The Sabres sending J-J Peterka to Utah may not be as ugly as it looks in a headline.
On its face, the Buffalo Sabres trading J-J Peterka to Utah for defenseman Michael Kesselring and forward Josh Doan looks rough, but digging into the weeds of everything about it reveals a lot more.
The Sabres had other needs to fulfill and Peterka was ready for a change. On the other hand, Buffalo’s long need to find a right-shot defenseman to (ideally) play alongside Owen Power was fulfilled.
“I can skate with them, and I think I move the puck pretty well, but also bring that defensive side, be reliable for one of those two guys hopefully, and kind of give them a ‘steady Eddie’ partner who defensively plays hard, boxes out and can get them the puck and let them play their game,” Kesselring said.
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Trades are not always as simple as they’re laid out to be when completed and this qualifies as such.
At first blush, it looks like the Sabres got crushed on it and I’m as guilty as anyone else for adding to that. And while I was critical of Sabres GM Kevyn Adams for this deal for not getting more for Peterka, his grade for it is still incomplete because how he replaces Peterka in the lineup matters.
Whether that comes via trade (as of this writing, Bo Byram is still a Sabre) or free agency (something the organization has been reticent to do for years now) doesn’t matter at this point. Peterka was tied with Rasmus Dahlin for second on the team in scoring this season (68 points) and third in goals (27). Was he one of their best players all-around? No, but that production cannot be ignored.
As for the how and why the situation changed with Peterka, it’s tough. Early on in his time here, he was a guy that was outwardly joyful, excited about being there every day and one of the most fun players to talk with. After previous years with guys who seemed to be really perturbed to be around or talk to anyone, it was a breath of fresh air.
But from that year to the next, the mood changed, which can happen. Playing hockey goes from being happy fun times as a teenager to being a serious job with serious implications and that affects guys in different ways. The life of being a professional athlete can be a lot of fun, but it can be really stressful, too. The outward joy, at least around us media knuckleheads, was gone though, and at some point, you wondered if that was the case all the time.
Playing for Lindy Ruff was/is tough on some young guys because he’s demanding, and he’s wired in an old-school kind of way. There were stretches through the season where even though Peterka was putting up points, his overall play was lacking and there’s no doubt that had to drive Ruff up the wall.
It’s kind of like a relationship that’s reach its end point, sometimes a breakup is what’s best for everyone and for the Sabres to part ways with Peterka, they had to address at least one of the serious needs and they were able to do that by adding Kesselring.
At 25 years old with a righthanded shot, Kesselring fits the description for what they needed to add to their blue line. For the past two seasons with Arizona/Utah, he’s grown into being a more impactful player. He’s 6’5” and 215 pounds so he’s a certified big guy. He plays physically but not recklessly so. He’s dropped the gloves a few times (five times this season according to Hockey Fights) but admits that’s not his preference.
Kesselring possesses one of the hardest shots in the NHL and for all of about a day and a half, he had the record for hardest shot goal since they began tracking such things in the NHL EDGE era. It was Tage Thompson who broke it, naturally, and those two as well as Doan were teammates at World Championships this year. They were part of the team that helped the United States win gold at Worlds for the first time in more than 90 years.
That camaraderie helps both Kesselring and Doan and bonding with Thompson in that tournament will go a long way to helping them both get acclimated. In Kesselring’s case, his evolution into becoming one of the more underrated defensemen in the league required him to take advantage of the opportunities in front of him.
He was drafted by the Edmonton Oilers in 2018 and wound up with the Arizona Coyotes in 2023 as part of the Nick Bjugstad trade at the deadline that year. That time in between was spent at Northeastern University where he was teammates with Devon Levi as well as with Bakersfield in the AHL. There’s something to be said for a player that busts their ass to work their way up and prove themselves.
“I like to think I’m a very hard worker,” Kesselring said. “I mean, sixth-round pick, you don’t see too many guys in the league nowadays. So I pride myself on that hard work and being relentless in that sort of aspect of the game, in the gym in the summer, on the ice in the summer. Just keep getting better and trying to be better every day.”
With the Coyotes, he earned his ice time and last season in Utah he took another step and earned more ice time and games. Now with the Sabres he’ll have the opportunity to play big minutes partnering with Dahlin or Power and to provide an even bigger overall impact in making them a more well-rounded team.
“I know a lot of guys in that room, and I think there’s a lot of talent here and there’s no reason we can’t turn it around pretty quick,” Kesselring said. “Talking to Tage a little bit already, and I haven’t reached out to any of the other guys. I talked to Zucks (Jason Zucker) a little because I was with them in AZ, but I think there’s a really good opportunity for our team this year to make a push.”
