the second pair, but that is not ideal. With too many right handed defenseman, moving Ristolainen for a left handed defenseman would create balance within the lineup. Top four defenseman for top four defenseman would work if the Sabres can identify a team with too many left handed defenseman and not enough right handed defenseman. This may be tough to pull off, but it would ultimately be a decent option for the team.

The forward group does not improve from its current self. On defense, the same situation plays out here as it did for our options that added Jake Gardiner. The acquired defenseman would slot in with Colin Miller on the second pair. Once again, Scandella would most likely be the odd man out due to McCabe sliding down to the bottom pair with Casey Nelson.

Option 4: Ristolainen for forward; Larsson not retained

As of now, it is not a guarantee that the Sabres bring back Johan Larsson. There have been some rumors floating around that he could end up in Europe for the next season. That rumor could become a reality if the Sabres trade Ristolainen for a forward.

With this option, Ristolainen is traded for a forward. If it is a center, Johansson then moves to the left wing slots and one of Vesey or Olofsson moves to the right side. If it is for a winger, then the winger would slot in on Eichel’s right wing. With the Sabres needing Rodrigues to play the fourth line center role, that leaves the third line left wing spot for Jimmy Vesey (or possibly Johansson). This option would allow for Wilson, Girgensons, and Smith to rotate as the fourth-line wingers.

For the defense, Dahlin and Montour are the top fair. Then the Sabres would need to deploy McCabe and Miller on the second pair. It would not be reasonable to have Scandella play top-four minutes. The third pair would then consist of Casey Nelson and most likely Marco Scandella. In 132:28 of 5v5 play, Scandella and Nelson posted a 45.15 CF%. That is not good, but using this combination is more realistic than Scandella playing top-four minutes. If it goes south fast, the Sabres could turn to Hunwick or another defenseman in the AHL (or hope Pilut is healthy fast) to try to improve on Scandella. Matt Hunwick would be kept as the third scratched player on the roster. The defense does not have an addition, but the logjam is not as big of a deal anymore. The offense strengthens by acquiring another forward, something that the Sabres are known to be looking for.

Option 5: Ristolainen and Sheary for forward

This option is based off the idea that if you add Sheary to Ristolainen, the returning player will need to be a bit better than if you were to only deal Ristolainen. The downside to this scenario is that you are losing a defenseman and are not bringing a left shot defenseman in. It recreates the problem that we saw in option four. The positive here is that the Sabres use their defensive logjam to improve their forward group.

The acquired forward would slot in on Eichel’s wing. That would allow for Vesey to replace Sheary as the right winger on the third line. The defensive logjam, specifically on the right side, is now in a much better spot. Montour, Miller, and Nelson down the right side is good. The left is still not ideal, with Dahlin, McCabe, and Scandella. This option helps improve the team a bit, but more moves could be made on top of this one in order to improve the defense.

Option 6: Ristolainen for prospect (likely forward)

Option six involves trading a defenseman for a prospect and not adding to the NHL roster. The forward group, in this case, would stay the same. The defense is then good on the right side, with Montour, Miller, and Nelson. The left side still needs work, as McCabe on the second pair is not ideal. Scandella will see bottom pair time. In a perfect world, the Sabres add someone else to play on this left side with Colin Miller, allowing McCabe to slide down. This option fixes the immediate problem of too many defenseman, but it doesn’t add a piece to your NHL roster to help the team now.

Option 7: Ristolainen stays; McCabe goes

Option seven is different than the other six options. It seems as if Rasmus Ristolainen is the odd man out and will be traded. However, until it happens, that is not guaranteed. This seventh option shifts away from trading Ristolainen and looks at trading restricted free agent (RFA) Jake McCabe. This option is less than ideal, but it wouldn’t be a huge shock if it happened.

