I promise this isn’t only because he scored last weekend. 

With Rasmus Dahlin, Henri Jokiharju, Mattias Samuelsson, Owen Power, and Casey Fitzgerald being the only five defensemen under contract for 2022-23, the other two to three defensemen that will fill out the rest of the opening night roster will be near the top of the offseason priority list. Jacob Bryson will likely be back, as the 24-year-old is a restricted free agent. While Mark Pysyk may be a vibe-based re-signing to round out the depth, Colin Miller and Will Butcher will likely not return in 2022-23 (And based on roster construction, probably don’t fit in the plan). 

With the organization showing a willingness to play their defensemen on both sides and the still unclear development tracks specifically of Jokiharju and Fitzgerald, the right side is where UFA focus should probably be on the blue line, especially considering this window where there is a lot of money to spend for the upcoming season. 

And this is what brings us to Josh Manson, who will become a UFA following his appearance in the Stanley Cup Final and will turn 31 around the opening week of the 2022-23 regular season. Chad had mentioned Manson intrigue back in February while he was still with the Ducks, and a much more elderly blogger had featured him in his defense offseason preview at the beginning of May. The Evolving-Hockey contract projections currently have his predicted term and cap hit at 4 years, $4.049M. How/does that fit into the Sabres’ offseason?

The Season At-Large

Manson joined the Avalanche at the trade deadline and finished with his most games played, 67, since 2019. However, it was also his worst season in GAR, WAR, and SPAR since his rookie year in 2014-15. A silver lining, however, was that his expected values for those replacement statistics were back where he was during the COVID season after a below-replacement 2021 season.

His offensive impact with Hockeyviz metrics was the worst of his career and featured an abyss of production at net-front while on the ice, while his defensive impact was given or take around average, which it has been for much of his career.

Where Does This Player Fit?

It’s not a pie-in-the-sky take to say that 4×4 is probably not getting a deal done in Buffalo unless several roster-altering moves are made before the UFA window opens, so let’s raise the hypothetical cap hit to $6 over 2 years (Maybe he’s hesitant to go double that and could see himself with some trade insurance in spring 2024 before one final multi-year contract at 32/33).

In a roster-building context, Manson would be replacing the Colin Miller spot in the lineup and would be a presumed upgrade given the contract expectation (Miller is currently looking at around a 1/1.76 deal). Manson finished four points ahead of Miller on the stat sheet as well, for further comparison. Even with Miller having the stronger reputation offensively with his shot, Manson had a better season at expectation both on offense and defense compared to Miller.

If the Sabres do get Manson, they’re probably slotting him in as the second-pair defenseman on the right side behind Rasmus Dahlin, but is that good enough of an upgrade? His reputation will allow him to get his fair share of minutes as well, which would bump Mattias Samuelsson down to the third pair. And after a closer look, that’s probably not a great thing.

SO, if they were to sign Manson around a $5-$6 million salary and either (a) have him demoted to the third pair after being replaced by Samuelsson or (b) be playing less efficiently in that 2D role to the detriment of the team, the Sabres should probably look elsewhere unless it turns out that there isn’t as much of a market for Manson and they can get him at 1-2 years under $4M to better justify his place as a third-pairing defenseman.

The final verdict would probably be to look elsewhere in the UFA market or check out the RFA-rights-trade market for that stabilizing veteran defenseman to add to a rising core.

Photo Credit: NHL.com