Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Sabres & Stars Deal Goalies


Who knew that a deal to acquire Evander Kane would be the domino needed for Buffalo to start moving assets?  In their second deal of the day, the Sabres sold off a goalie in a deal where both goalies going either way will be free agents in the Summer.

2015 Season Cap Hit
To Dallas POS MIN W SO P 2015 2016
Jhonas Enroth G 2,203 13 1 28 $1.25 mil UFA
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To Buffalo POS MIN W SO P 2015 2016
Anders Lindback G 516 2 0 5 $925,000 UFA
Conditional 2016 3rd Round Draft Pick

The Stars acquire the Sabres current number one goalie, Jhonas Enroth, in order to give some sort of insurance behind a goalie that has a history of some injury problems in the past in Kari Lehtonen.  Anders Lindback was not the solution to the Stars' back-up role this season and didn't feature much on the ice anyways, behind a minute eater, like Lehtonen.

The Sabres will now have the tandem of Michal Neuvirth and Lindback moving forward, which is questionable for wins, but definitely a move towards a better chance at the Entry Draft lottery.

ImplicationsWhat does this mean in the pool?  Well, Enroth loses most of whatever value he had going into this deal, which wasn't great, given that he doesn't even average a whole point for every 60 minutes played, but Wilton was getting minutes out of him before.  It seems a whole lot less likely that he will be getting those now.  That's a pretty big downturn.

Out of the goalies now wearing Sabres colours, Neuvirth is the only one left in the pool, belonging to Wyllie, as Lindback was dropped in Week Nine by Brian.  It's hard to say if one goalie deserves the minutes more than the other, which suggests a platoon system, but Wyllie at least has a better shot at minutes and another chance every other day to stay out of Olli contention.

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