Confirmed with Link: Sabres sign Marcus Johansson 2yrs 9mil (4.5 AAV)

[CaptPantalones]

Johansson should be nowhere near a power play

He played on in the playoffs

 

[TheMistyStranger]

Johansson should be nowhere near a power play

He finished the season on the Bruins top PP unit. I have no complaints about him replacing Sheary on the 2nd unit.

 

[WeDislikeEich]

I like that this is one of those signing where other team’s fans go “why didn’t we sign him for this?!”.

That doesn’t happen all that often in buffalo with free agent signings.

 

[Jim Bob]

Not for Botts or why would he sign him. I would expect after he played 22 of 24 playoff games Botts signed him expecting him to play all 82 games.

Botts is rolling the dice that he can stay healthy and he got a good UFA talent at less than market rate because teams were worried about his health.

If MoJo didn't have the injury risk, he's signing for more than $4.5M per and for longer than 2 years.

 

[brian_griffin]

It solves the hole in the middle six so it solves a lot.

yeah, I don’t care what position he plays or what line as long as he displaces someone worse than him.

I have to think there are more loves coming. We have 9 NHL dmen who are waiver eligible as well as Pilut in the mix.

We also have 11 forwards under contract with pending RFAs to sign in Larsson/Erod as well as Olofsson, CJ Smith, Tage and Nylander looking to grab spots.


Regardless of how good we think any of these guys are we have more bodies than spots available.

point taken, when we have more than 13 forwards and 7 d-men who would play on a playoff team, I’ll start to be concerned. We’re not there yet.

All those guys should get signed. So there’s no space unless we start off loading guys (we should)

not needed during offseason...

The four RFAs (Larsson, Rodrigues, McCabe, Ullmark) won't cost over 6 mil total, even if Botterill does end up keeping them.

they’ll cost more than 6th and less than 10. My bet is $7.75M

Maybe McCabe is traded instead of Risto? Either way someone has to be shipped out.

not yet. Can waive players or use second buyout window after arbitration.

I'll take that over Sobotka, Hunwick, Sheary, Wilson and Scandella collecting $11.5 Million to be bad at Hockey. And the great news is we have ELC replacements for each of those players.

agreed

Makes sense Kreuger is keeping him.

he smooths things

 

[itwasaforwardpass]

We now have a ridiculous amount of LW options.

Skinner
MoJo
Vesey
Olofsson
CJ Smith
Sheary
Girgs
Wilson
Sobotka

Botterills real long term plan is to become the first NHL team to consist of lefties only.

 

[ForsbergMoDo21]

To play devils advocate...how much of that dip is simply reflected by the fact that he went from a cup contending team to a basement dweller?

I like that this is one of those signing where other team’s fans go “why didn’t we sign him for this?!”.

That doesn’t happen all that often in buffalo with free agent signings.

Feels like the Swedish consortium paid dividends on this one.

Like Mojo as a player. Am leery of Buffalo signing a player who hasn’t been playing center and insisting “he can totally play center!” Hopefully that doesn’t happen.

 

[UnleashRasmus]

I'll take that over Sobotka, Hunwick, Sheary, Wilson and Scandella collecting $11.5 Million to be bad at Hockey. And the great news is we have ELC replacements for each of those players.

Here's my thought process on this: Sheary being pushed down to a third line role should only help the Sabres. He's swift on his skates, he can bang in a front of the net goal and he's not terrible. His production was weak, but with whom he was playing with, can you fault it. Worst case, he is on a one year deal and you can walk away or trade him at any point. Scandella has some upside as he can come back to what he was in year one, then he's a great and solid second or third pair defensemen. Wilson can be dealt at any point for a team needing a depth expiring contract. Having these, is fine.

 

[Chainshot]

Here's my thought process on this: Sheary being pushed down to a third line role should only help the Sabres. He's swift on his skates, he can bang in a front of the net goal and he's not terrible. His production was weak, but with whom he was playing with, can you fault it. Worst case, he is on a one year deal and you can walk away or trade him at any point. Scandella has some upside as he can come back to what he was in year one, then he's a great and solid second or third pair defensemen. Wilson can be dealt at any point for a team needing a depth expiring contract. Having these, is fine.

Starting 70% of his shifts in the offensive zone and still not producing doesn’t indicate that I have a lot of faith in the guy. And who knows, he might wind up on right wing on the top line.

 

[debaser66]

Is he carrying Sobotka’s luggage?

