@boosbuzzsabres
The Buffalo Sabres announced today that defenseman Brandon Montour has a hand injury, the severity of which has not been revealed. The Sabres tweeted out that Montour "will miss the rest of the preseason due to a hand injury" and that they'll update his status "at the conclusion of training camp."
So much for the right-handed, log-jam on defense.
Buffalo general manager Jason Botterill acquired the 24 yr. old Montour from the Anaheim Ducks on February 25 for d-prospect Brendan Guhle (2015, 51st-overall) and a 2019 first round pick (LW, Brayden Tracey, 29th.) Montour was the first of three right-handed d-men acquired by Botterill the past seven months as he also acquired Colin Miller from the Vegas Golden Knights on June 28 and Henri Jokiharju from the Chicago Blackhawks on July 9.
When added to roster players Zach Bogosian and Casey Nelson, those acquisitions loaded up the right side and really fueled speculation that disgruntled defenseman, Rasmus Ristolainen, a righty himself, was on the move. The Sabres have been adamant that they were not shopping the 24 yr. old Ristolainen but there was said to be a lot of smoke surrounding his name with the Winnipeg Jets seemingly as the most likely match in a trade. Deductive reasoning has the Sherlock Holmes' of the internet hockey world pairing the Sabres and Jets in a two-plus-two scenario beginning with the end of the Jacob Trouba saga.
Trouba was the subject of trade rumors for years in Winnipeg as the six year veteran and the Jets could never get together on anything longer than short-term deals after his entry-level contract expired in 2015-16. With each passing contract negotiation since, player and team seemed to grow further apart until Winnipeg pulled off a deal with the NY Rangers on June 17. Although they lost one of their top-two defensemen in the process, the Jets were still pretty confident moving forward with a d-corps anchored by Dustin Byfuglien. However, that never stopped the rumors of a Ristolainen to Winnipeg deal and the plot thickened over the course of the past couple of weeks.
As the summer wore on, top restricted free agents continued to go without contracts extensions and one of those names happened to be Jets sniper Patrik Laine. The winger was the second-overall pick in the 2016 draft and averaged over 36 goals/season in his three years with the Jets. The Sabres have been interested in adding top-line/top-six forwards so a match was made there with Ristolainen headed the other way. Adding another layer to the situation is Byfuglien, who is on personal leave and is "contemplating his options," according to TSN's Bob McKenzie. The 34 yr. old right-handed defenseman has been anchoring the Jets defense for years and losing both him and Trouba strikes a serious blow to their defense-corps.
Add it all up and if there was a Ristolainen to Winnipeg fit before, the Byfuglien situation adds even more intrigue.
However, having Montour out with an injury certainly casts a pall over any trade scenario for Buffalo. At least for now. If his injury bleeds into the regular season, he'll be yet another Sabres defenseman on the sideline to start the season. Bogosian had hip surgery and is likely out until at least the middle of October and left-handed defenseman Lawrence Pilut is out at least that long while recovering from off-season shoulder surgery. With Montour joining Bogosian on the injured list, the once overflowing right-side of the defense-corps is suddenly stretched a little thin.
In looking at everything right now, Botterill has quite the hand to play in a Ristolainen trade scenario. The workhorse defenseman is signed at a reasonable $5.3 million cap-hit for three more seasons and he's in a top-four role for the Sabres. There's a spot next to top defenseman Rasmus Dahlin up for grabs and perhaps Botterill was giving himself plenty of options when he made the trade for those right-shot defensemen. Ristolainen is also in that group but having him in a second-pairing role fortifies the top-four defense corps and that's what the third-year GM can accentuate to any potential suitors as it puts him in more of a dire situation now than before Montour's injury.
Botterill took a lot of heat for the Ryan O'Reilly trade even though it seemed that outside forces drove the deal and it looks like he's waiting this one out until the right deal comes along. If he really intends to move Ristolainen.
Until that happens it looks as if Ristolainen, Miller and Jokiharju, plus Casey Nelson, will be on the opening night roster and it will be up to new head coach Ralph Krueger to find combinations that work. Last season it looked as if Bogosian was best paired with Dahlin while Ristolainen seemed like a great fit with Jake McCabe. Miller played a top-pairing role in Vegas but was demoted to a comfortable spot on the third pairing with first-unit powerplay duties. Jokiharju played alongside future Hall of Famer Duncan Keith before a coaching change in Chicago changed his role while Montour looked pretty solid next to Dahlin for Buffalo despite the duo lacking ideal defensive awareness. One shouldn't rule out anything this off season and a smart, defensive-defenseman like Nelson will probably get a crack next to Dahlin in the preseason to see if there's any chemistry.
With all that said, the Sabres are gearing up for this weekend's home and home with the Toronto Maple Leafs and the d-pairings in today's first group, according to those at practice this morning, were:
Dahlin-Ristolainen
Jokiharju-Nelson
Scandella-Miller
And, for posterity sake, here were the lines for that group:
Vesey-Eichel-Reinhart
Skinner-Cozens-Rodrigues
Olofsson-Asplund-Johansson
Larsson-Ruotsalainen-Girgensons
Join the Discussion:
»