Nothing changes with the forward group. Wilson and Smith are still fighting with Girgensons for that left wing spot on the fourth line. The defensive depth chart is where this gets interesting. With McCabe, the Sabres are thin on the left side. After trading him, it is much worse. It forces the Sabres to look at their right-handed defenseman and decide who is able to play the left side. Montour has some experience on the left side or at least more than the other options. With that, the team must break up their top pair of Dahlin and Montour. The team would need to run Dahlin and Miller as the top pair, Montour and Ristolainen as the second pair (which we know worked in a small sample), and Scandella and Nelson as the bottom pair. Moving Montour out of his comfort zone is not really improving your team. It is just the best and quick fix for this situation, but not ideal. McCabe is not likely to bring back a significant roster piece, so the value he provides on the Sabres roster at the beginning of the season most likely outweighs anything that you would acquire in return. This option of keeping Ristolainen and trading McCabe seems to be one of the less appealing moves that the Sabres could do. It does not really improve the team, and it takes a top defenseman in Montour and asks him to play in a situation that isn’t going to maximize his abilities.

If you would like to weigh in, follow us and tweet us on Twitter, @afpanalytics.

James Finch is an analyst at AFP Analytics. James graduated from St. John Fisher College in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in Sport Management with a minor in Economics. His background with sports and economics have brought about an interest in gaining experience and finding his niche within the sport analytics field.

KYLE STICH is the Director of AFP Analytics.  In addition, Mr. Stich is a tax specialist and Director of Operations at AFP Consulting LLC, whose clientele include professional athletes performing services on three separate continents. Mr. Stich earned his Master of Science in Sport Management with a Concentration in Sport Analytics from Columbia University in 2017. He earned his undergraduate degrees in Accounting and Sport Management from St. John Fisher College in 2015, where he has served as an adjunct professor teaching Sport Finance and Baseball Analytics.

NHL 2019 Free Agent Predictions

Forwards

Artemi Panarin

James Prediction:Florida Panthers

Even before Panarin was traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets, there were rumors that only a few destinations were on his long-term radar. New York, Los Angeles, and Florida. Florida will make the splash and do whatever it takes to sign Panarin. There is definitely a need in the top six. Panarin could play the wing with either Aleksander Barkov or Vincent Trocheck and quickly be the best winger either player has played with. The Florida Panthers have the cap space needed for Panarin, with just under $22 million currently. With nobody up for a new deal that will break the bank, and some possible trades that could take place to move players out, they are setting themselves up perfectly to be Artemi Panarin’s next destination.

Kyle Prediction: Florida Panthers

This seems to be the foregone conclusion for a while. For much of the season, I thought he would end up with the Rangers. However, the Panthers’ hiring of his former coach, Joel Quenneville, I’m now willing to accept that the Panthers are his likely destination. I personally think the Panthers might be smart to spend their money elsewhere but the team seems poised to make a big splash and Panarin would be just that. A top six including Huberdeau, Barkov, Hoffman, Trocheck, Dadonov and Panarin would be unstoppable. However, the forward depth at the bottom of the lineup would be questionable. I also wouldn’t love their blue line and think a savvier move would be throwing money at Jake Gardiner and Brett Connolly but that wouldn’t be a splash.

Mitch Marner

James Prediction: Toronto Maple Leafs

There are a lot of rumors about the offer sheet this offseason. I predict that Marner will sign one, but it will be matched by the Maple Leafs, keeping Marner in Toronto. The offer sheet will be a four-year deal for an AAV of $10,500,000, just inside the compensation requirements of two first round picks, one second round, and one third round pick. This offer sheet will be signed with the New York Islanders. The Islanders have Toronto connections with Lou Lamoriello at the helm and may be looking for some retribution for losing John Tavares to Toronto. For the Islanders, if you get Marner, you are happy that Mathew Barzal has another young forward next to him. If not, you hurt the Maple Leafs’ cap situation and cause other problems for them. I don’t believe that the Leafs will let Marner go for that specific offer sheet compensation, so they make the decision to match and deal with the consequences of doing so.

