As the Buffalo Sabres continue to make their defense playoffs ready, we break down what it would cost to acquire the St. Louis blueliner.
If the Buffalo Sabres hope to make some noise in the Stanley Cup playoffs any time soon, the team will need to look different at the blueline than it currently does.
Everyone has spent long hours, hours that none of us will ever get back, obsessing over the rumors that linked Anaheim’s Cam Fowler to the Sabres, and while the Sabres really could need a left-handed shot worth a damn, the more you look at Fowler, the more you wonder whether he is actually worth the investment.
The same cannot be said of St. Louis Blues defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk, whose HERO chart (courtesy of The Hockey Writers) is so promising it might make you weep:
And maybe you’re saying to yourself, but that doesn’t include what he did in 2015-16, to which I say – come on. Head over to Own The Puck and pull up his 2016 HERO chart – I tried to share it here and it destroyed the formatting of the site, but it was glorious, indeed.
So Shattenkirk is a monster across the board – he will help the Buffalo Sabres generate more offense, but he also makes the team a better puck-possession squad. He currently carries a cap hit of $4.25 million, but because he will become a UFA in 2017 Shattenkirk would want any team that trades for him to commit to a long-term deal, so in reality he would probably wind up making something close to what Keith Yandle is making down in Florida ($6.35 million per season). Assuming the Sabres would probably have to move 2 players in order to pry Shattenkirk away from Blues GM Doug Armstrong, the Sabres could pay Shattenkirk somewhere between $5.5-6 million per season, although it would be tight . . .
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. . . but a player like Shattenkirk is not going to be had for the likes of Tyler Ennis, Cody Franson, Zemgus Girgensons, and so on. The Blues may be dealing from a position of strength when it comes to Shattenkirk, but the team wants to be better in 2016-17, not worse, so Armstrong will only trade Shattenkirk is he feels like doing so vastly improved his team’s offense. Sam Reinhart is not going anywhere, and even though some fans are ready to ship Evander Kane out of town, GM Tim Murray went after Kane hard, so he’s not going to move him after just one season.
There’s another factor to consider here: even if the Buffalo Sabres could assemble a package that would get Shattenkirk into the 716, his contract would severely limit what the team could offer Reinhart, Kane and Jack Eichel down the road. All three of those players will become UFAs following the 2017-18 season, and the Sabres are already close to the cap ceiling.
Next: Out With Girgensons, In With Brandon Pirri?
We’ll let all of you play with math – the Buffalo Sabres could technically make room for Kevin Shattenkirk, salary-wise, but the team would almost certainly have to give up a key player in order to bring him onboard, and might wind up losing another key player to free agency two summers from now. Say what you will about Tim Murray, but being a general manager who is trying to build a championship -caliber team in the NHL is a hell of a tough job. Shattenkirk would be a wonderful addition, but bringing him in would give the Buffalo Sabres a two-year window in which to win the Stanley Cup with its current roster, and that’s a risk GMTM cannot afford to take.