Quoting: rktkt66
Overall, well done from Buffalo POV - I could see the 12 forwards you've outlined with only the 3rd line shuffling Krebs to the middle, Savoie to the right (he's a RH shot) and Peterka to the left like he played most of this year.
Severson is at the top of my list for free agent targets - it's just hard to know if the Devils will let him go or not. He does seem to have fallen down the depth chart behind Hamilton, Marino, Siegenthaler and Graves and has had Ruff criticize his play in the past.
As much as he professed a love for staying in Buffalo, I don't think Jost is going to re-sign for 50% less. It's probably more likely that he'll sign his QO for another year.
However, on trades # 2-4:
- I don't see the Sabres trading UPL only to land a journeyman like Lankinen who only has 88 games of NHL experience.
- I also don't see Lyubushkin, who is one of the few physical, defensive-minded blueliners the Sabres have, being dumped for a draft pick - if Seattle is the partner, Bryson would be a more logical choice to dump on Botterill (Botterill, he was just terrible, after all ONLY 5 of the teams top 6 scorers and 3 of the 4 top defensemen are all Jason's hold overs, so he would be just dumb enough to want Bryson!) and then keep Lyubushkin in a rotation on the 3rd pairing with Stillman.
Quoting: Stadel
Sabres arent spending on any big ticket FA and convincing the best to sign with them will cost north of 7 mil. They genuinely like Jokiharju for the top 4 and they want to give UPL another shot.
Quoting: homiedaclown
And trading away UPL would be a dumb one
Quoting: worldwidesensei
Because Joker is good and UPL is good.
The line up looks good Savoie or Kulich could easily be in the line up next year.
As to Bryson, I have asked before, what caused him to regress so badly from last year.
His +/- is negative no matter who he is paired with this year, whereas last year he was -13 with Hagg and Pysyk and +4 with every one else.
So Buffalo will trade back from 39th OA to 50th OA while adding 87th OA to get 4 years older Lankinen whose minor league career is very similar to Luukkonen.
No need to trade Lyubushkin and if the Sabres were to only get an early 3rd round (OK late 2nd) for Olofsson, they should keep him on the fourth line and move him at the TDL.