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Buffalo Sabres Recall Devon Levi, Place Ryan McLeod On Injured Reserve

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One of the best goaltending prospects is headed back to the NHL. The Buffalo Sabres announced they’ve recalled goaltending prospect Devon Levi and have placed forward Ryan McLeod on injured reserve.

Levi’s recall would appear long overdue at face value. He’s been exceptional in the AHL this season with the Rochester Americans amassing a 12-3-2 record in 17 games with a .913 save percentage and 2.33 goals-against average. As promising as his efforts in the AHL have been, this production is largely par for the course for Levi.

In his third season in the Sabres organization, Levi has managed a 28-9-6 record in 43 total games in AHL Rochester with a .922 SV% and 2.38 GAA. Unfortunately, his splits with Buffalo haven’t been nearly as promising with a 17-16-2 record in 35 career starts with a .896 SV% and 3.24 GAA. Given his production at the NHL level up to this point, it’s hard to argue Levi should even be considered an upgrade on backup netminder James Reimer.

Still, at 23 years old, he’s exceptionally young for a goaltending prospect, and there’s no reason to think his AHL production isn’t an eventual sign of things to come in the NHL. Regardless of Levi’s play with the Sabres, Buffalo’s loss of McLeod for at least the next three games is the most disappointing part of this transaction.

The Sabres didn’t provide many specifics to McLeod’s injury but it’s reasonable to think it was suffered in the team’s most recent game against the Pittsburgh Penguins yesterday night. There’s a chance McLeod will miss the next four games for Buffalo given they’re embarking on a Pacific Division road trip on Monday.

Factoring in the high cost of acquiring McLeod (Matthew Savoie, ninth overall pick of the 2022 NHL Draft) from the Edmonton Oilers this past summer, his six goals and 18 points through the first 41 games of the season likely came as a disappointment to the Sabres.

Despite the poor offensive start to the year, he’s quieted much of the disappointment in the last week. He’s been one of Buffalo’s top players over the past week scoring four goals and six points, including a hat trick against the Carolina Hurricanes, with a +4 rating in only four games.

McLeod’s recent uptick in scoring makes this injured reserve placement all the more unpleasant to the Sabres. They’ve played better of late with a 6-4-1 record in their last 11 but will have to look to other forwards to replace McLeod’s production.

Sabres' Mattias Samuelsson Back From Illness

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  • Sabres defenseman Mattias Samuelsson returned to the lineup in last night’s win over the Hurricanes after missing a pair of games due to illness. The still-developing shutdown man logged nearly 20 minutes. He posted a plus-one rating in the team’s narrow 4-2 victory, in which they managed to record a goal on no shots in the third period after Ryan McLeod was awarded an empty-netter on what otherwise would have been a penalty shot thanks to a Brent Burns slash. Samuelsson was again hamstrung by injuries in 2024-25, missing 12 games with a lower-body issue earlier in the year. When in the lineup, he has five points and a minus-seven rating while averaging 18:25 per game, his lowest usage since his rookie season.

Jason Zucker Interested In Signing Extension With Sabres

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Last summer, the market once again wasn’t favorable to Sabres winger Jason Zucker.  After playing on a one-year, $5.3MM deal last season, he ultimately had to settle for another one-year pact for this year with a small pay cut as well as he carries a $5MM price tag.

However, after last year didn’t go so well, this season has gone much better for the soon-to-be 33-year-old.  A strong first half has him third in team scoring heading into tonight’s game and he’s within striking distance of scoring leader Tage Thompson.  Accordingly, instead of being viewed as a short-term stopgap option as he seemingly was back in July, some are wondering if Zucker’s stint with Buffalo should be extended.

Sticking around with the Sabres is something that Zucker certainly appears to be open to.  Speaking with Matthew Fairburn of The Athletic (subscription link), the veteran indicated that a new deal is something he would be very interested in and that when the time comes, they can have that conversation which suggests substantive discussions about a new deal have yet to begin.

Early in his career, Zucker was a reliable secondary scorer, notching at least 20 goals in five of his first six NHL seasons.  However, injuries and inconsistency have hurt him since then as he has only reached that mark once in the last four seasons, that coming in 2022-23, his final year with Pittsburgh.