Or is he hidding in one of his suitcases

 

[wunderpanda]

this was unexpected, no complaints from me about MoJo for 2 years.

 

[yzerman]

Really good signing

 

[Moskau]

Here's my thought process on this: Sheary being pushed down to a third line role should only help the Sabres. He's swift on his skates, he can bang in a front of the net goal and he's not terrible. His production was weak, but with whom he was playing with, can you fault it. Worst case, he is on a one year deal and you can walk away or trade him at any point. Scandella has some upside as he can come back to what he was in year one, then he's a great and solid second or third pair defensemen. Wilson can be dealt at any point for a team needing a depth expiring contract. Having these, is fine.

My reply was more in context that all of those contracts are coming off the books next Summer so Reinhart getting a huge raise doesn't really hurt the team when all of those players can easily be replaced by rookies. There are depth vets in the league that fans take for granted and when they're "finally" gone they leave a huge hole on the team that is not easily replaced by younger players for a few years. And then there are depth vets who really do contribute nothing and will be addition by subtraction. And Buffalo's depth vets fit the latter. It's not going to take a guy like Will Borgen to replace what Scandella has given us. Ditto Connor Sheary and his 34 points even with lopsided match ups in his favor.

And I think a lot of this all factors into Botteril's plan. Which is great but those are all his acquisitions. Which would make missing the playoffs and burning another year of Dahlin's ELC even more maddening. If you took just half of that cap space and acquired a 45-50 point player with it last season, that player would have outproduced all of those players combined. With the exception of a healthy Scandella those are truly the definition of quantity over quality acquisitions.

 

[Club]

Lets go baby! Happy with the signing

 

[dotcommunism]

To play devils advocate...how much of that dip is simply reflected by the fact that he went from a cup contending team to a basement dweller?

New Jersey was a playoff team in 17/18

 

[La Cosa Nostra]

I am really pleasantly surprised at the amount. No One predicted MarJo would sign for only 2 years and for only 4.5.

Hell, I would have given him 5x5. This is a big add to the forward group.

 

[sandybridge]

Botts is rolling the dice that he can stay healthy and he got a good UFA talent at less than market rate because teams were worried about his health.

If MoJo didn't have the injury risk, he's signing for more than $4.5M per and for longer than 2 years.

not a huge risk, since he can always make another move later in the season if somehow Johansson ends up on LTIR

 

[joshjull]

point taken, when we have more than 13 forwards and 7 d-men who would play on a playoff team, I’ll start to be concerned. We’re not there yet.

You missed the point.

We have 9 NHL dmen who are waiver eligible and that doesn’t include Pilut. At some point at least 2, possibly 3, need to get moved. We’re obviously not going to carry 9 or 10 healthy dmen. To start the season they could go with 8 dmen and Bogo on IR. But when he returns a move has to happen as will be the case if they plan on Pilut playing up here this year.

Then there is the issue of carrying 8 dmen which restricts us to 13 forwards. We’ve added 2 more forwards this offseason so far. That gives us 11 waiver eligible forwards + 2 more in RFAs Larsson/Erod and doesn’t count Tage, Olofsson, CJ Smith and Nylander. Botts mentioned those last 4 as having shots at spots. There needs to be spots for them to battle for.

I’m not worried about anything. I’m just making an educated guess that at least one trade, maybe more , is likely because of the numbers. The caliber of the players doesn’t change the logistics of the situation.

 

[debaser66]

Good signing
Good term
Not too much risk

 

[ForsbergMoDo21]

New Jersey was a playoff team in 17/18

My mistake. I confused it with the 16-17 season.

 

[debaser66]

Sobotka is the George Costanza of the NHL. He doesn't really do anything at his job but people keep hiring him.

Maybe we should trade him to the Rangers

 

[joshjull]

 

[jfc64]

Johansson is happy to play on one of the two top lines. Maybe he got some assurances...

 

[Zman5778]

After giving this some thought, I think I'm most excited to add him to PP2, a unit that has sorely needed help the last few years.

Let's for a second assume that Eichel/Sam/Skinner/Dahlin/someone (Olofsson? Okposo?) will make up PP1.

That then leaves Mitts/ERod/MoJo/Risto/someone (Montour?) to make up PP2.

PP1 can be deadly, PP2 should now be respectable.

 

[Professor Chaos]

I am really pleasantly surprised at the amount. No One predicted MarJo would sign for only 2 years and for only 4.5.

Hell, I would have given him 5x5. This is a big add to the forward group.

Lol...5x5