Exploring Buffalo Sabres trade deadline scenarios

The NHL Trade Deadline is one week from Monday and the Buffalo Sabres are going to be one of the key sellers. They have a few players on their team that will draw some interest around the league.

It’ll be interesting to see how far Kevyn Adams goes beyond Taylor Hall and Brandon Montour in his first deadline as general manager. He has the ability to trade off a lot of pieces to set his team up for an important offseason ahead.

What I’m going to do here is go through the realistic list of players that could be dealt by next Monday and give one trade scenario for each player. This list won’t include Jack Eichel. It won’t include Sam Reinhart either because if he is dealt a player of that magnitude isn’t usually moved at the deadline.

Taylor Hall

Let’s start with the big fish in Hall. The Sabres would be wise to get the 29-year-old forward to a new team sooner rather than later. He appears to ready to move on with his play on the ice as of late and the team risks injury by continuing to play him.

It may be a long shot the Sabres get a first-round pick for him, but they can still get a decent return for a player of his caliber.

Trade Scenario: Taylor Hall to the Florida Panthers (50% salary retained) for a conditional 2021 second-round pick and Aleski Heponiemi

I know the Panthers are probably out of left field here. They’re playing well this season and are third in the Central Divison in points percentage and comfortably in a playoff spot. They could be a team that wants to make a big splash and try to make a run here.

They have the cap space to take on Hall at the 50% salary retained rate. The draft pick in this scenario would turn into a first-round pick in 2021 if the Panthers reached the Stanley Cup Finals and Hall played in 50% of the games.

Heponiemi is a prospect that is getting lost in the Panthers’ system. The 22-year-old was a second-round pick back in 2017. Anton Lundell and Owen Tippett have climbed over him in their prospect pool. That could make him expendable to the Panthers.

After a rough rookie season in the AHL, he has performed better this season, but Covid has impacted his season. He played well for MODO in HockeyAllsvenskan prior to the season in North America getting underway. Now, that he’s in the AHL again, he’s getting little playing time with the Syracuse Crunch split-squad. However, he does have four assists in three games for the Crunch.

He’s an intriguing offensive prospect that is close to the NHL, which is what the Sabres need at this point.

Brandon Montour

Montour is the other player outside of Hall that is most likely to get dealt. He has played better than last season and even took his game to another level over the last week. He’s getting involved more in the offense under Don Granato.

The benefit of that is the Sabres may be able to pry a little bit more out of a team that is desperate for help on the blue line. They certainly won’t be able to recoup the first-round pick and prospect they traded to the Anaheim Ducks to acquire Montour.

Trade Scenario: Brandon Montour to the Winnipeg Jets (25% salary retained) for a third-round pick in 2022 and a sixth-round pick in 2021.

The Jets are in major need of some help on the blue line with the season-ending injury to Nathan Beaulieu. Montour is a defenseman that can help them in transition and provide some offense from the blue line.

In return, the Sabres pick up two picks for the pending free agent. I have them retaining some salary in this scenario to get a 2022 pick in the third-round instead of a 2021 pick.

Rasmus Ristolainen

Now, we get to some guys that could be on the move by Monday. Teams are apparently calling on Ristolainen, according to Darren Dreger of TSN. If that is indeed the case, Adams should consider moving him.

Look, this isn’t so much about his on-ice performance anymore. That continues to be an issue, but the bigger problem is he only has one more year remaining on his contract after this season. The big defender is not re-signing with the Sabres. He has been open to a change for a few years now and I can’t see him signing up for more of this. The Sabres need to get value while they can.

Trade Scenario: Rasmus Ristolainen to the Philadelphia Flyers for Nolan Patrick and Michael Raffl.

The Flyers are looking for help on their blue line on the right side and they get a player with some team control for next season. They can evaluate him and determine if they want to re-sign Ristolainen to an extension.

Patrick is the second overall pick from the 2017 NHL Draft that hasn’t lived up to expectations. The 22-year-old forward has had injury issues throughout his career that have slowed him down. The Flyers may be ready to move on from him after another down year production-wise.

The Sabres would be hoping that in a new situation he can realize some of that potential that makes hade him a top-two pick. Raffl is just a throw-in pending free agent that the Sabres take back to make the money work for the Flyers this season.

Linus Ullmark

The Sabres shouldn’t be looking to move Ullmark unless he has indicated that he does not want to sign an extension after the season. If that’s the case they have to move him before the deadline with goaltenders being in high demand.

He has played well for them this season when he has been healthy, but as an unrestricted free agent, he holds the cards here on his future.

Trade Scenario: Linus Ullmark to the Toronto Maple Leafs for Joey Anderson and a 2022 third-round pick.

Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet indicated that the Leafs called on Ullmark on the 31 Thoughts Podcast. Therefore, I stuck with the Leafs for this trade scenario. Frederik Andersen has had another poor season and Jack Campbell has been the guy in goal recently for Toronto. Kyle Dubas appears to be looking for some insurance going into the postseason.

Joey Anderson was a fourth-round pick of the Devils in 2016. The 22-year-old forward is looking for an opportunity in the NHL. He’s a quick player that has some offensive upside. The ceiling for him is probably a third-line winger, but the Sabres need players like that in the bottom of their lineup on cheap contracts.

The draft pick is just a continuing accumulation of assets and the cost of doing business for the Leafs in an expensive goaltender market.

Colin Miller

The last player I’ll go over will be Miller. He has been inconsistent with the Sabres and if they can get something for him now, they should explore that option. He has one more year on his deal with a $3.875 million cap hit. That could be interesting to teams looking for a defender to expose in the expansion draft.

Trade Scenario: Colin Miller to the Colorado Avalanche for a fourth-round pick in 2022.

There isn’t a lot to write about here. Miller gives the Avalanche some depth on the blue line going into the postseason. They could use another right-shot defenseman with Erik Johnson out due to injury.