Buffalo Sabres general manager Jarmo Kekalainen is tasked with landing a top-six center this offseason despite some tight salary-cap constraints in the short term.
It could make the New York Rangers' Vincent Trocheck, who's set to count a modest $5.6 million against the cap until 2028-29, an intriguing target for Buffalo's front office.
Matthew Fairburn of The Athletic projected the Sabres could offer winger Jack Quinn, defense prospect Vsevolod Komarov and their first-round pick in the 2026 NHL Draft (No. 27 overall) for the 32-year-old Blueshirts center.
"This feels like a worthwhile deal that would check multiple boxes for New York," Vincent Z. Mercogliano, who covers the Rangers for The Athletic, wrote in response to Fairburn's mock trade offer.
New York stumbled to a last-place finish in the Eastern Conference this season, and Trocheck wasn't immune from the team-wide struggles. He tallied 53 points (16 goals and 37 assists), his lowest total since 2021-22 with the Carolina Hurricanes, and posted a career-worst minus-16 rating.
The two-time NHL All-Star still makes sense as an option for the Sabres, though.
Trocheck would bring a physical edge to Buffalo's top six (193 hits in 2025-26). He's capable of handling the club's crucial faceoffs (54.3% on draws in his career) after a campaign where the Blue and Gold ranked last in the league in the category and he could also bring a much-needed playmaking element to the team's struggling power play after recording 14 PP assists this season.
The 5-foot-10 pivot, who joined the Sabres' Tage Thompson on the Team USA roster that captured a gold medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics, put together his best offensive season with the Rangers in 2023-24 when he compiled 77 points (25 goals and 52 assists) in 82 games.
Getting back to that level of production would give Trocheck an opportunity to take over as Buffalo's No. 1 center, especially if Josh Norris is ultimately dealt for cap purposes.
Deal or no deal? What to make of Buffalo Sabres' mock proposal to the New York Rangers for Vincent Trocheck
Quinn is such an interesting case. Typically, teams aren't looking to move 24-year-old forwards who are coming off career-high goal (20) and assist (31) totals. He also lit the lamp that much despite finishing with a career-low 10.5 shooting percentage.
Yet, in conversations among the Sabres fanbase, he's often the first name brought up when it comes to players who could be dealt in search of roster upgrades.
While Quinn is entering the final year of his current contract ($3.4 million AAV), Buffalo still has two more seasons of club control beyond that through restricted free agency, so there's no time pressure to trade him this summer.
Does all of that mean the 2020 first-round pick shouldn't be traded? No. It just feels like the Sabres should be aiming a little higher in the NHL center hierarchy, at least early in the offseason.
Players like the Detroit Red Wings Dylan Larkin, St. Louis Blues' Robert Thomas or Vancouver Canucks' Elias Pettersson should be among the initial targets for Kekalainen. If those discussions make no progress, then changing the focus to Trocheck would make sense.
In that case, an offer of Quinn, Komarov and the No. 27 draft pick feels reasonable.
Komarov, 22, features a projectable frame (6'4'', 208 pounds) and has made sustained, albeit mild, defensive progress across two seasons with the AHL's Rochester Americans.
Meanwhile, the Sabres' first-round pick has essentially been untouchable for over a decade because they were always picking in the lottery, and often inside the top 10 (or even the top five). Now that the 14-year playoff drought is over, the outlook is different.
Prospects taken late in the opening round are usually at least a few years away from the NHL and, with Buffalo trying to emerge as a contender, using the first-rounder to acquire win-now talent is probably the right course of action.
So, if the Sabres aren't able to land one of the biggest names on the trade market, circling back on Trocheck would be far better than making no moves at all.
The projected trade would also leave Kekalainen with several strong trade chips, ranging from young NHL players like Noah Ostlund and Jiri Kulich to top prospect Radim Mrtka, who was the team's first-round choice in the 2025 draft.
Veterans such as Norris and Bowen Byram could also be trade candidates depending on how things play out over the next few months. Kekalainen has expressed interest in a Byram extension but so far it's unclear whether the defenseman and his representatives share that goal.
One way or another, a few fresh faces should arrive to Buffalo before the 2026-27 season gets underway.
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