Kyle Prediction: Toronto Maple Leafs

Even though I have Marner staying with the Leafs, I do think things get interesting. I’m not predicting he signs an offer sheet, but I think the rumors will swirl until he gets a contract signed and I definitely won’t rule it out. The Leafs can’t lose him under any circumstances so even if he signs one, I expect them to match. Marner is an elite talent and the Leafs are in a win-now window so four first round draft picks would be near useless to them. If a team is really trying to put the squeeze on them, they should offer Marner a four-year contract to take him directly to free agency with a cap hit approaching $11M; that same team should then turn their attention to Kapenen or Johnsson because a subsequent offer sheet for one of those players would likely allow them to land them. Carolina or the Islanders would be teams I would have my eyes on here.

Brayden Point

James Prediction: Buffalo Sabres

Point should not be in a Tampa Bay Lightning uniform for the 19-20 season. That may seem crazy, but the cap situation that Tampa has set up for themselves is coming back to haunt them. They have roughly $10.6M in cap space this summer, which may be just enough to sign Point and another not so great player. They need to still sign Erne, Paquette, and replace Stralman and Girardi. Stamkos ($8.5M), Palat ($5.3M), Gourde ($5.16M), Johnson ($5M), and Killorn ($4.45) all have full no trade clauses. In theory, they could all deny a trade, so we need to assume that moving one or more may be difficult. The only other player on the roster making significant money without full trade protection is Nikita Kucherov. Kucherov is going nowhere. For now, let’s look at the next offseason. The only cap space they’ll really have will be a cap increase, so let’s say they sign Point to a $9 million deal and spend the remaining $1.6 million on a role player.  We’ll project $84 million in cap space for the 20-21 season, an increase from $81.5 million. That would give Tampa $2.5 million in cap space next offseason. They’ll then need to sign Cirelli, Joseph, Sergachev, Cernak, and Vasilevskiy. Sergachev and Vasilevskiy will both command a cap hit higher than $5 million. Now all of a sudden that $9 million that was given to Point could be really useful. With the offensive group as strong as it is, I think it makes the most sense for Point to go instead of a defenseman.

The Buffalo Sabres are a team that could provide the Lightning with both immediate and future value. Rumors have surfaced that the Lightning have interest in Rasmus Ristolainen. The defenseman is under contract for three more seasons at $5.4 million. This is a contract that the Lightning could fit now. Next offseason, they can then decide if they are wanting to consider him a main piece and figure out how to keep him or they can easily deal him after one season to help clear more cap space. Ristolainen does not have a trade clause, so he is a more moveable asset than other players previously mentioned. Along with Ristolainen, the Sabres would need to send along one of their top young centers. This would be either Casey Mittelstadt or Dylan Cozens. With Cozens just being drafted, it would make sense that Mittelstadt would be the player involved in the deal. Add in a first round pick or and probably another decent pick, and you might be able to come to a deal. Another factor in the Sabres favor is they could threaten an offer sheet. While the Lightning could receive four first round picks for Point, those are all future unknown assets that don’t help the team now. Ristolainen and Mittelstadt would both help now and in the future, along with the picks involved in the trade. If an offer sheet is threatened, the trade route may be more beneficial for the Lightning. This trade would leave them with $5.2 million in cap space, enough to resign Erne, Paquette, and replace Stralman and Girardi. With this trade, the Lightning would most likely need to still move two of the forwards with a no-trade clause (Palat, Gourde, Johnson, Killorn) or one of them and Ristolainen in order to make room for new Sergachev and Vasilevskiy deals, among others next season. Getting two players to waive their clauses could be tough, and this is assuming that Point and his big contract are not on the roster. The Sabres would get that second top center that they are looking for, and they have the cap space to sign Point long term. While yes, this is unlikely, it is what I hope the Lightning at least consider. Taking the “we’ll deal with it later” approach and singing Point long term is going to put them in an even worse cap situation next offseason. Worst case scenario, that situation could see them lose Sergachev and Vasilevskiy. I suggest Tampa takes my advice and does not let that happen.

