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Tim Murray isn't disguising his intentions to make a trade for a left-handed, top four defenseman.
The Sabres need to fortify their blue line and infuse some high end skill in their D corps.
Murray has been patiently shopping for his lefty ever since early July when Johnny Oduya considered signing with the Sabres as a free agent then signed a lucrative UFA deal with the Dallas Stars.
When the Sabres host the St. Louis Blues on Monday night, the season will be one quarter of the way completed and Tim Murray now has his finger on the pulse of his team.
The Sabres are a .500-ish team right now that is having trouble scoring goals on a consistent basis. Granted, losing 30 goal man Evander Kane for 10 of the first 18 games of the season has definitely put a crimp in the Buffalo scoring. However, other forwards like Tyler Ennis, Matt Moulson, Zemgus Girgensons, Brian Gionta, Marcus Foligno have not picked up the slack created by Kane's three week absence from the lineup.
Bylsma and his coaches have been patient with the offense. However, how much longer will they have to wait for difference makers to deliver results game in and game out?
Ryan O'Reilly has 6 goals and 9 assists this season and has been the engine pulling Buffalo's offense. Eichel aso has 6 goals. Rasmus Ristolainen and Matt Moulson have have 4 goals. Samson Reinhart, Tyler Ennis and Jamie McGinn have 3 goals apiece. After that, the Sabres goal scoring column is littered with dashes and zeros.
We are 18 games into the Next Chapter and we rare now seeing the composite drawing of the personality of the Sabres.
They are a responsible defensive-minded team who create their offense from strong puck possession in the attack zone and by turning the mistakes of opponents into scoring chances. Bylsma loves to pressure the puck. He demands that his forwards and D play "North Hockey". When played to perfection, the Buffalo D quick up the puck to moving forwards who drive the enemy net with speed and numbers.
When, operative word "when", Bylsma's pot luck offense is on and scoring 3 to 4 goals per game the Sabres generally win. When then score a goal or two they have to claw, punch and scrape in order to escape the Hangman's Noose. The Sabres offense and defense have combined to score 41 goals for in their 18 games played this season. However, the team has allowed 49 goals against. Bylsma and Murray are not content for their team to be -8 in goal differential at this juncture of the season. All things considered, the goaltending has been spot on. The commitment to reducing the number of goals against by all members of the roster is evident. It's the offense that is undermining the ability to put opponent's away in close games. It would help the Sabres if they could have stayed onside for three goals that were over turned by the NHL as a result of being offside. Oh, well. Life goes on.
The goaltending of Linus Ullmark and Chad Johnson has already surpassed the expectations of Murray and Dan Bylsma. The Sabres are 8-9-1 right now due in large part to the outstanding battles that Ullmark and Johnson have put forth.
We saw last night and in recent weeks that Dan Bylsma's defense-first philosophy can slap restrictor plates on the carburetors of high octane offenses like Dallas and Tampa Bay.
When Murray hired Bylsma last summer, he did so knowing that he and his new head coach would be constructing a big, tough, fast, skilled team that would be difficult to play against.
In their first 18 games, the Sabres have struggled to play a heavy brand of hockey on a shift-by-shift basis. Seemingly, when they win, they start fast and strong and don't relent on the sixty minutes of aggression until the final horn sounds. It also appears that in the games that they lose they start slow and that makes it easy for opponents to win battles without exacting a physical toll on them. Once in a one or two goal deficit, the team gets its collective act together and amps up their urgency and tenacity as they stalk the equalizing goal.
I chalk a lot of their early season struggles up to the facts that the Sabres are one the youngest team's in the NHL (average age: 21 years old). They have a lot of kids on the bench who are learning on the job.
That's why Tim Murray has been actively looking for a veteran left handed D-man who can add grit and structure to the Buffalo lineup.
At what price left D-man?
Here are my trade proposals:
Winnipeg Jets
Are mired in a 3-6-1 slide due to poor D zone coverage and inconsistent scoring.
In 19 games, the Jets have scored 50 goals while allowing 62 goals against. Sorry, folks. Teams that are -12 in goal differential struggle to make the playoffs let alone win the Stanley Cup. The Jets know what their shortcomings are and are aggressively pursuing a trade for a top six forward to help them kick start their suddenly sluggish offense.
Matt Moulson is not a player that the Jets would covet right now. In his career, he is a slow starter and a fast finisher. There is no way in H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks that Tim Murray would risk freaking out 19 year old prodigy Jack Eichel by trading away his mentor, friend and landlord Matt Moulson.
Brian Gionta is a nice guy and a solid veteran, however, he is not the top six forward trhat teh Jets are looking to add to their lineup right now,.
Tyler Ennis is the perfect storm for the Jets right now. The 20 goal scorer has been on Kevin Cheveldayoff's radar since Last February's Tyler Myers-Drew Stafford trade that saw Evander Kane and Zach Bogosian land in Buffalo.
Ennis is a slick play maker and can pop 20-30 goals a season. He is earning $4.6 million this season and for the next thee seasons .
Why would Buffalo trade away their 2014-15 leading scorer for left D Toby Enstrom?