Last season, Zucker started the year with Arizona but struggled, collecting 25 points in 51 games.  With the Coyotes needing to clear the rest of his contract, they were only able to secure a sixth-round pick for his services at the trade deadline.  However, Zucker entered tonight’s action with 15 goals and 16 assists in his first 43 outings and is on pace for one of the best seasons of his career.

Assuming Buffalo remains out of the playoff picture, GM Kevyn Adams will have a decision to make.  On the one hand, Zucker’s performance will make his market much stronger this time around.  Assuming they’re willing to retain salary (something Arizona wouldn’t), the price to acquire him should even go higher.  Getting a solid future asset out of a one-year investment would certainly be a strong piece of business for the Sabres.

On the other hand, Buffalo is the youngest team in the NHL and certainly benefits from Zucker’s presence.  Knowing that they’ll need some solid veterans as they look to emerge from their extended rebuild, this could be a case where it makes more sense to try to keep him in the fold.

With his recent year-to-year inconsistency and the market not going his way the last couple of years, Zucker might not be in a position to command considerably more than he’s making now.  Instead, term might be the focus, getting some much-desired stability security after playing for four teams over the past couple of calendar years.  If a modest raise coupled with a few years on the contract is on the table, that might be enough to keep a good thing going between Zucker and the Sabres in the weeks to come.

Photo courtesy of Imagn Images.

Mattias Samuelsson Out With Illness

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  • Defenseman Mattias Samuelsson will miss his second straight game for the Buffalo Sabres. The organization announced that Samuelsson is still dealing with an illness that kept him out of the team’s most recent win against the Ottawa Senators and he won’t be in the lineup tomorrow night. Samuelsson’s absence should give oft-used seventh defenseman Jacob Bryson another opportunity in Buffalo’s lineup against the Seattle Kraken.

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Sabres Recall Tyson Kozak

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The Sabres recalled center Tyson Kozak from AHL Rochester on Wednesday, per a team announcement. He’s primed to replace forward Jiri Kulich, who left Monday’s shootout win over the Capitals with a lower-body injury, in tomorrow’s lineup against the Senators. Buffalo doesn’t have an open spot on the active roster, so Kulich is presumably headed to injured reserve to make Kozak’s recall happen.

Kozak has been recalled once this season, making his NHL debut in relief of the injured Sam Lafferty early last month. The 22-year-old pivot skated in three games, scoring his first NHL goal while averaging 9:55 per game and winning 53.3% of his faceoffs.

The Sabres were out-chanced 26-19 while Kozak was on the ice at 5-on-5, but he primarily played a defensive bottom-six role. A seventh-round pick in 2021, he’s producing at a career-best pace in Rochester this season with 12 points (six goals, six assists) in 24 games with a plus-seven rating.

Kozak is in his third professional season after a junior tenure with the Portland Winterhawks of the Western Hockey League, whom he captained in the 2021-22 campaign. The pending restricted free agent is expected to center Lafferty and Nicolas Aubé-Kubel in Thursday’s tilt with Beck Malenstyn also expected to miss the contest with an illness.

That makes three forwards unavailable for Buffalo, at least for now. Jordan Greenway remains on injured reserve after undergoing mid-body surgery in December and doesn’t have a timeline for a return.

If Kulich was placed on IR to make room for Kozak, he’s been ruled out of their next two games. Head coach Lindy Ruff told Heather Engel of NHL.com that Kulich is week-to-week with his injury, so he likely won’t be back upon becoming eligible for a return next Wednesday against the Hurricanes, either. The 2022 first-rounder has nine points in 31 games this season, his first as a full-time NHLer.

Red Wings Have Shown Interest In Dylan Cozens

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The Sabres and Red Wings were linked as speculative trade partners earlier in the season, with Max Bultman of The Athletic suggesting at one point that Detroit may be interested in prying defenseman Bowen Byram away from Buffalo. It turns out there was some smoke to that fire, but center Dylan Cozens is the Sabres player that the Wings have expressed interest in acquiring, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet wrote Tuesday.

While most reports indicate the Sabres’ desired path forward is to stay the course despite currently ranking last in the Eastern Conference with a 15-21-5 record, that hasn’t stopped Cozens’ name from appearing in a fair amount of trade speculation through the first half of the season. Things haven’t gone well for the soon-to-be 24-year-old, whose point totals have steadily regressed since a career-best 31 goals and 68 points in 2022-23 that earned him a seven-year, $49.7MM extension.

