Well, it took Kevyn Adams long enough, but he finally made a trade that, unless Ryan McLeod proves to be a bad fit otherwise, did something worth celebrating. Acquiring McLeod could be the missing piece to a puzzle that, for a moment, I thought Adams was ignoring.
While McLeod’s numbers won’t impress anyone - just 30 points and 12 goals in 81 games last season, he’s an all-around solid player who was playing on the same team as Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Zach Hyman - sort of hard to score goals when that trio is in the same lineup.
But here’s why I like McLeod so much: Last season, he snagged a whopping 66 takeaways and won more faceoffs than he lost. Yeah, the latter is something Sabres fans haven’t seen in a while from their centers. Last season, the Sabres didn’t have a single player who regularly took faceoffs win over 47.6 of them, and that player is no longer on the team. Go back to 2022-23, you get similar results, and they all just keep piling up unless you want to count Cody Eakin.
Looking at McLeod’s advanced numbers, he watched just 33 goals enter the net last season at even strength, and he ended the year with an on-ice save percentage of 91.9 percent. Further, 48.9 percent of his offensive zone starts occurred in the offensive zone, yet he recorded a career-best Corsi For percentage of 56.5 percent.
Ryan McLeod to the Sabres was an excellent move in foresight
Acquiring Ryan McLeod, even if it meant giving up Matt Savoie, was a move that needed to happen, and he joins the likes of Jason Zucker, Sam Lafferty, Beck Malenstyn, and Nicolas Aube-Kubel in what is a new-look Sabres team and a completely revamped set of lower-liners, even if Zucker may find himself in the top-six.
It’s always tough to see a prospect go elsewhere, especially a high-ranked one, but as I implied months ago, top prospect pools don’t win championships. There simply isn’t enough room for every prospect to make the big club, especially when that big club needs to learn how to not just put a better product onto the ice, but to win hockey games.
This trade was a fine example of Kevyn Adams allowing his top-notch prospect pool to work for him, and the Sabres now have a potential depth scorer who can help them not just gain, but maintain puck possession. McLeod is the latest member of this revamped Sabres team, and at this point, I’m a little more optimistic than I was a few days ago.
(Statistics powered by Hockey-Reference)