The Buffalo Sabres drop the puck on the Thanksgiving week homestand tonight when the St. Louis Blue come calling.
A cornucopia of Western Conference teams have been keeping Ryan O'Reilly and his teammates busy. The Sabres have played San Jose, Dallas (2x), and St. Louis (2x) since November 14. Sabres will host Nashville on Thanksgiving Eve and will travel to Music City on Saturday night. The Carolina Hurricanes will be the Black Friday door buster.
The Sabres don't play the Winnipeg Jets until January 10, 2016 in The Peg, however, that hasn't stopped the front office brass from the Jets from scouting Buffalo Sabres home games. As I have been telling you, the Jets have been scouting the Sabres for the past two months.
For the past few weeks, the Jets have sent their director of pro scouting to watch Sabres home games. Tonight, the assistant general manager of the Jets will be in attendance for Buffalo-St. Louis.
The Jets have been looking league wide for a veteran top six forward to infuse adrenaline and scoring into Winnipeg's slumping offense. They continue to evaluate and scrutinize the Buffalo Sabres live and in person.
What gives?
Buffalo's no trade, top six forward list includes Ryan O'Reilly, Jack Eichel, Samson Reinhart, nor Evander Kane to Winnipeg. I have to put Matt Moulson on that list because is Tim Murray traded him away, Jack Eichel would be personally affected. Not a great idea to shake your money maker.
Is captain Brian Gionta available? How about Tyler Ennis?
The Jets are also said to be looking to trade a top four D in order to clear salary cap and 20+ minutes per games for NY Islanders D Travis Hamonic. The Manitoba native requested a trade from the NY Islanders recently. Garth Snow and the Isles will oblige Hamonic's trade request and will be sending him to a team of his choice. Snow has reportedly be trying to trade Hamonic for the past month. Snow will not be giving Hamonic away for pennies on the dollar. You better believe that Snow will get max value for Hamonic. His preference is to play close to his Manitoba home so that he can be closer to his family.
By virtue of the fact that Winnipeg is a fine Manitoba city, The Peg is the odds on favorite to land Hamonic in a trade for Brooklyn.
Hamonic is in year three of his seven-year $27 million contract. He is a an excellent top four D-man with a neat and tidy salary cap hot. Hamonic's AAV is $3,857,142. Hamonic will play against the opposing team's top first or second lines and will create 35-40 points per season from his rear guard position.
The following teams are reportedly hot to trot for Hamonic:
Winnipeg, Edmonton, Anaheim, Minnesota, LA, Calgary, Vancouver.
I can see the Jets wanting to trade lefty Toby Enstrom and his $5.9 million cap hit and 22 minutes TOI to Buffalo for a top six forward. In so doing , Kevin Cheveldayoff would create the necessary ice time and special teams responsibilities for Hamonic in The Peg.
Cheveldayoff currently has $13 million in available salary cap for this season, however, he will have to create as much additional space as he can so that he can re-sign UFAs Dustin Byfuglien and Andrew Ladd. Byfuglien is looking to sign a monster $7 million salary for next season and beyond. I'm told that Byfuglien is looking for 7 years at $7 million per year and the Jets are more inclined to go 5-6 years at $7 million per copy. Ladd is a two time Stanley Cup winner and is earning $4.4 million. He is said to be seeking a multi-year extension in the $5.5 million range.
Cheveldayoff will also have to sign his RFA's to long term extensions. Top four D Jacob Trouba will be getting a heavy pay raise when his entry level deal expires in July. Ditto #1 center Mark Scheifele and energy forward Adam Lowry.
The Jets are off to a disappointing beginning to their season. They had high hopes for a fast start to this season. At 10-9-2, they find themselves in a ties for 8th place, just one point ahead of 10th place Arizona and four points ahead of 11th place Anaheim.
For two months leading up to the February 2015 Evander Kane-Zach Bogosian-Tyler Myers-Drew Stafford trade, the very same Jets front office members were frequent flyers in the Buffalo press box.
There has been more and more talk recently of a three team deal to secure Hamonic.
Might the Jets, Sabres and Islanders be working on the first major hockey trade of the 2015-16 season?