Cozens is posting just 0.49 points per game in 2024-25, down from last year’s 0.59 mark and even further from that breakout year’s 0.84. He’s shooting 8.6% for eight goals through 41 games, adding 12 assists for 20 points and a team-worst -14 rating.

As our Gabriel Foley wrote last month, Buffalo’s poor record this season extends far past Cozens’ woes. Moving on from him would also risk continuing a trend of the Sabres moving on from still-developing players too soon, parting ways before they break out again on a new team.

If he were to be on the move, the Wings make a lot of sense. They have an old center corps for a supposedly still-rebuilding team, with top three pivots Dylan Larkin, Andrew Copp and J.T. Compher all between the ages of 28 and 30. Marco Kasper, 20, is well on his way to capturing a top-nine spot down the middle, but inserting Cozens there gives them an extended window to return to playoff relevance.

Despite the poor rating, possession play hasn’t been a huge issue for Cozens this season. His 50.6 CF% ranks 10th on the team at even strength, and while his -3.3 expected rating is in the middle of the pack, it’s far from the worst. His 165 shot attempts are fifth on the team, and he’s been the best Sabre at actually getting pucks through on net, converting 56.4% of his attempts into shots on goal.

Trading Cozens carries a fair amount of risk for both teams. There’s the chance of Buffalo cutting bait too early, but there’s also a financial risk for an acquiring team with five years left on his contract if his numbers don’t rebound to the 60-point range at a minimum.

But even at his current low point, Cozens is a middle-six upgrade for Detroit over Compher and Copp. Both are producing at worse point-per-game rates than Cozens, with far worse possession metrics, both raw and relative.

The Wings’ biggest issue this season is generating offense, especially high-danger chances. They only have 233 high-danger chances at 5-on-5 compared to the league average of 297, and they’re also only converting on 6.8% of those. Cozens should help with that to some degree.

Jacob Bryson Out With Illness

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Penguins, Sabres Swap Bennett MacArthur, Colton Poolman

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The Penguins traded winger Bennett MacArthur to the Sabres on Friday in exchange for defenseman Colton Poolman, both teams confirmed. The swap of minor-leaguers comes in conjunction with a corresponding trade between Pittsburgh’s and Buffalo’s AHL affiliates in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Rochester, which saw 25-year-old winger Jagger Joshua head from WBS to the Sabres’ system for future considerations.

MacArthur’s short stint in the Penguins organization comes to an end with the move. An undrafted free agent signing by the Lightning in 2022, the 23-year-old spent most of his time in the ECHL before the Bolts traded him to Pittsburgh for Lukas Svejkovsky last June. Svejkovsky and Tampa Bay have since mutually terminated his contract.

As he had in Tampa, MacArthur failed to crack the AHL roster in the Penguins organization. He’s spent the entirety of this season on assignment to ECHL Wheeling, where he’s struggled immensely with only three goals and seven points in 28 appearances. He had 32 points in 55 games for ECHL Orlando and Allen last season while under contract with the Lightning.

MacArthur will report to the Sabres’ AHL affiliate in Rochester for now, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see him assigned to their ECHL affiliate in Jacksonville in short order. The Prince Edward Island native will be a restricted free agent this summer and has no points in six career AHL games with the Syracuse Crunch.

Coming to Pennsylvania is Poolman, the younger brother of LTIR-bound Avalanche defenseman Tucker Poolman. The 29-year-old inked a two-way deal with Buffalo over the summer after four seasons in the Flames organization but hasn’t established himself as a regular in Rochester, logging just one assist and a -2 rating in five appearances thus far.

He heads to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in search of more playing time, while the Pens organization hopes he can rediscover the strong stay-at-home play he exhibited with the Flames’ AHL affiliates in Stockton and Calgary. He’s two years removed from a career-high 14-point, +18 rating season in 64 games.

Trading Dylan Cozens Won’t Solve Sabres’ Issues

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The Sabres are finding ways to hit new lows. On the tail of a 14-year playoff drought, the team is in the middle of a 13-game losing streak. They’ve been outscored 54-to-28 and outshot 378-to-355 along the way – reigniting the all-too-common conversation of which Sabres forward may be to blame. It’s a familiar spot for clinging Sabres fans, who saw Ryan O’Reilly traded away after a 25-win season in 2017-18; Jack Eichel traded in 2021 after a 5-3-1 start, and Casey Mittelstadt traded at last year’s trade deadline after a 7-6-0 record where three wins required extra time. This time around, it’s Dylan Cozens being pulled into the spotlight, but moving him out won’t be the piece to solve Buffalo’s skid.