Kyle Prediction: Tampa Bay Lightning

I don’t think this is a sure thing because the team is going to have to face the reality of moving some talent in the next year or two because they just have too many incredible players. I am working off the assumption that Point will sign a long-term, big money deal. If that’s true, fitting Point in their salary cap this season isn’t overly complicated. Next offseason is where things will likely get interesting and not keeping Point this year should make next offseason much more manageable. Eventually, Tampa is going to have to make a tough decision. Do they make it this season or the next? I don’t see how the best team in the modern NHL can not take another run at it. If they fail to win the Cup next season, they are going to have to take a long look at their roster anyways. I don’t love the idea of kicking the can down the road, but this team is close and I would give them one more shot at it.

Matt Duchene

James Prediction: Nashville Predators

Duchene has experienced losing for a majority of his career and finally made it onto a winning team in the Columbus Blue Jackets. They made their run in the playoffs and may end up losing multiple key pieces on their team. With that, Duchene looks elsewhere and signs with the Nashville Predators. Both sides are rumored to have an admiration for one another. The Predators traded PK Subban for a subpar return to move salary and it is highly expected that they make a run at Duchene to improve their forward group. With just over $13 million in cap space, the Predators will get this deal done.

Kyle Prediction: New York Rangers

The Rangers have been patient in their retool the last couple seasons and have added some quality young pieces in the last couple and will add another with the second overall pick this year. Everyone is expecting the Devils to take Jack Hughes and leave Kaapo Kakko to the Rangers. As long as this happens, the Rangers could definitely use a center to pair with Mika Zibanejad to have a really nice 1-2 punch down the middle. The Rangers have the cap space this year to make a splash or two and have plenty of contracts, particularly at forward, coming off the books next year, where they can certainly justify shelling out a big contract for a high-end player. 

Duchene has been connected to Nashville and it seems like he is open to remaining in Columbus as well. I really think if Nashville desperately wanted him, he would’ve been there already. They would need to move PK Subban or Kyle Turris to fit Duchene in. If either of those players move between now and the start of free agency, I would watch out for Nashville as well. Columbus is going to need to do all they can to keep Duchene but I think will be hard pressed to do so if he listens to other teams. Duchene has never had the opportunity to play in a big market so why not go to the biggest in the world?

Joe Pavelski

James Prediction: Dallas Stars

Joe Pavelski and the San Jose Sharks have been searching together for a Stanley Cup for 13 seasons. It hasn’t happened, and this past season may have been one of the best chances (on paper) for the team and Pavelski to reach that goal. They’re definteily close to a cup, but with their cap problems, the Sharks have to move on from Pavelski. Pavelski was very productive this past season, scoring 38 goals and totaling 64 points. Along with his stellar performance, he provides leadership. Dallas has about $10.2 million in cap space, which will be enough to sign Pavelski. They are in need of a second line center behind Tyler Seguin. After a pretty decent season, they are in win now mode. A deal gets done between these two parties.

Kyle Prediction: Tampa Bay Lightning

It seems like this is a three-team race, Dallas, Tampa, and San Jose. I don’t think the door should be completely shut on the Sharks but they are going to have to make a sacrifice and it looks like Pavelski may be the player they let go. It probably would be the smart decision but definitely not an easy one. Pavelski has to be focused on contending teams as his ultimate goal has to be to win a Cup. Dallas probably needs him more but if Tampa can make room for him, it should be a no-brainer. Playing in a state with no income taxes should allow them to sign him to a contract whose gross value is below his market value. Tampa should be the Cup favorites again this year so Pavelski would be going to the team that should give him the best spot to win. 

Andres Lee

James Prediction: New York Islanders

Anders Lee is the captain of the Islanders team, and I doubt they are looking to find a new one once again after losing John Tavares to Toronto. Lee is a productive player who is good for 50 points each season. As a key piece of the team both on the ice and in the locker room, it makes too much sense for both the team and the player to work out a deal. It will be north of Brock Nelson’s 6 year, $6 million AAV, but that shouldn’t deter the team from locking Lee up. A goal scoring threat and a team leader, it may be best for both sides to continue with what they’re both comfortable with.

