- 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 Rumors
Sabres Recall Tyson Kozak
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
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
- According to Mike Harrington of Buffalo News Sports, the Buffalo Sabres will be down a defenseman tonight. Jacob Bryson, who has picked up a more consistent role in Buffalo’s bottom defensive-pairing this season, won’t play tonight due to an illness. Dennis Gilbert, seldomly used by head coach Lindy Ruff this season, will draw in for Bryson against the Vegas Golden Knights. Gilbert has tallied one assist in 12 contests this year averaging 10:45 of ice time per game.
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Penguins, Sabres Swap Bennett MacArthur, Colton Poolman
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
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
- 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.
Sabres To Activate Rasmus Dahlin, Sam Lafferty, Jordan Greenway Out Long-Term
Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin will be available for tomorrow’s matchup against the Maple Leafs, head coach Lindy Ruff said Thursday (via Mike Harrington of The Buffalo News). He’ll need to come off injured reserve after missing over two weeks with back spasms. Center Sam Lafferty also told reporters today that he’s healthy and will be available against Toronto. However, it’s uncertain whether he’ll enter the lineup, per Paul Hamilton of WGR Sports Radio 550.
Buffalo only has one open roster spot and must make a corresponding transaction to take both off IR. That will likely mean replacing Lafferty on IR with winger Jordan Greenway, who Ruff said requires surgery to address a mid-body injury and will be sidelined long-term, via Lance Lysowski of The Buffalo News. He’s out indefinitely but is expected back “at some point this season,” Ruff said. Pivot Ryan McLeod is also banged up and will be a game-time decision against the Leafs with an undisclosed injury, Hamilton reports. His absence would necessitate Lafferty’s return unless Ruff dresses 11 forwards and seven defensemen in the hopes of breaking their 11-game winless streak.
Dahlin’s absence is one of the chief reasons why Buffalo hasn’t managed a victory since Nov. 23, although it’s not the only one. Their winless streak was already four games deep when Dahlin took a hit in the third period of a game against the Avalanche that aggravated a back issue he’d been dealing with since training camp. Buffalo’s leader in average time on ice at 24:42 per game also has 19 points in 25 contests, exceeding his point pace from last season.
The 2018 first-overall pick has emerged as one of the league’s premier blue-liners, finishing top-15 in Norris Trophy voting two years in a row and currently checking in at 13th among defenders with 0.76 points per game. He also has a +4 rating to lead Sabres defenders and has been their best two-way player, controlling 59.5% of shot attempts at even strength. In contrast, Buffalo has only managed to control 47.8% of shot attempts without Dahlin on the ice. Only the Rangers’ Adam Fox and the Canucks’ Quinn Hughes have had a more significant impact on their teams’ even-strength possession this season among defensemen.
Tomorrow will mark the Sabres’ first game with a healthy blue line since November 11. Mattias Samuelsson missed extended time with a lower-body injury sustained in that game, and Dahlin exited the lineup before he managed to return.
It won’t be a surprise if Lafferty is activated but sits as an extra forward against Toronto, assuming McLeod can play. The 29-year-old hasn’t had the impact the Sabres hoped after signing him to a two-year, $4MM pact in free agency. He has just one goal through 22 games and has only infrequently appeared on the team’s penalty kill, averaging 9:48 per game in all situations. He’s been a net negative in nearly every area of the game, posting a -2 rating, winning 43.8% of his faceoffs, and controlling 46.6% of shot attempts at even strength.
Surgery is a harsh outcome for Greenway, who’s been one of the few Sabres forwards outperforming expectations this season. The New York native has seven points through 20 games and averages a career-high 15:55 per game, adding 54 hits. The checking winger has averaged nearly full three minutes per game while shorthanded and controls 51.2% of shot attempts at even strength despite 60.2% of his zone starts occurring in the defensive zone.
His mid-body issue has limited him to four appearances in Buffalo’s last 15 games, though. He missed 10 games with the problem before attempting to return earlier this month, re-exiting the lineup for Tuesday’s 6-1 drubbing at the hands of the Canadiens.
Meanwhile, the Sabres and McLeod likely hope his undisclosed injury is just a blip in a good season for the middle-six center. He has six goals and 15 points through 32 games, and he’s on pace to break the career-high of 12 goals and 30 points he set with the Oilers last year.
Rasmus Dahlin Could Return Later This Week
Joe Smith of The Athletic tweeted that Minnesota Wild goaltender Filip Gustavsson did not practice today with the team. Dylan Loucks of The Hockey News also reported that Gustavsson will miss his second consecutive game tomorrow night against the Florida Panthers. Marc-Andre Fleury will get the start with Jesper Wallstedt backing him up. Although Gustavsson will miss tomorrow night’s game, Joe Smith tweeted that Wild head coach John Hynes believes it will be a short-term injury.
Gustavsson has returned to form in 2024-25, bouncing back from a difficult stretch last season. Thus far this year, Gustavsson has posted a 14-5-3 record, along with a 2.24 goals-against average and a .922 save percentage in 22 appearances.
In other evening notes:
- Paul Hamilton of WGR Sports Radio 550 reported today that Buffalo Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff is optimistic that the team will get defenseman Rasmus Dahlin back into the lineup very soon. Dahlin could practice as early as Thursday and depending on how that goes, he could suit up Friday when the Sabres take on Toronto. The 24-year-old has been dealing with a back issue that initially flared up in training camp and has missed seven straight games.
- New York Islanders forward Anthony Duclair didn’t play tonight against Carolina but has been medically cleared to return and will do so whenever he is comfortable to return (as per Ethan Sears of the New York Post). Duclair has missed 28 straight games with a lower-body injury and has played just five times this season, tallying two goals and an assist in those games. The 29-year-old signed a four-year deal in the summer as a free agent and will likely occupy a top-six role for the Islanders when he does return.
Evening Notes: Pegula, Gourde, Bannister
Elliotte Friedman reported on his 32 Thoughts podcast that Buffalo Sabres owner Terry Pegula met with the team in Montreal to discuss their recent woes. The Sabres are 0-7-3 in their last ten games and have had trade rumors swirling around the team as they are on the way to extending their 13-year playoff drought.
Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff is reporting that Pegula’s message to the Sabres was largely a positive one as he believes the solution to the teams problems are within the room and he said he has faith in general manager Kevyn Adams and head coach Lindy Ruff. Many believed that Pegula could be headed to Montreal to make major changes, however, that doesn’t appear to be the case, for now.
In other evening notes:
- Seattle Kraken forward Yanni Gourde was in a regular contact jersey and fully participated in team practice today (as per Kraken contributor Alison Lukan). The Kraken are going to monitor the 33-year-old to see how he responds to the practice before they decide on whether or not he will play tomorrow night. Gourde has been dealing with a lower-body injury that has kept him out of the last two games, and unfortunately broke up a bit of a hot streak as he had 11 points in his last 14 games, after posting just three assists in his first 15 games of the season.
- Former St. Louis Blues head coach Drew Bannister made his first public comments today since being fired by the team (as per St. Louis Today). Bannister said that he holds no resentment towards the organization because they were so good to him during his time there and he forged a lot of good relationships with people inside the club. Bannister was the head coach for just 76 games after spending seven years with the Blues in various roles and was replaced by former Bruins bench boss, Jim Montgomery.
