The trade is one-for-one which means you better be ready for endless debate to come.
The talk about Casey Mittelstadt being traded that fired up weeks ago turned out to be quite founded and prescient.
The Sabres sent Mittelstadt to the Colorado Avalanche for 22-year-old defenseman Bowen Byram. In classic Bob McKenzie-like fashion, the deal is one-for-one, a tried-and-true hockey trade, an NHL player for an NHL player.
It’s a fascinating deal to dig into.
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On Casey’s departure
The Sabres dealing Mittelstadt comes at a time when the 25-year-old center has really come into his own.
This season, he’s Buffalo’s leading scorer and last season was the breakout year the organization was eagerly awaiting to happen. He’s become a strong two-way player and a solid forechecker. He also became the Sabres’ best battler for pucks along the wall and in corners and consistently came away with possession, even sometimes initiating those battles with the puck in order to give himself more of an advantage to free up play. This is anecdotal evidence, of course, and my own eyes can be liars, but the evolution of his game was very much noticeable and appreciated by teammates and coaches alike.
So why would Buffalo deal him? Mittelstadt’s evolution came at an awkward time because he’s set to become a restricted free agent with arbitration rights this summer and he’s two years away from unrestricted free agency. That translated into the Sabres needing to either figure out a long-term contract with him or find a trade that can work for them.
Yes, they still had control of him for two years, but the prospect of another long-term contract that likely would’ve come in with a cap hit around $7 million a year to go along with the long-term deals they’ve already signed Tage Thompson, Dylan Cozens, Rasmus Dahlin, Owen Power, and Mattias Samuelsson. The Sabres aren’t in or close to being in salary cap hell, but their ability to better arrange the roster with another juicy deal would’ve been hindered a bit especially since the organization appears to be operating within an internal budget relatively well below the cap.
There’s also the matter of the players coming up behind him that would not have a place to play if Mittelstadt was locked in long-term.
You can start with Peyton Krebs who has been used for the majority of his time in Buffalo in a bottom-six role. Mind you, he’s been good in that role, but when a team drafts him in the top-20 of the first round of the draft that’s probably not the career arc he’s meant to be on. Krebs’ offensive skills and abilities have been obvious, but when flanked by guys who aren’t going to fill the net (nor is it what they’re asked to do), the numbers won’t pop. Krebs should get more of an opportunity to do that now with Mittelstadt off to Denver.
There’s also the bulging prospect pipeline to consider.
Had the Sabres signed Mittelstadt long-term, that ostensibly would’ve locked down the center position on their top three lines for the next six or seven years. While it’s great to have that kind of security and depth, paying each of those centers $7 million a season to do it means one of those players isn’t going to get the kind of ice time that would behoove that kind of cost.
Mittelstadt has been used as a utility knife the past two seasons getting time up the middle and, on the wing, which is valuable! However, being paid $7 million a year for a lot of years also comes with some kind of certainty for the player and if Mittelstadt was going to make a long-term commitment it stands to reason he’d get to play the position he wants most, which is center.
Buffalo has Matthew Savoie, Jiri Kulich, Noah Östlund, and Anton Wahlberg as centers on the way up. Savoie, Kulich, and Wahlberg have also been teased with being wingers when they eventually land in the NHL while Östlund projects to be a center regardless. The math is easy here to see why Buffalo felt comfortable making such a trade. Losing Mittelstadt, while tough right now, opens up the door for Krebs to take that role or for Savoie, Kulich, Östlund and Wahlberg to compete to play center in the NHL starting next season.
Of course, Savoie and Kulich could also be on the wing as well. Either way, options, but also, they’re also looking at being even younger up front before they make other moves. This is the kind of cushion having a large base of top prospects allows them to have, one where they can make this kind of move and feel good about doing it.
Bowen Byram
Byram joins Buffalo as a 22-year-old who’s won a Stanley Cup already with Colorado and oozes with potential. He’s yet to play 150 games in the NHL, but his upside after being selected fourth overall in the 2019 draft is sky-high.
In 146 career games he’s got 63 points and that’s strong for such a young defenseman that’s coming from a team where Cale Makar and Devon Toews dominate ice time and scoring situations. It also helps that the Avalanche have been one of the league’s best teams each year he’s been in the NHL.
There is a concerning issue for Byram, however. His concussion history in the NHL has already cost him a lot of games and reading about what he’s gone through, like this story from The Denver Gazette, is frightening to read, yet encouraging to see he’s been able to recover and feel good about things. Still, the fact he missed three months of action in the 2021-2022 season because of a concussion is scary.
This isn’t meant to fearmonger, it’s meant to understand a new guy coming to town. He missed eight games in January this year because of a lower-body injury, but he’s played nearly 20 minutes per game this season for the Avs and has eight goals and 12 assists (20 points) in 55 games.
In regard to advanced stats (all at 5-on-5), he’s steadily been above 50 percent in CorsiFor for his career which is a good thing because if he wasn’t doing that with Colorado there’d be serious reason for concern. His expected goal percentage for his career, however, is a bit under 50 percent. Last season and this season he’s been under 48 percent in that category.
This season, Byram has split his time paired with Samuel Girard, Josh Manson, and Jack Johnson to create a real grand tour of the Avalanche defensive depth. Splitting all of that time leads to a lack of chemistry which, as we well know, can create its own problems.
His charts and graphs don’t look flattering at Evolving Hockey and that’s sure to cause worry. However, he’s 22 years old and will likely wind up paired with either Rasmus Dahlin or Owen Power now. That’s decidedly a very good thing in the long run.
Byram is a fast-skating defenseman capable of helping push the pace of play, something the Sabres have tried to improve on all season long. How he evolves into complementing Dahlin, Power, or the other defenders will go a long way towards how this trade is viewed down the road (thanks, Captain Obvious).
He’s a left-handed shot but plays the left or the right side. If he pairs with Dahlin, don’t be surprised to see Dahlin slide to the right side where he’s very comfortable and can open up his own offensive creativity from there. Byram having versatility to play either side is, of course, very useful for Buffalo considering they’ve got Dahlin, Power, Samuelsson, and Ryan Johnson also as lefty shooters.
Wrap-up
The rush to judgment on this trade is understandable. Both players are NHL players and we’ve got a lot of Mittelstadt’s history to draw from and enough of Byram so far to have a fair idea of what he can do.
Mittelstadt’s growth the past two years makes this reek of it being a bad move by Buffalo considering their recent history of moving out top draft pick centers (see: Eichel, Jack; Reinhart, Sam). If Mittelstadt takes yet another step with Colorado there will (understandably) be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth throughout Western New York because of it.
But the key for Buffalo is not just in how Byram performs, be it with Dahlin, Power, or someone else, but also how the center position behind Thompson and Cozens evolves now, be it with Krebs, Savoie, Kulich, Östlund, Wahlberg or someone else from outside of the organization.
Defense is never an overly exciting position to address because they generally don’t score a lot of goals or points and defensemen so rarely bring fans to their feet in anticipation of great things. Byram offers a skill set that’s potentially exciting, but an injury history that’s worrisome, even if it is mostly behind him now.
I’ve said from the beginning that any trade the Sabres made involving Mittelstadt was going to be a losing one for the remainder of this season, if they made it this year. And so it is. They lose their leading scorer and add a few questions to seek answers for the rest of the season as they plan ahead for the seasons to come.