The expansion protection lists from all of the teams are due to the NHL by this Saturday. The Seattle Kraken will announce their selections on Wednesday, July 21st.

The Buffalo Sabres find themselves in a good position compared to some other teams in the league. They can assemble their protection list in a way that will prevent them from losing any key players. Having said that, there are a few traps that Kevyn Adams could fall into and risk losing a promising young player off of their roster.

1. Leaving Rasmus Asplund Exposed

The biggest mistake the Sabres can make is leaving Asplund exposed to Seattle. The turnaround he had last season was something that not many would have predicted. I was ready to write him off after continually failing to hold down an NHL roster spot going into his fifth post-draft season.

Casey Mittelstadt, Rasmus Dahlin, and Henri Jokiharju are the three players that get the most accolades for their turnaround under Don Granato. In reality, Asplund is the one that may have been the most impactful young player. He’s not going to continue to shoot at 20% like he did this past season. That’s unsustainable, but he’s one of a few players on the roster currently that will crash the net looking to score.

In Micah McCurdy’s isolated impact chart above, you can see how a lot of the shots are concentrated around the front of the net with Asplund on the ice. He established strong chemistry with Mittelstadt over the final 28 games of the season. The two fed off each other and are a duo the Sabres should keep together going into next season.

Asplund helped Mittelstadt with defensive responsibilities and he was able to capitalize on Mittelstadt’s playmaking ability in the offensive zone. They have the potential to be a good middle six line for the Sabres moving forward.

If the decision comes down to either protecting Asplund or Tage Thompson, it shouldn’t be a difficult choice for the Sabres. As you can see below in Evolving Hockey’s RAPM model, Asplund is by far the better impact player at both ends of the ice.

Thompson is a one-dimensional offensive player that has shown no consistency in that area throughout his career. He’s a liability defensively and doesn’t provide the Sabres much on special teams.

Asplund, on the other hand, can help drive offense and is a reliable defensive player. He’s also one of the best penalty killers currently on the roster. The Swedish forward is a strong forechecker and makes the Sabres more difficult to play against. Losing him to the Kraken would be another unforced error by the organization.

2. Leaving Will Borgen Exposed

Will Borgen falls into a similar category as Asplund. He’s a young player that has shown signs of promise. The 24-year-old blueliner has only played in 14 NHL games. That’s a very small sample size, but in these cases, you need to trust your development.

Borgen has played well during his time in the AHL as a defensive defenseman that can bring some physicality. He moves well and is a smart player. you’ll rarely see Borgen get himself into bad positions at either end of the ice.

He’s also the right-shot defender that can replace the departure of Rasmus Ristolainen. Whether that happens this summer or next is yet to be determined.

I’m confident in saying that he’ll give the Sabres better on-ice impacts playing in a second pair role with the club moving forward. Borgen would provide them great value in terms of their salary cap structure.

Allowing Seattle the opportunity to swipe a cheap defenseman with the potential to play a second pairing defensive role would be a huge mistake. The Sabres are not in a spot now that they can just let players like this leave the organization for nothing. It should also be noted that the right side of the blue line looks bleak in the future. If you don’t account for Ristolainen or Colin Miller; only Borgen, Jokiharju, and Oskari Laaksonen remain on the right side of the blue line.

3. Protecting Rasmus Ristolainen

Protecting Ristolainen would mean that the Sabres would expose one of Borgen or Jokiharju to Seattle. Leaving the Finnish defender exposed would run the risk of losing him for nothing. That may not seem like an ideal situation, but it’s better than losing the two younger players.

Ristolainen has one year remaining on his contract and it would be stunning if he had an interest in re-signing with the Sabres. The wise move would have been to attempt to move him before the expansion draft, but they’re running out of time.

If he remains on the roster through the week, Adams should dare the Kraken to take him. It would be interesting to see if the expansion club with the big analytics department would take his contract for one year. They could also take him for the purposes of flipping him in a trade to another team.

The value for Ristolainen was at its peak about two years ago under Jason Botterill, but he decided to pass on moving him. At this point in time, the cap space the Sabres would receive from Kraken if they pick him would be an acceptable return. It would help the Sabres win more games with his subtraction and open up some opportunities this offseason with the cap space.

Adams could make all of this moot if he’s able to work out some kind of deal with Ron Francis. He could pay the Kraken an asset to stay away from certain players and take a player off the roster such as Colin Miller. David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period mentioned that the Sabres talked to the Kraken about Kyle Okposo. I feel that the cost would be high for them to take on the remaining two years of his deal that carry a $6 million cap hit.

There’s no need for the Sabres to give up a premium asset to offload Okposo’s contract when they may be headed down the route of a rebuild and cap space won’t be an issue for them when they move Jack Eichel.

We’ll find out the approach that Adams and his staff decided to take this weekend.

Data via: Hockeyviz.com, Cap Friendly, and Evolving Hockey

Photo Credit: Bill Wippert/NHLI via Getty Images