The more that Dan Bylsma continues to pound his drum for his player's to play "North Hockey", Ennis seems to be regressing to his river hockey ways that served him well under Ron Rolston and Ted Nolan. Meaning, Ennis could improvise and water bug all over the ice during the past two tanking seasons, however, Bylsma's system require pace, patience and execution. Lately, Ennis has been free wheeling too much at the enemy blue line like Max Afinogenov had done back in the day. Max played east-west hockey while Lindy preached north-south hockey. Bylsma and Ennis are at the same place philosophically right now. Ennis is capable of playing the D-first style, however, you take away a lot of his water buggy play making when you ask him to check first and create offense off of turnovers and loose pucks.
Also, because the Sabres have right wing depth in AHL Rochester with rookies Evan Rodrigues, Justin Bailey and Nick Baptiste performing well in the 585. Rodrigues and Eichel know each other like the back of their hands from having torn up Hockey East as line mates at Boston University last season.
In 361 career games in Buffalo, Ennis has scored 92 goals and popped 130 assists. 222 points in 361 games played is not bad production. Bylsma skated Ennis a season high 22:09 TOI vs. Dallas. He skated 20:09 vs. San Jose, 15:35 vs. Florida, 13:22 vs. Tampa and 18:04 vs. Vancouver.
Ennis already has instant chemistry with Drew Stafford and Tyler Myers. He would be a solid play maker for Blake Wheeler, Andrew Ladd, Mark Scheifele, Bryan Little, Nicolai Ehlers and the rest of the struggling Jets forward group.
Anaheim Ducks
The Ducks have been downright putrid at times this season.
Having scored only 35 goals while allowing 49 goals against in 19 games played. The Ducks are 6-9-4 this season and 5-3-2 in their past ten games.
They are team in need of a shake up right now.
On Tuesday night, Ducks GM Bob Murray and his Player Personnel Director were watching the Sabres-Stars game live in person. '
It wasn't the first time in the past two months that the Ducks have flown into Buffalo to watch games live in person.
The object of Tim Murray's desire in left shooting D Cam Fowler. The 23 year old top four D is tailor made for the Buffalo roster: he is young, fast, skilled, can eat 23 minutes TOI per game and can play in all situations.
My intel tells me that Tim Murray and Bob Murray had discussions about Fowler and goalie Freddie Andersen at or before the NHL Draft. Nothing materialized so Tim called Uncle Bryan and traded the 21st overall pick to Ottawa for Robin Lehner. Then, Murray traded Nikita Zadorov, Mikhail Grigorenko, JT Compher and the 31st overall pick in exchange for Ryan O'Reilly and Jamie McGinn.
Bob Murray may have said no and Tim Murray found his trade partners.
Five months later, Bob Murray still needs an injection of talent and skill in his top six. He traded Emerson Etem to the Rangers for Carl Hagelin, who has been a bust thus far for the Ducks.
The Ducks are 19 games into their season of high expectations and their offense is a joke. It's upside down. The grunts are performing and the stars are slacking.
Grinders Rickard Rakell, Chris Stewart, Shawn Horcoff and Mike Santorelli have 3 goals apiece
While difference makers Ryan Getzlaf, Ryan Kesler, Carl Hagelin, Andrew Cogliano, Patrick Maroon, and Jiri Sekac have just seven goals between them. Jakub Silfverberg has zero goals.
Corey Perry has a disappointing 5 goals in 19 games played.
Bob Murray gave head coach Bruce Boudreau the dreaded vote of confidence three weeks ago. Since then, the Ducks are a middling group of under achievers.
Murray likely will continue to back Boudreau and then make a trade or two to shake up the hen house.
I can see Tim Murray trading Tyler Ennis Josh Gorges, and a second rounder to Anaheim for Cam Fowler and power forward prospect Nick Ritchie, who was recently recalled from the AHL.
Why trade Gorges?
Because he has been playing exceptionally well this season alongside Rasmus Ristolainen. The Ducks allowed veteran D Francois Beauchemin to skate away to Denver in free agency and are in need of a left hander who can help anchor one of the top two D pairs. Trading Fowler will require that a left hander move back the other way. The Ducks now can afford to trade Fowler because of the emergence of youngster Shea Theodore who according to my scout contacts, is ready for the NHL. Gorges could slot in as a top 5/PK/PP man in Anaheim's D corps.
Tim Murray is not going to wait for the NHL trade market to open to address his needs.
I expect a trade to happen any day now.
Calgary Flames
Brad Treliving has been looking for trade partners for the past two months.
He desperatly needs D help, goal scoring and goaltending.
There is enough blame to be passed around in Calgary right now where the Flames are 7-12-1 in their first 20 games. They are a -26 goal differential having scored only 48 goals while surrendering 74 goals against. Woof!
Left D Kris Russell is earning $2.6 million this season and will be UFA come July.
It's more and more likely that the Flames will trade rather than re-sign him.
Tim Murray may be interested. He has Johan Larsson and a second rounder to work with.
Murray may also want to get his mitts on Flames energy winger Michael Ferland.
Josh Gorges may be a variable for the Flames.
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Look for Evander Kane to return to the Buffalo lineup when the Sabres play in St. Louis on Thursday night. Kane spoke after practice and said that he feels like he is ready to go.
It's possible Kane returns to the lineup tomorrow, Coach Bylsma says. "He's skated really well, he looks really good."
— Buffalo Sabres (@BuffaloSabres) November 18, 2015
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Dan Bylsma said that Zemgus Girgenson will not be making the road trip to St. Louis and Dallas.
Coach Bylsma says maintenance day for O'Reilly, Girgensons will not be making the road trip.
— Buffalo Sabres (@BuffaloSabres) November 18, 2015
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