Kyle Prediction: New York Islanders

I just can’t see how the Islanders could possibly let their captain walk as a free agent two years in a row, especially considering the season they are coming off of. The team has plenty of cap space to make the deal happen. The concern would be committing dollars and term to a power forward approaching 30. If the Islanders can make a big splash (Marner? Panerin?), maybe their fans would be forgiving of losing Lee. Maybe Lee looks to go home to Minnesota but there are no indications that he is looking to leave New York. Colorado and Chicago are also teams to keep an eye on.

Gustav Nyquist

James Prediction: Colorado Avalanche

The Colorado Avalanche were a pretty exciting team to watch this season. Well, at least their top line was. After that, the team lacked any punch on offense. Secondary scoring will be a priority for the Avalanche. With multiple center prospects who are looking at NHL time like Kerfoot, Jost, and Compher, bringing in a veteran winger who can score goals will do wonders for their development. That is where Gustav Nyquist comes in. Over 81 games with the Detroit Red Wings and San Jose Sharks, Nyquist scored 22 goals and 38 assists for 60 points. He also did well during the playoffs, with a goal and ten assists in 20 games. The Avalanche have $37 million in cap space this offseason, the most of any team. This type of move is a no brainer. They have the ability to be the highest bidder and should do what it takes to get Nyquist. It will help their offense grow moving forward.

Kyle Prediction:  Columbus Blue Jackets

If my prediction of Duchene leaving Columbus is correct, the Blue Jackets are going to have to dip into the free agent market and add some firepower up front. They aren’t going to be able to add via trade as they are void of quality assets so a replacement for Panerin and Duchene will have to come via free agency. I think Nyquist is the biggest name they will have a chance at landing and it doesn’t seem like Nyquist necessarily has his sights set anywhere. If Columbus has the best offer, which they likely will, I think it’s very plausible he signs there.

Ryan Dzingel

James Prediction: Minnesota Wild

Ryan Dzingel had quite the year with the Ottawa Senators, scoring 22 goals and 22 assists in 57 games. After being traded to Columbus, he scored 4 goals and 8 assists in 21 games. As a player who can play both center and the wing, he could be very valuable to some teams. He most likely slides in on the second or third line of a team. For reasons unknown, the Minnesota Wild seem likely to move Jason Zucker. He will need to be replaced and the Wild should have enough cap space to bring in a player like Dzingel even if salary comes back in the Zucker trade. Bringing in Dzingel should help the Wild stay relevant and push for the playoffs, but more will need to happen for the team to get back on track after this past season. Dzingel may be the first step, especially if Zucker is traded.

Kyle Prediction: Buffalo Sabres

This fit makes a lot of sense to me. The Sabres need a second-line center for the short-term. The Sabres probably should’ve inquired on Carl Soderberg and should look to capitalize if another team is looking to shed a veteran’s cap hit. Buffalo shouldn’t have a salary cap issue this year nor next. Since that route doesn’t seem likely, Dzingel would be the best alternative.  I don’t see Dzingel as a long-term center option but he could prove to be an adequate stopgap while some of the younger Sabre centers develop. With the Sabres drafting another young center, Dylan Cozens, with the 7^thoverall pick in the 2019 draft and already having Casey Mittelstadt, the team better have hit on at least one of the two players. One of the two has to be penciled into the second-line center role in two to three seasons so committing high dollar and long term to anyone who is older will probably be a mistake. If they can swing a trade for a young, proven center, that’d be fine but I highly doubt that happens. Dzingel likely won’t command top dollar or term and also has flexibility to play the wing. 

Phil Kessel

James Prediction: Pittsburgh Penguins

I think it would be ideal for the Penguins to find a suitor for Phil Kessel. He is only getting older and each year seems like he is possibly on the outs. His high cap hit may deter some teams as he ages, and many teams with a lot of cap space don’t seem like realistic fits. That ultimately keeps him in Pittsburgh. While it isn’t the best outcome, you still have a (most likely) 30 goal scorer for at least another season. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Kyle Prediction: Arizona Coyotes

This fit seems to make way too much sense. Arizona needs scoring and it seems like one of the few destinations Kessel would be open to going to. Yes, Rutherford has said he is perfectly fine keeping Kessel, but that is exactly what you say when one team knows they hold all the leverage in the negotiations. Rutherford needs Arizona to show a little urgency to make this deal happen. I think Arizona is smart enough to realize they can add a productive player for a discount. There has been too much smoke around Kessel to have Pittsburgh keep him so I have predicting he ends up in the most likely trade destination.

