Confirmed Trade: [BUF/EDM] Ryan McLeod and Tyler Tullio for Matt Savoie

[notbias]

Giving savoie away is insane for a rebuilding team.

They've been rebuilding for like 15 years... at some point, they need to try to compete.

 

[tsujimoto74]

A whole 33pts!? That’s crazy, start the parade!

He’s 49% on his career big fella.

You mean the same NHL circles who drafted him 9th overall? Those same circles? Please show us where the NHL has now viewed him poorly?

And no, a desperate, poorly run team making a desperate move is not proof lol

Some of the guys at the Athletic have been saying Savoie was being offered, but other teams like all of our other big prospects more, even as “far down” our pool as Wahlberg. Doesn’t mean Savoie won’t be good, but there is some evidence actual NHL execs view him less optimistically than HF.

 

[Deep Blue Metallic]

Many of you need to consider the context here. Adams had to avoid the potentially disastrous situation of playing Peyton Krebs regularly at 3C, in a season where the Sabres are desperate to make the playoffs.

Buffalo is loaded with young, smallish, offensively talented forwards - Quinn, Peterka, and Benson are already roster players, and Kulich, Rosen, Ostlund, and Helenius are not far away. Like Savoie, all but Peterka (34OA) have a first round draft pedigree.

We're all fans of Matt, and wish him the best, but Adams dealt from a position of strength to fill a gaping hole in the roster. The team is much improved as a result.

 

[bleedgreen]

That's where you're wrong, the heavy majority of Sabres fans are pissed about it, and the heavy majority of neutral fans believe Adams once again made a terrible decision.

Neutral fan here. I don’t think he made a terrible decision. I’ll be surprised if it’s proven to be one in the future.

 

[Ed Ned and Leddy]

Honestly feel like I'm hallucinating on the faceoff point. Last year, McLeod was 86th in the league in faceoff percentage (adjusted for players taking 100+ draws).

If faceoffs are one of the major points for justifying a trade you're probably already in rough shape. But I don't even know that you can in good faith say that this player is strong on faceoffs with those numbers.

 

[sabremike]

A whole 33pts!? That’s crazy, start the parade!

He’s 49% on his career big fella.

You mean the same NHL circles who drafted him 9th overall? Those same circles? Please show us where the NHL has now viewed him poorly?

And no, a desperate, poorly run team making a desperate move is not proof lol

The fact that McLeod is what Adams was able to get back despite shopping Savoie around the league appears to suggest that Savoie was nowhere near as highly thought of or coveted by other NHL organizations as people in this thread (most of whom have no clue about anything and are just joining in on a LOLSABRES dogpile).

 

[McFlyingV]

Every statistical model has him as a top quintile defensive forward in the NHL.

McLeod's defensive game is a pretty interesting concept to discuss to be honest. He has strengths and weaknesses and I think his strengths come out more in the regular season with his weaknesses being more obvious in the playoffs. His quality of competition both off memory and what I remember in the stats was fairly low so he's yet to show this impact against elite competition which is really what you need a defensive #3C to do.

It doesn't surprise me that he has good defensive metrics because he's a good zone exit puck carrier, he's excellent in the neutral zone and on the back check in stripping pucks off guys or disrupting passes, and he can spend extended periods in the offensive zone circling the perimeter with the puck, but not really accomplishing much offensively, and this has a positive impact on defence.

I think what the model doesn't capture is he isn't very good at defending in his own zone and when he gets hemmed in it becomes very difficult for him to win a puck battle to break up the cycle. He's also prone to some poor turnovers in high danger areas in his own zone.

It's hard to measure his overall defensive impact because of some of those shortcomings, but at the end of the day it comes down to the "they can't score if they don't have the puck", and that is something that imo defines McLeod. The problem is in the playoffs guys are working their asses off and you can't just play keep away every shift on the perimeter.

 

[Bank Shot]

Every statistical model has him as a top quintile defensive forward in the NHL.

He's pretty dependable. He faced third and 4th lines more often in Edmonton than top six opposition so that probably juiced his numbers a bit.

