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Players Who May-Or-May-Not Want To Be Here |
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The Seattle Kraken selected Sabres defenseman Will Borgen at the expansion draft last night. The Sabres had spent years developing the 4th round pick, and despite the time and effort spent on grooming him, they elected to allow the Seattle Kraken to take him. Borgen may very well top-out as a steady second pairing defenseman, or he may even flame out of the league. It can be hard to predict these things. What we do know from the Sabres decision is that prioritizing players who want to be part of the team moving forward is not their primary goal.
The notion that the Sabres want commitment from their players has been a common refrain of General Manager Kevyn Adams who has repeatedly insisted that above all else, he wants players who want to play for the Sabres.
"We are going to get this right with the people that want to be here,” Adams said in May.
Rasmus Ristolainen made it clear a day before Adams spoke that he does not care if he’s a Buffalo Sabre moving forward.
“Like I told Kevyn a little while ago I just said I’m open for all the ideas. Right now I mean it’s hard. Obviously the season just ended so yeah I’m frustrated. I’m pissed and it sucks so I told him I’m open for all the scenarios staying or if he trades me I’m fine with that too,” Ristolainen said.
If they trade him, he’s fine with that too.
It seems like a safe bet based on those comments that he would have been fine had the Sabres exposed him for Tuesday’s expansion draft as well. The Sabres opted not to do that, and instead decided to expose Will Borgen who was subsequently selected by the Kraken. It’s all well and good to butter up a fan base with platitudes about players who are proud to put on the jersey, but it rings entirely hollow in the wake of decisions like this which prioritize disgruntled veterans over promising young players. Never mind that it’s a general manager’s job to sell a player on wanting to play for their team.
If Kevyn Adams wanted to send a message to the league about wanting players who wanted to be in Buffalo, he would have exposed Rasmus Ristolainen. It is entirely possible that the Seattle Kraken would have selected Colin Miller over Ristolainen as current Kraken Assistant General Manager Jason Botterill spent a 2nd round draft pick and a 5th round draft pick to acquire Miller when Botterill was employed by the Sabres. The Kraken were never going to take Miller with the cheaper, younger Borgen also available, but the cost of Ristolainen at $5.4m very well may have steered them to Miller – or Zemgus Girgensons for that matter.
Adams’s sentiment now rings entirely hollow during a time which he has to sell a demoralized, tuned-out, frustrated and apathetic fan base on a return for Jack Eichel which could be very disappointing.
Listen, I’m not totally naïve. I understand this is a business and Adams probably felt he had an obligation to protect Ristolainen if he felt he can get a return for the large defenseman that would offset the loss of Borgen, but Adams repeatedly makes it a point to hammer home the idea of players who want to be here. If he were a politician running for office, that would be his tag line. To have that tagline so obviously debunked is not a good look for the first-time GM.
Further, Kevyn Adams has had an entire year to trade Rasmus Ristolainen and avoid this exact scenario. The Philadelphia Flyers and New Jersey Devils both acquired defensemen immediately before the expansion draft trade freeze, but the Sabres GM was either unable to secure a trade offer or unwilling to part with Ristolainen for whatever he was offered (if he was offered anything). The Sabres as an organization have had years to trade Rasmus Ristolainen after it became apparent that Ristolainen simply is not top-pairing material. It’s important to remember that Kevyn Adams has been in the organization for the entire tenure of Ristolainen’s eight-year career so he should be intimately familiar with the defenseman and his struggles. This chronic mismanagement of assets has plagued the Sabres for the better part of a decade and it’s now starting to appear more frequently in this most recent regime.
It also makes little sense to hire a developmental coach like Don Granato and then remove what could be a very nice developmental piece for him to work with. Granato seems to do an excellent job mentoring and bringing young talent along and it’s somewhat nonsensical to take a piece like Borgen away from the coach. Even if the Sabres had lost Ristolainen by exposing him in the expansion draft – which is an enormous if to me – Granato would probably be in a better situation with Borgen rather than whatever the Sabres receive in return for Ristolainen. The return on a Ristolainen trade could be years away from making an impact if it comes in the form of draft compensation.
Adams still has a chance to pull this situation out of the fire if he can nail a Rasmus Ristolainen trade in the waning hours leading up to the draft. The problem for the Sabres now is that they have lost a right-hand defenseman in Borgen and now they’re going to presumably, finally, cut the cord with Rasmus Ristolainen. Colin Miller has one year left on his deal. They have put themselves in an awkward position once again and have backed themselves into a corner where they’ll need to find some more right-hand defensemen. Drafting Owen Power won’t help that; he’s a left-hand defenseman. They could move Rasmus Dahlin to the right side but that would only be further mismanaging the roster by putting players in the wrong positions where their jobs are made harder. Fans watched the Sabres play Brandon Montour out of position for a year and a half, to the point where he was sometimes playing forward because they couldn’t find a spot for him. Those kinds of situations are entirely avoidable but the Sabres seem completely unable to see the train coming down the tracks before the collision.
In a vacuum, the loss of Borgen isn’t that big of a deal, but it just perfectly typifies the last 10 years of Sabres management that has seen talent go elsewhere to flourish while the Sabres languish in a state of total disrepair. It also casts a shadow of doubt over Adams’s ability to safely navigate the coming days with so much at stake. The sheer number of decisions to be made is astounding: What do they do with Jack Eichel? What do they do with Sam Reinhart? Who do they select at first overall? Yesterday is not a positive omen, but the week isn’t over yet.
The Sabres still have a lot of work to do.
Buffalo Sabres Blogger • 
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