Jason Zucker

James Prediction: Boston Bruins

The Boston Bruins, coming off a great season where they just missed another Stanley Cup, are most likely going to have an empty spot on the second line wing next to David Krejci. One thing they could look to do is move a player from their center depth and add Jason Zucker. It is clear that Zucker is on his way out of Minnesota. From the Zucker/Kessel rumors, it is also clear that Minnesota is looking for another good forward in return. In return for Zucker, the Wild would receive RFA forward Danton Heinen and a 2019 3^rdround pick. While Heinen might not become quite the goal scorer that Zucker can be, he is a young playmaker who has looked good in both the offensive and defensive end. When given the ice time, he should produce 40 to 50 points consistently. Boston has a lot of options at center. With this trade, they can still role with Bergeron, Krejci, Coyle, and Kuraly down the middle. They also have center prospects Trent Frederic and Jack Studnicka on the way. With $14 million in cap space, Boston can afford to add Zucker’s $5.5 million. Minnesota would have about $27 million without Zucker, easily allowing them to extend Heinen somewhere in the $3.5 million to $5 million range. This type of deal gets Boston a top six winger and Minnesota a young developing winger and a pick that could allow them to be more open to other trades during the draft. This deal works for both teams, on the ice and cap wise. 

Kyle Prediction: Minnesota Wild

I think Jason Zucker still wants to stay in Minnesota despite all the trade rumors swirling. The team has made enough bad trades of their scoring forwards that maybe they will learn their lesson and keep Zucker, who has been arguably their most important forward the past couple years. They have had two trades fall through and when I look around the league, I don’t see enough teams having the cap space, assets, and a place Minnesota would be willing to send Zucker. The team is also under a time crunch with Zucker having a no-trade clause kicking in on July first that will further limit Minnesota. Unless the Wild are close on a deal, they likely would be rushing into something, which would be a very bad idea and how they end up with Viktor Rask again.

Defensemen

Jake Gardiner

James Prediction: St. Louis Blues

The Blues are in a great spot to add some salary if they choose to do so. One spot that could be bolstered is their blueline. The top four currently consists of Pietrangelo, Parayko, Dunn, and Bouwmeester. Ideally, Bouwmeester would take on more of a bottom pair role along with defensemen like Joel Edmundson (RFA) or Robert Bortuzzo. That leaves an open spot in the top four. Dunn and Pietrangelo played the most together and it went very well for them both. That would leave Jake Gardiner slotting in next to Colton Parayko. Both of these pairings would be very capable of playing minutes against other teams’ top lines. Cap wise, the Blues have about $18.7 million projected to spend. They don’t have many free agents who will break the bank. Binnington, Sundqvist, Maroon, and Edmundson are the somewhat main pieces that may need to be resigned. With Gardiner projecting to come in around $7 million a year, they’d still have just under $12 million to resign those pieces. They may also look to move a contract like Jake Allen ($4.35). Alexander Steen would be good to move, but with a not so good year and a full no trade clause, it may be tough to do so. Either way, the Blues have the ability to add to their roster, and further strengthening the defensive group with Gardiner will only increase the chances they go far once again in the playoffs next season.

Kyle Prediction: Detroit Red Wings

Steve Yzerman has to make some major changes to his team’s roster because it is nowhere near good enough. They have some nice forwards to build around but their defense is dreadful. They also only have one veteran defensemen, Danny DeKeyser, under contract past this upcoming season. If the team could add Gardiner, he would instantly become their best defenseman and could provide some stability at the position for years to come. The team has some promising prospects in the pipeline but having a veteran under contract as a complement wouldn’t be ideal. Gardiner is probably going to be overpaid but he is clearly the best defensemen available on the open market and a much better option than Tyler Myers. Detroit isn’t really in a position to move young assets or draft picks to acquire a defenseman so they might be wise to pay a little more in the free agent market to get a long-term option that is a known commodity.

