The Buffalo Sabres had a busy weekend during the 2021 NHL Draft. They began the franchise shift with their core by trading off both Rasmus Ristolainen and Sam Reinhart. They also made the pick at the top of the draft we all expected in defenseman Owen Power.

We did get one surprise over the two days of the draft. The Sabres selected four Russian players in their 11 picks. Two of them were second-round picks in Prokhor Poltapov (33rd overall) and Aleksandr Kisakov (53rd overall)

Organizational Change 

Let’s start there. The selection of these players is interesting because they’re intriguing prospects, but this signals an organizational change in their drafting philosophy. They have not drafted a Russian player since 2016. It’s promising to see the organization not be completely shut off to a portion of the world in the draft process. 

It’s another sign that the front office staff that Kevyn Adams has assembled is going to be doing things differently. As I’ve said before, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to work. However, it’s refreshing to see the change in direction when the franchise is going to start over.

While we’re on the topic of draft picks, I did want to spend a moment discussing the Sabres 13th overall pick, Isak Rosen. There was some pushback on Friday evening that he was their selection. I do agree that there were some better players on the board, but Rosen is a good prospect. He needs to put on some size, but he has incredible upside offensively. 

I feel a lot of this negative feedback was driven by NHLe models that showed Rosen in a poor light. As a “numbers guy” I’m going to be in favor of data-driven models, but it’s important to understand where there are holes. One such missing area in these models is accounting for players that play limited minutes in pro leagues. 

Rosen played 22 games in the SHL, but only received about five minutes of ice time per game. When you run a point-based model where he only picked up one assist in 22 games, it’s going to drop significantly. In leagues where he played against his peers, his production was much better. He scored seven goals and 12 points in 12 games on Leksands J20 club. In the IIHF under-18 World Championship, he scored seven goals and nine points in seven games playing for Sweden. 

He’s going to be a fun player to monitor over the next few years. 

Reinhart Trade

We all thought that day one of the draft was over around midnight, but that wasn’t to be. Immediately after the draft, Elliotte Friedman of Sportnset broke that Sam Reinhart was being traded to the Floridan Panthers. Then began the long wait to get the final details of the trade. When all was said and done, the Sabres ended up with goaltending prospect Devon Levi and a conditional 2022 first-round pick. 

This isn’t the type of return that was expected for a player of Reinhart’s caliber. Especially when you look at the returns from the Rasmus Ristolainen and Seth Jones deals. Our first sign that the market for restricted free agent forwards on expiring deals was not strong should have been the Pavel Buchnevich trade earlier in the day. He was dealt from the New York Rangers to the St. Louis Blues for a 2022 second-round pick and Sammy Blais. The Sabres managed to do better on their return for a player of similar value. 

Sure, Adams could have waited out the market and possibly received a better return down the road. The complicated part of this is that it appears Reinhart had no interest in playing in Buffalo beyond this season. They were backed into a corner and decided to take the goaltending prospect that they’ve been chasing for over a year. 

I’m not trying to give Adams a pass on this deal. It’ll go down as a poor deal and the Sabres did not get fair value for the player they traded off of their roster. 

Levi was a seventh-round pick in 2020. It’s not often you see a player selected that late traded as the main piece of a deal one year later. He catapulted into the spotlight after a strong World Junior. He went 6-1 with three shutouts and a .964 save percentage. The unfortunate part is that these were the only seven games he played all year due to Covid-19. Levi was supposed to play for Northeastern University, but their season was canceled.

He’ll play for Northeastern next season and will once again be the goaltender for the Canadian World Junior club. 

Free Agency Week

The unrestricted free agent market opens at noon EST. on Wednesday. That’s the next checkpoint for the Sabres to find a trade partner for their captain Jack Eichel. We’ll see where things go this week, but I would be surprised if he’s on the team still at the end of this week. Rumors have it narrowed down to a few teams that are legitimate landing spots for the 24-year-old center. 

I’ve always viewed the Anaheim Ducks as the frontrunner for some time now. I’m ready to change to that view and declare the Minnesota Wild as the leader in the race. The Sabres have it locked up pretty tight on Eichel discussions, but some recent conversations lead me to believe that they’re the team to keep an eye on. 

In other news, we may begin to get clarity on the Sabres plan in goal. A source has indicated that Linus Ullmark and the Sabres are closing in on a new contract. The expectation is that the deal will be in the three-year range and carry a cap hit close to $5 million. They’ll still need to add another goaltender to the roster before the season gets underway.

The last thing we could see this week is the official announcement of the coaching staff under Don Granato. 

We should be in for some more fireworks around the league before we head into the dead portion of the offseason in August. The Sabres have at least one more big trade to complete. 

Photo Credit: Bill Wippert/NHLI via Getty Images