The Panthers add yet another former Sabre to the mix, this time it’s the former captain.
TRADE
Buffalo sends Kyle Okposo to the Florida Panthers for defenseman Calle Sjalin and a conditional 2024 seventh-round pick. (Condition: If Florida wins the Stanley Cup, the pick becomes a fifth-round selection)
Let’s break it down, this won’t be too difficult to do…
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On Kyle
When Okposo spoke with us recently about the deadline approaching and the circumstance the Sabres are in being virtually out of the playoff hunt, the 35-year-old right winger made it clear without saying as much that if the right offer came to GM Kevyn Adams, he was open to being moved. Considering the call came from the Florida Panthers, the team with the NHL’s best record and defending Eastern Conference champions, that was an easy one to agree to.
Okposo finishes his Sabres career tied for 39th in franchise history in points with 245 (oddly enough, tied with Rasmus Ristolainen) and ends his time as captain of the team for the past season and a half.
Okposo has been the picture of leadership in Buffalo. For how young the Sabres have been he’s been the ideal person to lead the way for them and guiding them into the NHL and allowing them the space to grow up on the job. Being a leader, role model, and mentor in Buffalo has meant everything to his teammates and to Okposo himself. The passion he’s displayed in trying to help bring this team to the playoffs since he signed as a free agent in the summer of 2016 is something very few other players have shown in that time. And, yes, that’s part of the reason the Sabres have yet to end that postseason drought.
Whether it’s by leading by example on the ice or off of it, Okposo was the best of people to have during his tenure that’s been overly wrought with turnover, drama, and changes otherwise. If this is his last opportunity to win a Stanley Cup, it will be hard to root against him. At the very least, it’ll be great to see him back in the postseason with the Panthers. For what it’s worth, the Sabres’ penultimate game this season is in Sunrise against Florida whose roster now boasts five former Sabres on their NHL roster and a few more in the AHL.
Kyle’s been as honest and forthcoming a player and person to work with in Buffalo and it’ll be drastically different without him here. He’s been the grown up in the room for Buffalo and now it’s a roster that gets even younger with him gone.
The return
The Sabres get depth defenseman Calle Sjalin in the trade. He’s spent the past year and a half in the AHL with the Charlotte Checkers, the Panthers affiliate, after playing in Sweden before that. He’s 6’1” and 180 pounds and was a fifth-round pick in 2017 by the New York Rangers. He’s yet to play in the NHL and will head to the Rochester Americans now.
In 61 career games in the AHL to this point he’s got five goals and six assists and has three assists in 22 games this season.
The seventh-round pick they picked up in the 2024 draft becomes a fifth if Florida wins the Stanley Cup.
If you were expecting the Sabres to clean up when they traded Okposo, I don’t know what to tell you. This is the first of what should be a few moves today for Buffalo, but it’s the move that stings the most because of how beloved Okposo was by the players and fans. f