Tyler Myers

James Prediction: Vancouver Canucks

With a thin free agent market for defenseman, chances are whoever gets Tyler Myers will overpay for him. The Canucks seem like a team that might just agree to do that. They are certainly in need of some help on defense, especially after not qualifying Ben Hutton. With about $15.5 million in cap space, they certainly have the ability to sign Myers. It has been rumored that they could be a fit for him. These two parties will find a deal.

Kyle Prediction: Vancouver Canucks

This pairing seems bound to happen. Vancouver could certainly use another defender. Jake Gardiner would be the FAR smarter signing. However, this is the Vancouver Canucks so they will not only sign the inferior player, they will probably pay him more as well. If reports that are coming out are correct, this signing will easily be in the top five for instantly regrettable moves on July 1^st. I think a return to Winnipeg could be a possibility as well but Vancouver is probably going to have the best offer on the table and there is no reason for Myers not to take that.

Rasmus Ristolainen

James Prediction: Tampa Bay Lightning

I have Ristolainen in my scenario for Brayden Point. Even if it is a trade that doesn’t include Point, I think Tampa may try to make this work. They have been rumored to be in on Ristolainen dating back to the deadline. They have interest in trying to improve their defensive corps. They may be able to get a smaller deal done than the Point deal I have laid out, possibly a deal involving Tyler Johnson or Alex Killorn. Either way, I think Ristolainen ends up in Tampa Bay.

Kyle Prediction: Edmonton Oilers

There seems to be too much smoke around Ristolainen to predict he stays in Buffalo. Add in Buffalo’s acquisition of Colin Miller and the writing seems to be on the wall. The one potential wrinkle is Zach Bogosian’s health. If the Sabres don’t think Bosogian will play a game this season, or at least miss a good portion of the season, the team might hold on to Ristolainen so they don’t find themselves in a pinch on the right-side. However, there are plenty of teams in need of defensemen and a thin UFA class should lead to plenty of interest in Ristolainen. As a new GM in Edmonton, Ken Holland will certainly be looking to put his stamp on the roster. I wonder if Holland would be willing to swing big and move Jesse Puljijarvi and one of Darnell Nurse or Oscar Klefbom for Ristolainen and possibly another asset from Buffalo. In any deal with Edmonton, the Sabres should look to get Puljijarvi included. Many of their prospects are European born so Puljijarvi should be in a better situation to succeed. If one of Klefbom or Nurse came back, that would be an absolute coup for Buffalo. It shouldn’t happen but I don’t think it’s entirely out of question.  

Nikita Zaitsev

James Prediction: Toronto Maple Leafs

Zaitsev has apparently asked for a trade out of Toronto. The Leafs have said they will try to accommodate him, but not at the expense of their team. His contract is not the greatest for the value that he provides. Because of that, it will make it hard for Toronto to move him without taking salary back. That would defeat the purpose of moving him especially because they need more NHL defenseman, not less. The Leafs end up keeping Zaitsev.

Kyle Prediction: Ottawa Senators

As I was finishing this piece it has been reported by Elliotte Friedman that Zaitsev to Ottawa was likely. James wrote his before the news. If Ottawa can get some additional assets for taking on the contract, this trade makes a lot of sense. If Cody Ceci goes back, that also would be a win for Ottawa.

Kevin Shattenkirk

James Prediction: New York Rangers

Shattenkirk is making $6,650,000 for the next two seasons. There have been rumors of a trade, but based on his recent play, it’d be tough to see a team wanting to take Shattenkirk without sending a so-so contract back to the Rangers. New York just traded for Jacob Trouba and that will allow Shattenkirk to play a slightly smaller role. Hopefully that helps, because I don’t think it makes too much sense to move him at this point because of the type of trade that would need to be done.

