3 Trades Sabres GM Kevyn Adams Can Make To Improve Team

If firing parts of the coaching staff is not in the cards for Buffalo Sabres’ general manager Kevyn Adams’ plans to improve this team, then it is about time that he realizes that there is something wrong with the players instead. Yes, several core players have shiny new contracts but others have value that do not have long-term extensions in place. Weeding out the issue in the team lineup has to be Adams’ number-one priority right now since the progress that is so frequently brought up has been stymied by multiple sources.

There isn’t a need to trade top young stars like Rasmus Dahlin, Tage Thompson, Dylan Cozens, or Alex Tuch, and there are even fewer reasons to trade budding young talents like JJ Peterka, Zach Benson, and Jack Quinn. The players that should be on the block (based on their current value) are Victor Olofsson, Casey Mittelstadt, Zemgus Girgensons, Jordan Greenway, Connor Clifton, Henri Jokiharju, and Jacob Bryson. Every single one of these players is expendable and should be considered trade bait as soon as possible. While Adams made a meager move for Eric Robinson that has paid off in a decent way, trading for fourth-line players is not going to fix the core issues this team has. It starts with moving out pieces around the core, and here are a few ideas on how this can be done.

Sabres Can Improve Their Offense

I have already suggested that the Sabres could make a trade with the San Jose Sharks for Anthony Duclair in a prior discussion of their poor efforts, so I am going to leave that idea off the table for this one. Instead, there is another move that could be made for a scoring forward which would cost the price of Mittelstadt, as well as a couple of other assets. The forward in question has great scoring ability, net-front experience, and a physical quality that would boost the energy of any line they played on. That forward would be Philadelphia Flyers’ Travis Konecny.

Konecny has this season and next season left on his contract, but what makes this trade a possibility is that he does not have a movement or trade clause in the contract. The Flyers have shown that they are willing to move big pieces for big returns, so if Buffalo were to make an offer for him, it would have to look something like this:

• Buffalo trades Casey Mittelstadt, Noah Ostlund, and a 2024 first-round pick in exchange for Travis Konecny

Buffalo would get their physical scoring forward that…