He's never been used as a shutdown guy against the other team's top players, and I'm not sure he would excel in that role.

 

[TommyDangles]

A whole 33pts!? That’s crazy, start the parade!

He’s 49% on his career big fella.

You mean the same NHL circles who drafted him 9th overall? Those same circles? Please show us where the NHL has now viewed him poorly?

And no, a desperate, poorly run team making a desperate move is not proof lol

So he had a higher PPG playing with Perry/Foegele? Shocking. So much for that argument.

His faceoff % has increased every season. Very typical for young Cs. He had 50.8 last year. Another poor argument.

He was drafted 2 years ago. Now he's had injury issues & has struggled to make the NHL roster. Also underwhelming performances at Worlds & the recent playoffs. Almost like things can change.

There have been several NHL guys who have speculated Savoie being the prospect that moves. It's been posted quite a few times. Pronman surveyed NHL teams and Savoie wasn't even in our top 3 valuable prospects. That doesn't mean he isn't a solid prospect, but he's been way overvalued by some people. People who probably haven't even thought about him since 2022. Don't let that get into the way of your crappy arguments.

 

[KrakenSabresMike]

Many of you need to consider the context here. Adams had to avoid the potentially disastrous situation of playing Peyton Krebs regularly at 3C, in a season where the Sabres are desperate to make the playoffs.

Buffalo is loaded with young, smallish, offensively talented forwards - Quinn, Peterka, and Benson are already roster players, and Kulich, Rosen, Ostlund, and Helenius are not far away. Like Savoie, all but Peterka (34OA) have a first round draft pedigree.

We're all fans of Matt, and wish him the best, but Adams dealt from a position of strength to fill a gaping hole in the roster. The team is much improved as a resul

McLeod is barely a 3C at this point lol

Says you or the actual data? By every measure if public analytics data he is actually is a very good 3c

 

[Skolman]

Every statistical model has him as a top quintile defensive forward in the NHL

Well then, definitely looking forward to the Sabres matching him up against Matthews, Point, Barkov, etc

 

[KrakenSabresMike]

A whole 33pts!? That’s crazy, start the parade!

He’s 49% on his career big fella.

You mean the same NHL circles who drafted him 9th overall? Those same circles? Please show us where the NHL has now viewed him poorly?

And no, a desperate, poorly run team making a desperate move is not proof lol

A whole 33 pt on an upward projection with size and 97% percentile defense WAR is good and not desperate my friend

 

[Samsonite23]

Looking forward to the Sabres matching him up against Matthews, Point, Barkov, etc

It’s a good thing we have 2 other centers better than him. And a 4th line that is good defensively now. Almost like he doesn’t have to take every difficult matchup…

This thread is so weird. Apparently McLeod is the worst player in the league to half of Edmonton.

 

[McFlyingV]

So he had a higher PPG playing with Perry/Foegele? Shocking. So much for that argument.

His faceoff % has increased every season. Very typical for young Cs. He had 50.8 last year. Another poor argument.

He was drafted 2 years ago. Now he's had injury issues & has struggled to make the NHL roster. Also underwhelming performances at Worlds & the recent playoffs. Almost like things can change.

There have been several NHL guys who have speculated Savoie being the prospect that moves. It's been posted quite a few times. Pronman surveyed NHL teams and Savoie wasn't even in our top 3 valuable prospects. That doesn't mean he isn't a solid prospect, but he's been way overvalued by some people. People who probably haven't even thought about him since 2022. Don't let that get into the way of your crappy arguments.

His P/60 5v5 with Drai was 2.58 this year.
His P/60 5v5 without Drai was 1.37 this year.
Last year his P/60 5v5 was 1.86.

 

[Skolman]

It’s a good thing we have 2 other centers better than him. And a 4th line that is good defensively now. Almost like he doesn’t have to take every difficult matchup…

This thread is so weird. Apparently McLeod is the worst player in the league to half of Edmonton.

I mean, he was one of the worst players on the Oilers these past playoffs.

