This offseason is likely going to change the trajectory of the Buffalo Sabres. Of course, there’s no guarantee, but a lot of signs are pointing to this summer being the end of the Jack Eichel era. I’ll eventually put together an offseason with Eichel remaining on the team. I’ll also get to one that has both Sam Reinhart and Eichel on the move.

In this mock offseason, I took the approach of going for a retool. I wanted to focus on getting some players that could jump into the lineup now, but I also wanted to make some moves looking ahead to the future. In this projection you’re also going to see me use the Sabres cap space to take on or retain money for assets. If Eichel is moved, it’ll open that option for them and Adams should be willing to accommodate teams looking to offload short-term money in return for prospects or picks.

Trades

I’m going to start with the trades that I made first because they impact the other parts of the offseason. There are a few different deals that I made, but only one is a big one.

Trade 1: Sabres receive Maxime Comtois, Adam Henrique, third overall in the 2021 NHL Draft, and a 2022 second-round pick from the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for Jack Eichel

Let’s just get the Eichel trade out of the way right away. You may be upset that this deal doesn’t include Trevor Zegras, but I just don’t think the Sabres are going to get the big-name prospects like that. In the NHL, these general managers hold onto their prospects with potential like they’re gold. They never give them up unless they’re truly desperate and about to lose their job.

Although this trade doesn’t include Zegras, it’s a good deal for the Sabres. They’ll be able to pick first and third in the draft in July, which should allow them to walk away with one forward and one defenseman. The Ducks may not be willing to move a top-three pick, but I’m banking on desperation from Bob Murray. 

Maxime Comtois is an exciting player that is an NHL player now. The 22-year-old scored 16 goals and had 33 points in 55 games for the Ducks in his first full season this year. That projects to 24 goals and 49 points over 82 games. He backed up a strong season with a good performance playing for Canada in the World Championships. He registered four goals and six points in 10 games for the Canadians on their way to Gold in that tournament.

His underlying numbers are good too for a player of his age. Comtois led the Ducks last season in individual shot quality at 5 on 5 last season, according to Moneypuck. He brings an offensive upside that the Sabres need with the departure of Eichel. The most intriguing thing to me, which you’ll see below in Micah McCurdy’s individual impact chart, is his above-average finishing ability.

The final piece to this is Adam Henrique as the cap dump. He carries a modified no-trade clause in his contract which allows him to carry a 10-team no-trade list, according to Cap Friendly. The Sabres will need to deal with that, but I’m not anticipating that being an issue for this scenario. He has three years remaining on his deal with a $5.825 million cap hit.

Henrique is 31-years-old and not the player he used to be with the New Jersey Devils. He still has strong numbers from an underlying perspective. You’ll see below in the twins’ GAR (goals above replacement) model that he grades out well offensively.

He would be a good veteran to have around the room for players like Casey Mittelstadt and Dylan Cozens.

Trade 2: Trade a fourth-round pick in 2021 to the Seattle Kraken for them to select Colin Miller in the NHL Expansion Draft

This one is pretty straight forward and gets the question on what happens in expansion out of the way. To keep the Kraken away from anyone I don’t want them to select, I pay a fourth-round pick to have take Colin Miller and his $3.875 million off of my books.

If you want it, this is how I would submit my protection list for expansion:

Forwards: Jack Eichel, Sam Reinhart, Jeff Skinner, Casey Mittelstadt, Anders Bjork, Victor Olofsson, and Rasmus Asplund

Defense: Rasmus Dahlin, Henri Jokiharju, and Will Borgen

Goalie: Linus Ullmark

Trade 3: Sabres trade Rasmus Ristolainen (retain half the salary) and Lawrence Pilut to the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for Tyson Foerster and a 2022 third-round pick

Of course, there’s going to be a Rasmus Ristolainen trade. Honestly, though this is the year to make the move. He has one more year remaining on his contract and it’s just time for both sides to move on.

The Flyers seem like a perfect for him and the fans will like his “physical” style.

What I did to get back a pick and a prospect was to retain half of the salary. That would mean $2.7 million of his salary will remain on the Sabres cap this season. It shouldn’t be an issue at all with the money they’re moving out the door. Pilut will likely not play for the Sabres again, so I used him as an extra asset in this deal to get a little more.

The draft pick is just the beginning of my plan to add a bunch of picks in the first three rounds over the next two drafts. Foerster is the prospect I targeted here because I think he’s close to NHL ready. He’s 19-years-old and was the first-round pick of the Flyers last year.

He was supposed to be headed back to the Barrie Colts of the OHL this season, but with no OHL season he reported to the AHL. He put up good numbers with 10 goals and 17 points in 24 games with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.

He has a great shot, which is what makes him such a dangerous offensive threat.

