On Friday afternoon, the Edmonton Oilers traded forward Ryan McLeod to the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for prospect forward Matthew Savoie. Edmonton also added their own prospect, Tyler Tulio, to the transaction.
During the 2023/2024 regular season, McLeod put up 30 points in 81 games and scored four goals in 24 Playoff games. Savoie, seen as Buffalo’s top prospect, has 263 points in 183 career WHL games and advanced to this year’s Memorial Cup tournament with the Moose Jaw Warriors. I wasn’t confident in Tulio’s chances of ever becoming a full time Oiler, we’ll see how he does as a Sabres prospect. I said in my previous article he wasn’t a fit in Edmonton because of his size. And then we acquired a more highly acclaimed prospect who is also small. (sigh)This is why I only write about Hockey and not actually work in Hockey(lol).
I really like McLeod as a player; I always have. Yes, he is too much of a perimeter player, shy to go in the corners most of the time. But there was a lot that I also liked about his game. He’s a speedy skater, good defensively, and an option on the penalty kill. I wouldn’t have pegged him as a trade option since he’s a center, and you can never have too many of those, especially with the increased depth on this team now. I just feel bad because it happened the summer after he almost won the Stanley Cup with the team he grew up cheering for. It’s a shame to see McLeod go, but the NHL is a business, and I wish him all the best in Buffalo. They’ve got themselves a solid 3C, who may also slot in as a second-line winger on rare occasions.
Before this trade happened, the Oilers were $2,454,167 over the cap limit. Now, they’re only $354,167 over. They still need to give Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg new contracts. The $2.1M in cap relief after taking McLeod off the books will be used to re-sign those two. All the extra/depth players that they signed or re-signed can be healthy scratches or sent down to the AHL. So we don’t really have to worry about being over that much.
I asked a Sabres fan online for their perspective on the trade. They told me they have an overabundance of forward prospects and needed to part with one of them. I looked at their NHL line combinations and it’s true. Tage Thompson and Dylan Cozens do, in fact, have good young wingers, plus Alex Tuch. I guess because they’re trying to make the Playoffs in the league’s toughest division, they wanted to add just a little bit more experience to their lineup. I’m surprised the return still had to be Savoie, though. Happy but surprised. For a prospect pool that started looking thin before last weekend, he just became our new #1 prospect. It’s also kind of ironic because Edmonton drafted his older brother Carter two years prior, who wasn’t issued a qualifying offer. We switched out on Savoie boy for another.