 

[North]

Injury issues and concerns he can’t play in a top 6 role. Trade doesn’t seem like such a bad thing for Buffalo. Good for Edmonton if he pans out, good for Buffalo getting a 3C they desperately needed

He’s not an effective 3C which is why we had to trade for Henrique.

 

[Fatass]

Sabres can make all the fringe trades they like. But imo until they get their top minute players to all count to playing the right way their club will continue to struggle.

 

[Samsonite23]

I mean, he was one of the worst players on the Oilers these past playoffs.

Oh wow, that’s new info. Except it’s been said on every page of the entire thread…

You realize that doesn’t make him the worst player in the league right? Especially considering he had 3 goals in the last 5 games of the SCF which everybody just loves ignoring in their endless bashing.

And since when did regular season games all of a sudden not matter? Especially to a team that hasn’t been to the playoffs in over a decade.

 

[TommyDangles]

His P/60 5v5 with Drai was 2.58 this year.
His P/60 5v5 without Drai was 1.37 this year.
Last year his P/60 5v5 was 1.86.

So he can still be a 30ish point guy away from Drai. Pretty much my point.

Playing with Drai an entire season he's 50+

 

[Senor Catface]

Suddenly a lot of Sabres fans are lifelong pro scouts of McLeod.

 

[North]

Suddenly a lot of Sabres fans are lifelong pro scouts of McLeod.

It’s wild because they accuse us of looking at box scores with regards to Savoie but then basically do the same with McLeod.

 

[Davo Ikinzom]

Especially considering he had 3 goals in the last 5 games of the SCF which everybody just loves ignoring in their endless bashing.

You keep bringing this up.

One of those goals was in the final minutes of a game the Oilers were winning 7-1. Another was an empty netter.

 

[McFlyingV]

Oh wow, that’s new info. Except it’s been said on every page of the entire thread…

You realize that doesn’t make him the worst player in the league right? Especially considering he had 3 goals in the last 5 games of the SCF which everybody just loves ignoring in their endless bashing.

And since when did regular season games all of a sudden not matter? Especially to a team that hasn’t been to the playoffs in over a decade.

You make a good point he has been a quality regular season player and that's going to be valuable to a Buffalo team just trying to break through to even get into the playoffs. I'll stand by that I really just don't think his game is made for playoff hockey though, at least not as a tough matchup shut down centre. Sometimes soft players can get by just fine in the playoffs if they're goal scorers for example, but McLeod's offence fell off a cliff in the playoffs, not just by his point production, but by his advanced metrics. His defence also took a hit, but to a lesser extent because he only really struggles with defending the cycle when the other team is able to set up. I wouldn't put too much stock into his 3 goals in 5 games in the finals. One was an empty netter that Foegele did the heavy lifting on, and another was the 8-1 goal in a game the Panthers already gave up in. His tip goal was huge in the Oilers almost coming back in game 2, but he also flubbed the game tying chance that McDavid set him up on with Bobrovsky falling on his ass.

There's a lot of polarizing takes in this thread, but at the end of the day I think McLeod helps Buffalo for what they're trying to accomplish, which is making the playoffs. I think its also obvious that he wasn't helping Edmonton win in the playoffs, and especially not in the later rounds where competition and intensity is ramped to the max.

 

[Bring Back Bucky]

It is peculiar because you rarely see contenders make a trade for the purposes of acquiring a prospect.

Most of the prospect people I follow don't seem to be really enamoured with Savoie. Can he get some games with the Oilers? Yeah. I don't think he's going to make a big impact for them in the next couple seasons.

They don’t need him to. They didn’t have room for McLeod to be a fast and skilled penalty killer who brought zero toughness or grit with a 2.1 million cap hit. Getting a top prospect for down the road is just gravy. I love McLeod, but the Oilers roster is better by his subtraction.

 

[TommyDangles]

Suddenly a lot of Sabres fans are lifelong pro scouts of McLeod.

I mean he's had 56 playoff games. We've watched him play a decent amount. He's also someone a lot of people had as a trade target going into the season.

That's compared to Savoie where you would have to make an effort to watch him play. I don't think Oilers fans paid any attention to Savoie before July 5th.