Trade 4: The Sabres acquire Mikko Koskinen and a 2022 second-round pick from the Edmonton Oilers

This is one of the moves I discussed above where I took on short-term salary for an asset. Koskinen has one year remaining on his contract with a $4.5 million cap hit. The Finnish goalie does have a no-trade clause in his deal, but I’d imagine he would waive for an opportunity to play elsewhere. He would essentially be the backup goaltender on this roster (you’ll see the starter soon).

His numbers are not the best, but they’re not terrible either. In Evolving Hockey’s model, he had a -5.36 goals saved above expected number in all situations. He’s not going to drastically change the Sabres fortunes, but that shot-adjusted number is better than a goaltender such as Joonas Korpisalo over the last two years.

NHL Draft

Now that all of the trades are out of the way we can move to the next part of the offseason. After all of the trades above, the Sabres will walk into the 2021 NHL Draft with six picks in the first three rounds of the draft. They’ll have two picks in the first round, three in the second round, and two more in the third round.

In the 2022 NHL Draft, as of now, they would be holding six picks in the first three rounds. One pick in the first round, one in the second round, and three in the third round.

Having 12 picks in the top three rounds of the next two drafts should give the Sabres the ability to replenish their prospect pool and set them up for a strong future. Not to mention I added Comtois and Foerster to the organization as well.

Back to the 2021 NHL Draft, I’m not in possession of the first and third overall pick. At first overall I have the Sabres selecting defenseman Owen Power. It’s not the pick that I would make, but if I’m trying to be realistic it’s probably what the Sabres would do. I should note that Power will not be on my opening night roster. I would send him back to the University of Michigan for one more season.

With the third overall pick I’m anticipating that Matty Beniers would go second overall to the Kraken, therefore, I would select Swedish winger William Eklund. He’s a dynamic winger that could step into the lineup in the 2022-23 season.

Restricted Free Agents

Up next are the restricted free agents. For the majority of these contracts I lean on Evolving Hockey’s contract projections.

You probably noticed above that I did not trade Sam Reinhart. In this version, I signed him to a multi-year contract extension. There’s a possibility that he is moved, but the Sabres’ first interest is to see if they can get a long-term deal done. Also, with it appearing that Don Granato will likely return as head coach, that increases the odds of a Reinhart return in my opinion. Granato is a big fan of Reinhart.

On Rasmus Dahlin, I decided to go with a bridge deal. I think that his camp will be on board with this too. Let’s see if he can play as well as he did under Granato to end last season.

Here are all of the RFA deals I made:

• Sam Reinhart – 4 years, $7.25 million AAV
• Rasmus Dahlin – 2 years, $4 million AAV
• Henri Jokiharju – 2 years, $2 million AAV
• Casey Mittelstadt – 2 years, $2 million AAV
• Rasmus Asplund – 1 year, $900 thousand AAV
• Will Borgen – 1 year, $800 thousand AAV
• Max Comtois – 3 years, $3 million AAV

Unrestricted Free Agents

Lastly, is the unrestricted free agent market. I tried my best to stay out of this avenue, but I did end up signing two unrestricted free agents. I added defenseman Kevan Miller on a one-year contract with a $2 million cap hit. I needed a right-shot defenseman and the 33-year-old was some veteran experience to add to the blue line. He’s not going to give you much offensively, but as he’s solid defensively.

The other free agent signing was a goaltender, but not one that will impact the Sabres this season. I signed former Minnesota Wild goaltender Filip Lindberg. He’ll be an unrestricted free agent after being unable to agree to a contract with the Wild.

Lindberg has been an excellent goalie for UMass the last few years and backstopped them to a National Championship this year. The Sabres need more depth in goal moving forward as we saw this past season.

I also re-signed two of the Sabres own unrestricted free agents. The first was goaltender Linus Ullmark. I still think that it’s likely that he returns to the Sabres. With Ullmark’s deal I matched the Tristan Jarry contract, but added a little more to it. I signed him to a three-year deal with a $4.25 million cap hit.

Last piece of business was re-signing Jake McCabe on a one-year, $2 million contract. He’s another veteran to add to the room and he can rebuild his value after the knee injury in a place that he’s comfortable. If he can return to the type of player he was last season, that contract will be a bargain.

Final Roster

My final roster will leave the Sabres with $8.3 million in cap space still going into the season. Here’s how it’ll look:

Forwards

Max Comtois – Sam Reinhart – Anders Bjork

Jeff Skinner – Dylan Cozens – Arttu Ruotsalainen

Rasmus Asplund – Casey Mittelstadt – Victor Olofsson

Zemgus Girgensons – Adam Henrique – Tage Thompson

Kyle Okposo

Defense

Rasmus Dahlin – Henri Jokiharju

Jake McCabe – Kevan Miller

Mattias Samuelsson – Will Borgen

Jacob Bryson

Goaltenders

Linus Ullmark – Mikko Koskinen

Photo Credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Data via: Moneypuck, Evolving Hockey, Micah McCurdy, Cap Friendly, and Byron Bader