- Paul Byron:  Byron should play on the 4th line and might see some time on the PK as well.  He will replace Marleau in the lineup.  By trading away Marleau and replacing him by Byron, the Sabres saved 1.50M of cap space.

 

Key departures:

- Henrik Zetterberg:  Zetterberg has been a key player for the Sabres during the regular season and the 2019 playoffs.  He finished the playoffs, 3rd on the team (forwards) with 19:20 minutes of ice time.

- Patrick Marleau: Playing on the 3rd line, Marleau had a decent year with 14 goals but had a very disappointing  playoffs with only 2 points.  He still brought a lot of experience to the lineup.

- Torrey Mitchell - Mitchell has been a useful player for the Sabres.  Playing limited minutes on the 4th line, he never hurt the team with a +9 plus/minus rating during the regular season and a +4 plus/minus rating during the playoffs.  He was also skating on the 2nd PK unit.

 

Contract Extensions:

LW - Artemi Panarin: not resigned yet

D - Drew Doughty: not resigned yet

D - Mattias Ekholm: not resigned yet

D - Nick Jensen: not resigned yet

D - Stephen Johns: not resigned yet

D - Deryk Engelland: not resigned yet

 

GM Blanchard has been able to resign a lot of key guys during the offseason but has not convinced Panarin, Doughty and Ekholm to resign so far.  The Sabres still have another shot at resigning them but would consider moving them for the right price if the team do not perform as expected early in the season.  A decision will have to be made in the next few months.

 

When asked about how the talks were going, GM Blanchard had this to say "Star players are hard to trade for and when you have them, you keep them.  This is a really competitive league and those guys are rated great.  We have been very clear with them.  If we cannot get fair value, they are staying in Buffalo even if they decide not to resign with us.  At the end of the day, even if we are not lucky and can only resign one of them, it is worth a shot at another cup run. Never know, maybe we will be lucky and resign all three.  We shall see."

 

Free agency:

The Sabres have been able to sign 13 guys including two very good depth guys in Jay Beagle and Nate Thompson.  The Sabres had a bit of cap room but it was not enough to make a big splash during free agency.