I was impressed with how generally like-minded everyone was on the Sabres heading into the trading deadline. The Sabres are not contenders. The focus should be on preparing for the following season and beyond. We were all in agreement on this.
Derek Roy and Paul Gaustad were widely considered as the Sabres two most likely trade candidates but for very different reasons. Roy’s largely unproductive season, coupled with how the Sabres seem to play with him out of the line-up, makes him expendable in the opinion of many. Gaustad’s contract is expiring at the end of the season.
Everyone enjoyed imagining what kind of return each would yield in an exchange but I could never marry the idea of improving the center position with the idea of trading both Roy and Gaustad. It never made sense to me how, at the end of the day, the Sabres would be stronger down the middle without Roy and Gaustad, the Sabres only two natural centers.
The weakness at center is a topic that has become somewhat tiresome to discuss. The Sabres have needed help at this position for years. It’s been a problem for so long that as newer problems emerged, the inadequacies at center became something of an after-thought. But with the pressing reality of Gaustad’s contract, the lack of depth at the center position loomed not as a troublesome weakness but as an alarming limitation.
The big news of the trade deadline day was that the Sabres were able acquire Cody Hodgson, a promising center in his first full NHL season with the Canucks; and they didn’t give up Derek Roy to get him. Hodgson is young and has what seems like a lot of potential. Awesome. A significant number of Canucks fans are disappointed with the trade which makes me think there’s a lot to like about Hodgson.
On paper there’s a lot of symmetry between Cody Hodgson, now, and Tim Connolly when he first became a member of the Sabres organization. Like Hodgson, Connolly was a highly regarded center, drafted and developed outside of the organization, who the Sabres acquired early in his career. It was as if all of the sudden Connolly was here and he was the future. We expected a lot from Tim Connolly. We’re going to expect a lot from Cody Hodgson.
I don’t want to just open this comparison and then move away from it so let me say a few things about Connolly. His legacy in Buffalo will revolve around the games he missed. In the final years of his career in Buffalo, his contract status and a throw-away line from the general manager (two of the top-20 centers in the NHL) poisoned his reputation. It’s a shame because Connolly was about as talented of a playmaker as I’ve ever seen in a Sabres uniform. I’ll never forget him. He’s going to be someone I measure future centers against.
I don’t know much about Hodgson’s playing style. From what I’ve read, he seems more like a finisher than Connolly. If he scores two more goals this season, he’ll match Connolly’s career single season high. I do know he’s going to look like Connolly. Hodgson is wearing number 19 and has almost identical body measurements. It’s going to take some time to adjust.
Hodgson is a long-term investment but he immediately provides balance to the roster. With Hodgson on the team, two more scoring wingers get to play alongside a legitimate center. The Sabres now have two forward lines of scorers all playing in their natural positions.
And for Regier — high marks. He was proactive and that’s really what I wanted most out of him on this day. Regier certainly got great value in return for an average veteran player on the final year of a contract. But packaging Zach Kassian and Marc-Andre Gragnani, two young and inexpensive players with high upside, was a totally different type of trade and one that Regier is historically reticent to make. Here’s what Elliotte Friedman had to say.
I’ll admit to a man-crush with Cody Hodgson’s game, so I’m not the best person to properly evaluate the Vancouver/Buffalo trade. That, and I haven’t seen a ton of Zack Kassian. But contacted several NHL types to ask their thoughts, I was amazed by the wildly divergent opinion. There was no consensus. For everyone who liked Hodgson, there was someone who questioned whether he really is a top-six forward. For everyone who said that Kassian’s got Milan Lucic written all over him, there was someone who said he’s not in Lucic’s league.
There’s a lot of risk associated with the Kassian/Gragnani trade. To make that trade, Regier is partially admitting the Leino at center experiment has not worked out as planned. The Sabres are committed to Leino and with Gaustad’s contract expiring, the circumstances were right for this risk. Kassian has more value for the Sabres than he does for most franchises because the Sabres are so undersized. The Canucks are a similarly undersized team that evidently places an equally high value on what Kassian may provide. They were able to pull him away from the Sabres by offering something the Canucks have in excess that partially fills a big need for the Sabres.
Moving Kassian and Gragnani represents both an awareness of a problem and an effort to address the problem. It’s hardly a surprise to learn Regier is aware the Sabres are thin in talent at the center position. He’s not an idiot. It was shocking to learn how much he’s willing to pay to address this weakness. It’s a big statement from Regier.
Beyond that, the only other comment I want to make is that Hodgson was born in 1990 and grew up in a town north of Toronto. This makes him a fan of the Sundin-era Maple Leafs which makes him perfect for the Sabres. It’s like the University of Michigan having recruited some of their most accomplished football players out of high schools in Ohio. Or, a better example, Paul Pierce growing up in California as a great Lakers supporter only to be drafted by be Celtics and, of course, becoming one of the franchise’s all-time greats.
Toronto is probably going to miss the playoffs again this season but they’ll be a part of the picture in the coming years. And now here’s Hodgson — the adopted son of Canada after the 2009 world juniors tournament, born in the heart of Leaf-nation — wearing blue and gold. It’s just a delightful little story-line. It’s Shakespearian. How can he not work out? How can he not rip the hearts out of Toronto?
I’m looking forward to it.