In Utah this season, Kesselring spent more than 50 percent of his 5-on-5 minutes paired with Ian Cole. His possession numbers were good (53.9 CF%) and the shot quality numbers (54.1 xGF%) were also strong. He had seven goals and 22 assists as well as 89 penalty minutes and 87 hits. If he’s paired with Power, that’s two guys with long reaches and big bodies to disrupt everything when it comes to guys trying to carry the puck in against them. Say what you will about Power’s lack of physical play, you don’t have to hit anyone if they give up the puck the moment they’re in front of him.
Kesselring’s regular numbers don’t jump off the page, but his growth recently and development into a solid No. 3/4/5 defenseman is an upgrade for Buffalo at the position. Defensemen that play the way he does aren’t “sexy” acquisitions, especially when compared to a flashy scorer like Peterka. And that’s OK so long as it works out.
When it comes to Doan, he’s still green at the NHL level. He’s played 62 career games and 51 of them came this season. He had seven goals and 12 assists this season for Utah and averaged 13:31 of ice time. He’s 23 years old and just scratching the surface of his NHL career.
Doan prides himself on his forechecking and puck hunting and that’s good considering that’ll be the role the Sabres will want him to play. He’s Shane Doan’s son but he doesn’t play the way his old man did. Expecting him to do so would be a mistake, but he’s a guy we don’t really know a ton about at the NHL level. It’ll be time to find out next season.
“One of the most sacrificial things you can do as a forechecker is sometimes you might not get the puck back and it might not be yours, but they’re going to force a turnover to your line mates and it’s going to create separation for them,” Doan said. “So, sometimes you got to go into pucks kind of just giving yourself up for your group. And that’s what kind of led to my success at the end of the year. This year was as a line we contributed a lot of chances just because it was something that you went in there and disrupted the play and your linemates came in and that makes you a fun player to play with.“
In his 51 games this season, his advanced stats jump off the page. At 5-on-5 he had a 58.0 CF% and 61.6 xGF%. He had a specialized energy guy role with Utah and those numbers lean heavily into that and they also say he was very good at it. He was sheltered a bit (55 percent offensive zone starts) but when he was on the ice, the team generated scoring chances and high-danger chances like mad while keeping their opponents on their heels.
If Doan turns into a shift-disturber that helps turn the flow of games in Buffalo’s favor, he’ll win fans over quickly. Lord knows he’s an affable enough guy, a trait he got from his dad and one he learned growing up in an NHL environment. As sour as the Sabres room was at times a year ago, Doan’s presence should help fix that up.
“I think the biggest thing is how much more successful the team was when the guys got along and there was a good group involved, and that it takes everybody if you want to win,” Doan said. “That’s something that the Coyotes, who had their struggles and had their good years and bounced around a little bit, and you learn a ton about what kind of gave them success sometimes and what didn’t give them success. But then you just learn from guys around the rink on how to be a good person and how to be good teammate.
“And then at the end, how hard you have to work if you really want it, it takes a lot. You saw the extra miles that guys have put in during the season and you see that little things and guys that it took a while to kind of find their game. It is something that it helped me a ton, and it was an advantage I had as a kid, seeing that kind of side of the game. That’s something that I like to kind of bring with me wherever I go. It was a huge blessing to have that, and I learned a ton as a kid.”
Wrote about the draft recently to give a feel for who was out there that would be intriguing for the Sabres and as informative as it can be meeting those players, it doesn’t clear up who Buffalo would select.
The pre-draft press conference with Kevyn Adams and Jerry Forton went a bit sideways with the talk about Peterka, supposed media misinformation making life harder on the fans, and more. Forton was calm and cool when discussing the draft and didn’t tip his hand about what direction they may go with the No. 9 pick. We also don’t know for sure they’ll pick at nine anyway with the possibility of trades happening still there.
If the Sabres do pick at ninth overall, my gut says they’ll take a forward because while there are some defensemen that could be there that are very intriguing (Kashawn Aitcheson, Radim Mrtka, Jackson Smith), how the forwards get divvied up ahead of them will be fascinating and that often leads to someone you didn’t think would be there falling in your lap.
If that means someone like Porter Martone slides down the board, that would be a huge surprise but would offer someone that Buffalo would do cartwheels to be able to land.
It’s hard to ignore the number of guys that cited their influences on how they played being the Tkachuks or Tom Wilson and that sort of mentality is one the Sabres shouldn’t ignore because it’s an element that’s fully absent within the system. Martone, Brady Martin, Caleb Desnoyers (Jonathan Toews is his inspiration), Carter Bear — guys like that are ones you’d like to see the team get warm to selecting.
“What we try to do is we try to look at our entire prospect pool,” Forton said. “It’s more about our prospect pool than our NHL team when we are draft. If there are players that are close in certain pockets of the draft, and we are maybe lacking something in our prospect pool that we think is ideal for our NHL team down the road, we might lean one way or the other. But we are not going to jump off the list or take a lesser player.”
The Sabres’ pipeline desperately needs skill diversification and they should have plenty of options to address that at No. 9. We’ll see if they feel the same way.