How the Sabres are shaping up after the 2025 NHL Trade Deadline

It was quite an eventful past few days for the Buffalo Sabres as they completed two re-signings and made three trades. Movement was certainly expected for a Sabres team that currently finds themselves at the bottom of the Eastern Conference.

So, let’s go over the recent transactions:

Sabres re-sign Jordan Greenway: 2 years x $4M per

Now there was definitely interest around the NHL in Jordan Greenway. The Edmonton Oilers had some interest before opting to trade for Boston’s Trent Frederic. So there were options for the Sabres if they wanted to dump off Greenway for a nice return in a hot buyers market.

The Sabres opted to bring back the 6’6” forward from Canton, NY and on a fairly decent value deal as well (those are hard to come by in Buffalo these days). AFP Analytics projected a 4-year, $3.86M per year contract for Greenway. He came in with less term and slightly more money at a 2-year, $4M per year deal.

Keeping term short is the way to go with bottom six forwards. So props to the Sabres for keeping things a two years. I’m perfectly fine with bringing him back at that cost, not a bad player to have further down the lineup.

Greenway is a nice player for the Sabres. The points certainly aren’t eye-popping, but they’re not exactly a team struggling for offense at 5v5 with the 2nd most goals per 60 minutes in the NHL. He’s the Sabres most heavily used penalty killer and gives the team a different look in the bottom six with his size and play-style.

Keeping him around gives the Sabres one less spot to fill in the bottom six. So hopefully that will give the Sabres more time to focus on top six additions this offseason.

Sabres re-sign Jason Zucker: 2 years x $4.75M

Ask me earlier this week and I probably would have preferred if the Sabres dealt Jason Zucker on deadline day. 33 years old and on pace for his best production since the 2019/20 NHL season. All of this coming on a desperate team that tends to overpay depth players to stay. The ingredients were there for a goofy contract.

My two requirements for a Zucker extension: do not go over two years of term and keep the annual cap hit below his current $5M cap hit. The Sabres checked off both of those boxes with this deal, so I am perfectly ok with this contract. This is a contract for a guy who truly wanted to stay in Buffalo, that wasn’t just a negotiation tactic.

I think this contract is designed to age well. Zucker is not signed past his 35 year old season and, with the rising cap, his cap hit in 2026/27 will be the same percentage of the cap as roughly a $4M cap hit in 2024/25.

He provides that veteran presence and offensive depth on this roster. He can play throughout the top nine and can easily be pushed down to a lesser role if the younger players start to take over. Zucker is just a useful utility piece to have in the lineup.

Sabres receive: Josh Norris and Jacob Bernard-Docker
Senators receive: Dylan Cozens, Dennis Gilbert, and a 2026 2nd Round pick

This trade will be the topic of discussion in Sabreland for a while. It was the perfect mix of expected and unexpected. Dylan Cozens was known to have been shopped around this season, but Josh Norris and the Ottawa Senators weren’t really names that were tied to the Sabres by national media.

But man, Dylan Cozens and Josh Norris are two similar players. By that, I mean that the sums of their parts are the same. Think of them two wallets, both with $25 in them. One wallet has a $5 bill and a $20 bill while the other wallet has a $5 bill and two $10 bills. There’s $25 in each wallet but they get there in different ways.

One big similarity between the two: contracts. 5 years remaining on Dylan Cozens contract at a $7.1M cap hit while Josh Norris has 5 years remaining at a $7.95M cap hit. Norris coming in at $850k more per season but with the same exact term.

They also have similar “reclamation project” vibes. Cozens trying to replicate 2022/23 where he had 31 goals and 68 points in 81 games. Norris trying to replicate 2021/22 where he had 35 goals and 55 points in 66 games. Cozens is playing at a 41 point-per-82 games pace this season while Norris is playing at a 51 point pace.

The two players have their differences as well. Like I said, the sum of their parts are similar but they get to that sum in different ways.

Josh Norris is nearly 2 full years older than Dylan Cozens. Cozens is the better playmaker and transition player. Norris is the better shooter, defensive impact player, and power play scorer (whether or not this is system-driven in still TBD).

They are also flawed in different ways as well. Dylan Cozens just looks like a guy whose vibes are off. He hasn’t been able to replicate that free-flowing rush offense we saw from him in 2022/23 and the offense has not been there since that season.

Only 47 points for Cozens last season and on pace for only 41 this season. That is not good enough for a center who is far from sound defensively and carries a $7 million plus cap hit.

Josh Norris is a guy who has really struggled with shoulder injuries throughout his career. His first shoulder surgery came after the 2019 World Juniors. He then missed 38 games with a shoulder injury in the 2022/23 NHL season before returning and re-injuring his shoulder, leading to another season-ending shoulder surgery.

