What is the purpose of those trades?

From the Montreal side or the Edmonton and Buffalo sides? I put a small explanation in the description.

This doesnt make Montreal better.

no way buf does that. terrible contract for weber

boqvist cant make 3.7 mil as a rookie lol

The Alzner trade is at worst no improvement, but it won't make the team worse. The Buffalo trade solves Montreal's biggest problem which is a high end C that the coach will actually trust. Losing Weber hurts but with Juulsen and Boqvist it wouldn't be a crippling blow.

Sabres decline, Weber's too old, he's breaking down, and his contract is bad. They could spend a little more in free agency and go after Carlson, if they want, at that point

Juulsen is a rookie and not ready for at least another year. Boqvist might need 2 years. Montreal defense is already ****?

ROR at 7.5 isn't much better. At least Weber's contract dives in actual salary in a few years and becomes a great contract for a budget team. And as the description says Boqvist's deal includes max possibly bonuses.

Weber was on a 50 point pace on a broken foot 26 games into the season. His contract isn't bad when you actually look at how it's structured, plus if he decides to retire early Nashville will either need to eat up to a 24 million cap hit or reacquire him and buy him out. Plus I don't see much RD depth on Buffalo. Carlson is an option for them though true, just like Tavares is an option for Montreal, obviously players like that signing would change things.

Juulson looked ready enough this year, him being in the AHL won't help him anymore he needs time with the big boys. Montreal's defence wasn't great but the fact that Price couldn't stop a beach ball at the start of the season certainly didn't help.

Webber is too old and too expensive for the Sabres at this point. Trading for Webber would be a win now move, theSabres are looking to build for the future.

Unless he can go backwards in age, I'm not really worried about what his pace was last year, he's 32 (will be like 34-36 by the time the Sabres are possibly a contender, but they probably 36-38 with a trade like this), has 8 years left at a 7.8 mill cap hit (Sabres don't have to worry about salary, they are far from a budget team), and he missed the majority of this season this year.

I just figured that the Sabres have been bad for the last half decade or more and they have some young pieces, maybe they would try and trade from a position of relative strength (if Middelstadt is NHL ready next season) to shore up a position of weakness, defence and more specifically RD. Weber still has a few good years in him, provided he heals up decently, and the actual money he gets in the final part of his contract is almost nothing making it an easy contract to move to a team like Arizona or just any rebuilding or low salary team trying to get to the cap floor.

I never said the Sabres needed to worry about salary, I said that towards the end of his deal he would be easy to trade to a budget team. I look at Buffalo and see a team that should have been in the playoff mix this year and finished last. Maybe I am overestimating the Sabres roster but they are severely under-performing in my eyes and a shake up might be necessary. Also Eichel missed a quarter of this season, Crosby missed more than half a season back to back years not that long ago, injuries happen. I can understand not wanting to take the risk of Weber not bouncing back but to pretend his value is next to nothing is just being dishonest with yourself.
And let's be honest ROR is 28 next season, his offence isn't going to improve and might start declining soon, he's a good player but he likely doesn't have the offensive strength to stay in the 55-60 point range as he gets towards 30. ROR's value is his 2 way game which is great but not worth 7.5 now let alone if his offence declines. I hope he stays a top 2C for many years going forward (wouldn't try to aquire him if I didn't) but he will likely be a middle of the pack 2C well before his deal is done, with would still make him the best C on Montreal unless a miracle happens and Galchenyuk gets another shot.

They definitely need a shake up, but they need to add younger players that are going to be with this team for a while, Weber is going to be degrading while this team is rebuilding trying to get back in the mix. I'm not saying Weber's value is nothing, I'm saying his value to Buffalo is nothing. It's like the Okposo signing, they wasted a ton of cap space on him, he didn't make this team better, and now he's only getting older while they figure out their next move. If the Sabres have a dream offseason and everything goes right they are still at best a bubble team, and ROR is the best trading chip this team has. If this offseason were to go right, they will have to maximize his return. 1 or 2 good years(when the Sabres are still a bad team) out of Weber is not maximizing his return. Sabres need a Roster LW or D, a prospect and a pick or prospect. If they Sabres have to throw in a pick or a Girgensons to get that extra piece coming back then so be it.

The closest deal the Sabres could get out of MTL is probably involving some combinations of Mete, Hudon, Juulsen, Primeau, Fleury, Ikonen, Tyszka, Poehling, and picks up to even their 2018 1st rounder

Fair enough, they do need some help at D though, especially on that right side, if they can lock down a youngish guy like Carlson it would be amazing for them. Also, while I don't fully believe in it, the Sabres need to shake the whole culture of losing thing, part of why their are so many ROR trades being proposed. I figured Byron to take some of the lost PK time, an early second in a deep draft, and another 2nd or even 1st next season if Weber didn't work out would be a good deal to fix the holes short term while moving out a guy who, while valuable, has made management look bad with his end of year comments.

Honestly if something like Ikonen, Tyszka and a 2019 1st and maybe a pair of 2nds this year got it into hammering out the fine print that would be a way better deal than giving up Weber and Byron.

We're all pretty upset with ROR right now, kind of because of the culture thing, shipping out Kane helped more with that. But now all his butt buddys are being salty crybabys and you can easily tell who they were by the end of the year interviews. So its not so much a culture of losings, its just a sh**ty culture that was establish and grown like mold since Ruff got fired and they havent had a real, disciplinarian voice in the locker room, captain or coach, to keep them in line since.

I mean I kinda get it, he went from a Colorado team that made the playoffs twice in the 6 years he was there, got bounced in the first round both times, and weren't exactly good in the other years, to a Sabres team that had just drafted Eichel and were looking to be in a spot like Toronto is by this time. Still though he could have phrased it a lot better. Seems sort of like the Kessel situation, great player, but not the type of person to be "the guy" in the locker room.

I think a trade of ROR is needed and if MTL wants to be in on it I actually think they have a few pieces for Buffalo to look at.

I agree with some on this board that Buffalo is in a weird place and ROR is now their top trade asset. In my opinion they should be using him to get real pieces to move forward with, not necessarily prospects but good cost contracts for youngish players (24+). He is valuable enough to get a top 4 defenceman and a top 9 forward with a pick. If that’s Montreal then your looking at Petry(29 year old RHD), Shaw, Gallagher(no go), Lehkonen, Byron - all top 9 forwards that have manageable contracts that can all step into the Buffalo line up and be successful. Finally you throw in a pick, depending on the pieces above your giving up it can be anywhere from a 1st to a 3rd, I will day though that if it involves Gallagher Buffalo would have to include something else.