Buffalo Sabres general manager Jason Botterill had the difficult task of walking a tightrope at the 2020 NHL trade deadline. His Sabres team hadn't really given him a clear direction as to where they were headed this season and prior to the trade deadline they posted a 7-6-1 record in 13 games between the All-Star break and the deadline. The beginning of that stretch started out rough with two home losses against very beatable teams and had everyone leaning towards selling at the deadline. It ended with two very diverse and convincing wins against two playoff teams. In the middle there were highs and lows.
Moving forward Buffalo will need to put together an impressive final 20 games to land the only spot they have a shot at. The Sabres are 29-25-8 right now which puts them on a pace for 87 points. They'll need to up that pace as 96 points might be the benchmark they'll need to shoot for to land the third spot in the Atlantic Division, which is somewhere akin to a 14-4-2 record.
The interesting part of this equation is that Buffalo started out the season going 8-1-1and finished the month of October 9-2-2 which shows that they have the capability. At present they're on a pretty good run (7-3-1 in February,) however, this stretch featured teams that were less than cream of the crop. The one powerhouse team they faced, the Colorado Avalanche, smoked them 6-1 at home. Colorado has the second best record in the Western Conference and will be the first team the Sabres face on a post-deadline road-trip that also takes them to Vegas (No. 1 in the Pacific Division,) Arizona (5th in the Pacific) and Winnipeg (4th in the Central.)
All of this is not lost on Botterill as he walked that tightrope yesterday. He's well aware that the playoffs are a longshot but he's also aware that his team is still in the race and rather than throw in the towel on the season, like what has been done recently, he showed a willingness to give this group a little shot of confidence at the trade deadline. "As an organization it's time for us to continue to build," he said yesterday after the deadline, "and the next step is to understand and play meaningful games into the month of March."
"It's going to be a difficult challenge for this group," he continued. "We're heading on the road here now. When we come back our home schedule is against some of the top teams. It's going to be a challenge, but I think it's gong to be a challenge for, sort of, our core players to go through with that. I think it will be a new experience for our group, but we're excited about it moving forward here. What we try to talk about as a coaching staff and management staff is how do we best prepare this group to face this challenge and that's why we made the moves we made today."
The moves Botterill was talking about weren't earth-shattering, which they didn't need to be when your core features a franchise center in Jack Eichel who's coming into his own and a budding franchise defenseman in Rasmus Dahlin, but they were solid and functional. He needed to fortify his forward group, preferably with a top-six center, without mortgaging the future and he needed to move some salary. Word was that he had a substantial offer for Florida center Vincent Trocheck but the Panthers moved him out of the division to the Carolina Hurricanes.
In the end both of those goals were only partially met. Botterill traded with his old club, the Pittsburgh Penguins, and received 24 yr. old forward Dominik Kahun who looks the part of a versatile, top-nine forward with speed and skill. Kahun was signed by the Chicago Blackhawks out of Germany and was traded to Pittsburgh in the Olli Maata trade this past June. He was a center in Germany but in 132 NHL games Kahun has 23 goals and 64 points while riding shotgun to centers like Chicago's Jonathan Toews and Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin.
The Sabres also added grizzled forward Wayne Simmonds who waived his no-trade clause to come to Buffalo. The 31 yr. old veteran of over 900 games would have been an impact get for the Sabres some five years ago but a rugged style of play has left his production a shell of what it once was. This is Simmonds fifth stop in his NHL career and though his numbers have declined to bottom-six status, his on-ice style of play and his toughness along with his leadership both on and off the ice is something the Sabres desperately needed.
Buffalo gave the New Jersey Devils a conditional 2021 fifth-round pick for Simmonds (if the Sabres make the playoffs and Simmonds plays at least 10 games it becomes a fourth-rounder) and the Devils also retained half of his salary, something that was crucial in Botterill's attempt to get his cap under control.
This was a difficult salary cap year for the Sabres, in part because of what Botterill inherited but moreso because of the moves he's made. Although he inherited bloated contracts for Kyle Okposo ($6 million/season) and Zach Bogosian ($5.14 million), Botterill was responsible for re-signing Jeff Skinner at a $9 million cap hit as well as signing free agent Marcus Johansson ($4.5 million average annual value,) trading for Michael Frolik ($4.3 million) and Sheary's second year at $3 million. The Sabres have been over the cap all year and used long-term injured reserve to stay within the league's cap limitations but rookie performance bonuses will ultimately put them over the cap with any overages coming off of the Sabres cap next year.
Kahun ($925K) and Simmonds ($2.5 million because Jersey retained half of his salary) represent meager cap hits for the Sabres while Bogosian's hit was eliminated after he was waived (after the team tried to trade him) and suspended after failing to report to Rochester. Bogosian's contract was terminated, the remainder of his cap-hit eliminated for Buffalo and he was placed on unconditional waivers (he signed with the Tampa Bay Lightning.) Add that to the combined salaries of Sheary and Rodrigues being jettisoned in the Kahun trade and the Sabres did some significant work on getting their 2019-20 cap-hit lowered. But Botterill still believes his team will ultimately be over the cap because of performance bonuses to Dahlin and fellow defenseman Henri Jokiharju.
"We will have an overage at the end of the year," he said. "From our standpoint we didn't want to break this team apart. We looked at different scenarios in our planning perspective but we know we're going to have an overage for next season.
"But on the positive side, the overage is coming because our young defensemen continue to develop. To be honest we hope that our young defensemen hit all of their performance bonuses because it means they're going in the right direction with their games."
There's a lot to be said for Botterill's approach to this deadline. For years this team has been sellers and they easily could have been this year with six pending unrestricted free agents on the roster and a spot in the standings that makes the playoffs a longshot. But at least they have a shot to break the NHL's longest current playoff drought (eight years) and in keeping this team together while adding to it, he showed them that they're moving forward together as a group. He also showed some good will in keeping his d-men on track for their performance bonuses. The opinion here this year has always been that he's owed them as much and it was good to see him give them a little shot. Sabreland wanted more but considering what Botterill was up against, and the time of year, he didn't do poorly. Most would give him a B-grade for what he was able to do and hindsight will let us know just how accurate that might be.
Hopefully that grade will end up being low.
NHL deadline notes:
--there were 32 trades yesterday, the most ever at the trade deadline
--55 players were traded, tied for the most ever at the traded deadline
Quick edit: Reports also had the Sabres in on Columbus Blue Jackets forward Josh Anderson but the two teams couldn't come together on a deal.
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