Norris then re-injured his shoulder in 2023/24 which led to yet another season-ending shoulder surgery. He even missed a few more games due to injury just a few weeks ago for what was described as a mid-body injury.

So it’s really a “pick your poison” situation: would you rather have the player who is struggling for no real diagnosable reason (Cozens) or the player who has had legitimate medical issues their underwhelming performances can maybe be attributed to (Norris). It’s why this is truly a reclamation project for reclamation project trade.

Both players have their flaws and both players may honestly be defined by their flaws at this stage of their careers. Dylan Cozens has more runway left being two years younger and comes in about $850k cheaper (not that this will matter for the Sabres). So I would argue that Cozens has a slight edge in value here.

At the end of the day, the Sabres needed a shake-up and Cozens clearly was not working in Buffalo. Evolving-Hockey’s Goals Above Replacement model gave him the 2nd lowest GAR of any Sabres forward this season (only Sam Lafferty was lower). Their model even rated Cozens as a sub-replacement level player this season.

It would be an understatement to say Cozens’ poor play actively hurt the Sabres this season, especially considering that this poor play came from a guy who was expected to be a #2 center. That was why it was interesting to hear the national media talk about him in a much more positive light after being dealt to Ottawa.

Onto Josh Norris: he is speedy with a shot so good that it makes his goals/assist ratio look lopsided. Sabres love a player with speed and focused their entire offseason on adding speed. Their place in the standings probably shows how valuable speed in a vacuum is in the NHL, but hey I still think it can be a useful asset at times.

Norris’ player-type is interesting because he is not a forward who can drive consistent danger, but can create offense with his shot. The true definition of a sniper. Sabres already have shoot first players in their top six with J.J. Peterka and Tage Thompson, so one can argue his skillset may be redundant (or maybe just one the Sabres love).

Obviously, there’s still a lot of work to be done in Buffalo with this roster before next season. But I think this Norris acquisition should place an emphasis on the Sabres next big move being for a danger-driving, playmaking forward. It may be a simplistic way of viewing the game but playmaking + shooting = goals.

Oh and how can I forget about the other elements of this trade. I thought the 2nd round pick was a little rich for the Sabres to toss in there. Even if you take the approach of viewing Norris and Cozens as equals you would have to really value Jacob Bernard-Docker for his value to be a 2nd round pick plus Dennis Gilbert.

Jacob Bernard-Docker is a defensive defenseman with a right-handed shot who is still only 24 years old, so you can see why he had some value in this deal for a team like the Sabres. His skill set may limit him to a bottom pair role.

Dennis Gilbert played in 25 games for the Sabres and average 10:04 TOI, so he goes back to Ottawa as a depth guy. Always sad to see a local guy elsewhere despite his limited role.

This is far from a sexy trade with both of the main pieces clearly not living up to their contracts. Both teams are just swapping dice and hoping the new pair gives them better luck on their next few rolls. That is how you end up with hockey trades like this one.

Still a lot of story left to be written with these two players. Still a lot of work that needs to be done in Buffalo after this major shake-up. Let’s see how things unfold over the next few seasons because that’s all we can do.

Sabres receive: Erik Brannstrom
Rangers receive: Nicolas Aube-Kubel

Wait a minute…that’s not J.J. Peterka.

This is a higher end AHL deal with Erik Brannstrom reporting to Rochester this weekend. Nicolas Aube-Kubel got pushed out of the bottom of the Sabres lineup with the emergence of Jiri Kulich and found himself in the AHL again.

Erik Brannstrom is a 25-year-old former top prospect who joins the long list of smaller offensive Swedish defenseman who struggled to carve out an NHL role. He got some NHL games with Vancouver this season in a limited and sheltered role. He even has some spicy underlying numbers too (but I wouldn’t read too much into these):

Should be a great piece for Rochester though. He has 16 points in 14 AHL games this season for both the Canucks and Rangers AHL teams. Expect for him to be a key piece of their offense as they push for the Calder Cup this spring. His contract is up this spring so who knows if we ever see him in a Sabres uniform.

Sabres receive: 2026 4th round pick
Bruins receive: Henri Jokiharju

The dream of the Sabres retaining cap so they can receive a slightly better return has been dead for five plus years now, so I won’t talk too much about how this team continues to lose marginal battles because they don’t do stuff nearly every other NHL team does.

Henri Jokiharju was not good for the Sabres this season and the writing has been on the wall for him not being part of their long term plans. Getting a draft pick rather than just letting him walk is nice. He also gets to re-join Casey Mittelstadt in Boston.