Kyle Prediction: Tampa Bay Lightning

Tampa Bay needs a right shot defenseman and Shattenkirk could be a nice fit with the Lightning provided the Rangers are willing to retain some salary. If the Lightning could get one of Palat, Gourde, Johnson, or Killorn to waiver their no-trade, New York could get a nice return as they would certainly have the salary cap space to make this move work. If they want to opt for a prospect, they could probably leverage a quality one if they are willing to retain half Shattenkirk’s salary. 

Carolina Defense

James Pick: Brett Pesce to Toronto

Carolina is in need of improving their forward group. They have arguably the best defensive corps in the NHL. This deal will involve Brett Pesce going to Toronto and William Nylander going to Carolina. Toronto will receive a really good defenseman who is making $4,025,000 for the next five seasons, while Carolina will receive a top six forward who can instantly be put on Aho’s wing or make the second line in Carolina stronger for the next five seasons. This also clears some cap space for Toronto, which should really help spark their interest in making this happen.

Kyle Pick: Brett Pesce to Winnipeg

I have been all over this trade since January. I think a swap of Pesce for Nikolaj Ehlers would make a lot of sense for both teams. Winnipeg would get their RHD with a cost-controlled contract that they will desperately need this offseason with the departure of Trouba and likely departure of Myers, while Carolina would get someone who can add some offensive bunch. The trade of Calvin de Haan makes another trade of a defender less likely, but using another one of their defenders is likely the best option to acquire someone cost controlled without breaking the bank. 

Goalies

Sergei Bobrovsky

James Pick: Florida Panthers

I believe that Bobrovsky will follow Panarin to Florida. The Panthers need a starting goalie and have been rumored to have some big plans for this offseason. On top of that, Bobrovsky has basically followed Panarin around on free agent visits, leading many to believe that the two players will be a package deal. Florida has just under $24 million in cap space, which is enough for both Panarin and Bob. Not only does the friendship point to this happening, but there is a natural fit with the team as well.

Kyle Pick: Florida Panthers

This seems inevitable but I think this will be a move Florida ends up in a few years. Florida coaxed Roberto Luongo into retirement and seemed poised to move on from James Reimer as well. All of this doesn’t happen unless the Panthers are confident in landing Bobrovsky. There are savvier moves that the Panthers could make but they’re going for the tidal wave so here comes Bobrovsky.

Robin Lehner

James Pick: New York Islanders

I think that the Islanders will have their nose in just about everything this summer. Even looking at Panarin and Bobrovsky is an option for them. However, Lehner seems very interested in resigning. If they are able to get Lehner on a discount, it may be very beneficial to pull the trigger on this deal. Lehner really found his game with the Islanders and looked like a clear number one goalie. Ultimately, the two sides find common ground to keep a strong relationship between player and team intact.

Kyle Pick: Carolina Hurricanes

The Hurricanes made a very interesting trade in moving Calvin de Haan, which cleared $4.55M in cap space. Lehner will likely require more than that but that cap space will go a long way. I don’t think a return to New York should be ruled out but the Islanders might not want to pay Lehner what he thinks he deserves. I think there is also a question of whether Lehner was a product of the system and whether or not the team could plug someone else in at a cheaper price. The Islanders might be wise to gamble on letting Lehner go while Carolina might want to take the gamble on Lehner. The Hurricanes were the runner-up in the East and their weakest link was definitely their goaltending. If Lehner works out, Carolina could be a serious threat in the East next season.

Feature Image via NBC Sports.

KYLE STICH is the Director of AFP Analytics.  In addition, Mr. Stich is a tax specialist and Director of Operations at AFP Consulting LLC, whose clientele include professional athletes performing services on three separate continents. Mr. Stich earned his Master of Science in Sport Management with a Concentration in Sport Analytics from Columbia University in 2017. He earned his undergraduate degrees in Accounting and Sport Management from St. John Fisher College in 2015, where he has served as an adjunct professor teaching Sport Finance and Baseball Analytics.

James Finch is an analyst at AFP Analytics. James graduated from St. John Fisher College in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in Sport Management with a minor in Economics. His background with sports and economics have brought about an interest in gaining experience and finding his niche within the sport analytics field.