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Power Up/Supply Chain Issues |
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The Sabres made it official by signing 2021 first-overall pick Owen Power to his three-year entry level contract on Friday, one day after Michigan fell to Denver in the NCAA Frozen Four semi finals. Power finished his sophomore season with 3 goals and 29 assists in 33 games, along with a +27 rating and 12 PIMS.
It’s believed the 6’6” left-shot defenseman will make his Sabres debut in Toronto on Tuesday night after sorting out whatever visa issues remain. It’ll be fascinating to see what the defensive pairs look like with Power jumping into a defensive group that already includes another former first overall pick in Rasmus Dahlin. The safe play would be to pair Power with a steady veteran like Mark Pysyk who can provide a level of stability to Power while he acclimatizes to the NHL game. While not a first overall pick, Pysyk was once a first-round pick, so he should be able to relate to Power. The Sabres could likewise decide to pair Power with a more aggressive candidate like Colin Miller.
No matter how it shakes out, fans won't want to miss the big man's debut.
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The Sabres received multiple bits of bad news over the weekend as goalie prospects Erik Portillo and Devon Levi both decided to return to college next year rather than turn pro.
That’s not an enormously troubling decision on the part of Devon Levi who just completed his first collegiate season, but for Portillo, he is now one season away from being able to hit unrestricted free agency if he so chooses. The bigger immediate problem for the Sabres is that they now have no young goalie to play in Rochester next year, despite having zero goalies under contract there.
It’s quite simply a waste of a development opportunity in the organization, and this hiccup in the goalie supply chain for the Sabres is nothing new. Following the loss of Linus Ullmark to free agency last year, the Sabres banked on Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to win one of the goalie spots in training camp. A poor preseason scuttled that plan and UPL made his way back to Rochester rather than finding his way to the big club initially.
Next year the Sabres will have no such luxury as UPL is the only goalie whose rights the team holds at either the AHL or NHL level, so he figures to be an absolute lock to play in blue and gold rather than red and white. In Rochester, though, there will be no prospects to take the crease in his stead, which is something of an organizational failure to properly matriculate their players up the development ladder. It also magnifies the Sabres' decision to pass on 2021 first-round goalies Sebastian Cossa and Jesper Wallstedt at 15 overall last year. The Sabres took forward Isak Rosen and Cossa went one pick later.
General Manager Kevyn Adams could pull a Tim Murray and try to acquire a ready-made goalie prospect in the same way Murray traded Brayden McNabb and two second-round picks for Hudson Fasching and Nic Deslauriers, though that’s an expensive way to do business, and there’s no guarantee that the prospect will be any good.
GMs tend to overvalue their own prospects, so to pry a good goalie prospect away from another team would cost the Sabres dearly (think Jack Quinn or JJ Peterka to start), which makes the idea not only a long shot, but probably a bad idea in general. The safer move would be to try to lure a pending NCAA free agent to Buffalo, like say, Hobey Baker winner Dryden McCay. McCay, of course, will have no shortage of suitors to pick from assuming he does indeed hit the open market, so the Sabres would be in tough to land him.
Short of those two options, the Sabres will have to dip into AHL/NHL free agency and try to find a goalie they believe has some upside and ability to develop while realizing that these kinds of players are often not realistic development options. In any case, Adams will definitely need to draft a goalie this summer to beef up the pipeline significantly, even if it’s too late for that player to make a difference at the AHL-level this coming season.
This Portillo/Levi dilemma also has ramifications at the NHL level. The Sabres may have previously been under the impression that they could simply bring back Craig Anderson to play with UPL at the NHL level, and when Anderson inevitably feels the effects of age, they could spot him with one of Portillo or Levi. They have no such luxury now.
The safe move to make is to acquire a medium-term goaltender who can reasonably play 50 games over the next three seasons if need be. UPL is no stranger to injuries, and the sample size on him is still too small to say definitively whether he’ll ever be a 55-game starter in this league. If Levi or Portillo sign next year – and "if" is the operative word here – they’ll likely need to play a year in the AHL at least before making it to the show. That means that the Sabres likely have no goalie help coming until the 2024-25 season.
Acquiring a proven goalie to bridge that gap becomes paramount if they’re truly interested in competing over the next two years. It’s fine to say they believe in UPL, but if they believe in the team as a whole, they’ll need to get the young kids some real help in the crease.
Buffalo Sabres Blogger • 
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