Would love Casey but acquiring him would make this off season even more difficult. Would need to resign him, Jarvis, and Necas leaving no money to sign one of Skjei or Pesce most likely. And that doesn't even include Turbo, Noesen, and Chatfield.

The one thing that is true, the Sabres can't trade mittelstadt for futures. They can do it for a defensive right shot d, at this point almost has to be physical too. A late first and some undersized forward prospects doesn't come close to what would make sense for buffalo.

I think you can risk losing Skjei with Nikishin ready to make the jump, bumping Orlov to top 4 minutes. Noesen and Chatfield are easy depth signings.

If the money wouldn't work, you can always just flip Mitts' RFA rights.

See, this is what Buffalo fans have curated on the site, not what's REALLY happening. If Mitts is OTB and going to a contender, nobody is forking over a top 4 RHD. It'll have to be a package with some futures.

Even then, you could just take the futures you get and flip them in the offseason for an area of need.

I agree with part of this, he won't be going to a contender, we don't need futures, we need help now. Or the Sabres just sign him.

If the Sabers need back end help, why not get let a team ship a haul at the TDL for Mitts then move some of those assets in the offseason for areas of need.

The package I proposed might be on the weaker side, I was mainly just seeing how he fit in the lines.

That would be an expensive mistake. FUS is more than likely untouchable. And spending all that on a C that isn’t a systematic fit is not smart asset management. If the Canes were targeting a C from Buffalo, as unrealistic as it is, it would be Cozens that would be the target, not Mittelstadt.

Why...? Mitts has proved he's reached what Buffalo was expecting him to all this time, and is actually having a better performance than Cozens this season. AND might sign for cheaper, too. A 2C IS a systematic need. KK is too streaky and has never played a season with more than like 14 minutes TOI to be a contenders actual 2C, and Mitts is a 25 year old expiring RFA. Perfect fit. He's decent defensively too.

Sabres have enough assets on their own to trade for a RHD, but there’s no one good available.

We would need a new gm for a two step. We have a team in a 13 year playoff drought, and his biggest move this year was trading a 7th for Eric robinson. Is that a guy that you would trust to trade a dollar for four quarters, and then send him to the right shot d store with four quarters? The Sabres have two more years of control over mittelstadt, there's no way he can move him for futures.

True, if it's me, Thompson and cozens are completely off the table. Mittelstadt would be the guy I'd move.

I'll agree on the new gm part. Adams needs to go ASAP

Sabres have no need for any of that. Sabres have the deepest offensive prospect pool in the league they don't need forwards prospects

He has had success in an offensive based system in Buffalo. He has never been in a defensive based system, and is about as defensive as Necas. Slightly better than average, but not enough to where he will be actually used as a C in Rod’s defensive system. So aside from the unlikelihood that Mitts would even be played as a C under Rod, there is the problems of his next contract and the cap. Mitts is going to be asking for something along the lines of what Horvat and PLD have gone for. So the Canes can either keep and re-sign their RFAs and a couple of their UFAs, or they can overpay for Mittelstadt via trade and then either ship him off for pennies on the dollar or overpay him as an RFA and have to trade away their own players. And that is all assuming that Mittlestadt ends up actually being a fit.

Waddell has already said he is looking more for players with term, and is not looking at the rental market, which Mittelstadt would more than likely be a rental for the reasons I mentioned above. Cozens is exactly the type of player the Canes would target. Signed long term, at a reasonable cap hit, and is a good systematic fit as a 2-way 2C. It’s incredibly unlikely that Cozens would be moved, but all I am saying is that he would be a more likely target than Mittelstadt.

People who call Cozens a "two-way" player forget his defensive numbers are terrible. Like, last season and this season, they are actually bad. He's as much of a 2-way player as Mitts is, only mitts actually performs decent defensively. Cozens has also been taken off the C and moved to the wing. I think suggesting Mitts wouldn't be good in a defensive system is a stretch, because he's already fine defensively. He has the offensive punch to add to the top 6 that Carolina needs to finally get over that hump.

In terms of his contract, we don't know what his asking price is. Does he want 6, 7? Does he want 8? If he wanted a contract that Carolina couldn't afford, you could easily just ship his RFA rights to a team that would pay him that, and there are plenty teams that need a 2C that would be willing to pay big money for one. It wouldn't be for pennies on the dollar, either. Could recoup most of the assets missing and try again.

I would do this trade but I can't imagine Buffalo does.

If that's correct at least Morrow should be beginning of trade

Mitts isn't a rental

No thank you from buffalo

We have no need to trade him. We can just move him in the offseason if no hockey trade is available

I will defend Cozens in that aspect, because the guy has played between every combo you can think of the last few years. It was nice when they finally settled with JJ Cozens Quinn but injuries have kept that line apart. Cozens gets jerked around a lot.

Not saying he's a bad player by any means, he's just not the "2-way" player people think he is. He's not very good defensively and hasn't been.

Yeah, I agree in some ways. I was just saying a lot has to do with the way he's been used IMO

Unger Sorum “likely untouchable”? Really?

He’s a nice prospect, but if you can turn him into a good NHL player NOW, you do it.

1- we aren’t trading Mitts

2- IF we did, why does it have to be to a “contender”




Your proposed package is horrible
But to answer your question….
We ALREADY HAVE a ton of assets we could use to trade for a RD
We don’t NEED to move Mitts for them in order to make a deal for what we want


So if we were gonna move Mitts (AGAIN, we aren’t),
it would have to be for a very specific player who we didn’t think we could get with all the other great trade pieces we have

Sorry, but your assumptions you made are WRONG
And while your logic makes sense in general- it really doesn’t work for our specific situation

It’s not happening
Sorry