The reasons why a big move likely won’t be the fix are convoluted but not complicated. Buffalo has scored the fewest (2.15) and allowed the most (4.08) goals per game since the start of their losing streak on November 27th. That’s partly thanks to a forward group that’s largely unengaged. Only five Sabres forwards have recorded 20 or more hits since the start of their skid. Of them, only two have scored five or more points: Tage Thompson (seven points and 21 hits) and Cozens (seven points and 29 hits).

Coincidentally, Cozens has also been on the ice for the second-most even-strength goals (9) of any Sabres forward, behind only Jason Zucker (10). He’s proven able to step up and make an impact when the pieces around him are quiet, helping him maintain a proud role as Buffalo’s second-line center.

Cozens maintaining his top-six role should be enough incentive to hold onto him – after all, no other Sabres are earning the second-line role. But even if Buffalo thought now was the best time to sell their 23-year-old, top-six centerman capable of scoring 20 goals and playing 20 minutes – the trade market for young forwards has been brutally harsh this year. Not even prior draft precedent can generate significant returns, with the Rangers only receiving defender William Borgen and a handful of draft picks for 2019 second-overall pick Kaapo Kakko. Philip Tomasino, Lars Eller, and Vasily Podkolzin all returned even less, netting only mid-round draft picks.

You have to go back to last season’s deadline to find a notable forward-for-forward swap: when the Penguins sent star scorer Jake Guentzel to Carolina for Michael Bunting and a litany of top prospects. Since then, only Pierre-Luc Dubois’ move to Washington represents any notable return for middling forwards, sending goaltender Darcy Kuemper to Los Angeles. The likelihood of Cozens sparking a big-package deal or swaying a team to move on from their capable starter is slim-to-non mid-season.

That’s to say trading Cozens would do little more for Buffalo than punt away an already-down year with the hopes that they receive enough draft capital to make it worth it. The move could give rookie Jiri Kulich and hot acquisition Ryan McLeod a chance at more ice time. To his credit, McLeod is tied with Cozens in scoring – each with 15 points in 34 games – and has posted much better results defensively. But his mark on the top-six wouldn’t counteract the depleted depth behind him unless one of Kulich, Tyson Kozak, or Sam Lafferty suddenly found a new stride.

More importantly, moving on from Cozens would mean moving on from a former top-10 pick who, only two seasons ago, posted 31 goals and 68 points at the age of 21. That year stands as a flash in the pan now, but it’s also Cozens’ show of strength when he’s part of an offense that maintains their strength throughout the season. With O’Reilly winning a Conn Smythe and Selke Trophy after his move, Eichel now a superstar in Vegas, and Mittelstadt thriving in Colorado’s top-six, the Sabres seem cursed to continue moving on from impactful forwards before they find their groove. Shipping out Cozens on just the second year of an incredibly team-friendly seven-year, $47.7MM contract – with no remaining signing bonuses – risks setting the Sabres up to repeat their sins.

The Sabres need a change. They can’t win a hockey game and have too much talent in their prospect pool to continue as basement dwellers with Stanley Cup aspirations. But in the heat of a prolonged skid, their sights are again trained on the second-line center. With each trade of a top forward, Buffalo moves on from younger and younger players. Now is a chance for the team not to repeat the errors of their old ways and finally find a new way to shake up their floundering roster.

Sharangovich Might Have Been Sabres' Summer Target Before Extension

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  • While some have suggested that the Sabres were close to landing Carolina’s Martin Necas over the summer before the potential swap fell through, Mike Harrington of The Buffalo News suggests that wasn’t the case and things never got to the point where Necas had to consider the swap. Instead, a source tells Harrington that Calgary’s Yegor Sharangovich may have been someone that Buffalo was trying to land over the summer.  The 26-year-old had a breakout year last season with 31 goals and 59 points, earning a five-year, $28.75MM extension for his efforts although things haven’t gone well for him this year with just six goals and two helpers thus far.  GM Kevyn Adams indicated recently that he thought he had a significant trade done in the offseason that fell through and he declined to provide any specifics beyond that.

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