Kyle Okposo told reporters in Florida that the Panthers were the team he preferred to land with at the NHL trade deadline.
Okposo got his wish when the Buffalo Sabres sent him south in exchange for a conditional seventh-round pick (it becomes a fifth-round pick if the Panthers win the Stanley Cup) and a prospect, defenseman Calle Sjalin.
Who could blame Okposo, who might be in the final year of his NHL career, for wanting to try to chase a Stanley Cup (and the $500,000 bonus in his contract that would come with it) with what is, at this moment, the best team in the NHL? Okposo has former teammates in the Panthers dressing room, Sam Reinhart, Evan Rodrigues, Brandon Montour and Dmitry Kulikov.
The Panthers’ new practice facility is just a few minutes from Fort Lauderdale Beach. After eight years without playoff hockey in Buffalo, Florida will feel like paradise for Okposo.
Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams felt it was important to treat Okposo well on his way out after everything he gave the Sabres.
He went through hell off the ice and ended up in the neurological ICU after complications from a concussion in 2017. He played on a lot of bad hockey teams and was an asset as a leader while this team transitioned to a much younger core.
It was also time to move on. The return might have been underwhelming, and his departure made many in the organization emotional, including Adams.
But moving Okposo allows the Sabres to turn the page and evaluate the next group of leaders on the roster. After a recent loss to the Panthers, Okposo noted that not enough players had their “big boy pants” for the game.
Now his departure creates a situation in which the young leaders in the dressing room get a chance to wear the proverbial big boy pants without the former captain in the room.
There’s also now one fewer distraction for the Sabres the rest of the season. It’s not Okposo’s fault. He did his best to keep the conversations he and Adams had under wraps.
Nobody could blame him for quietly requesting a trade, either. But that doesn’t mean the situation wasn’t on everyone’s mind leading up to March 8. If the captain wants out, what does that say about the Sabres’ slim playoff hopes?
“It was an emotional week,” Alex Tuch said. “We knew there was something brewing and there were a couple of guys that were going to potentially be traded.
It’s never easy, especially when you spend so much time with a guy like Kyle. … To see your captain get traded is really hard.
We all wanted what’s best for him, and to give him a shot at the Stanley Cup I think was the least the team can do and the least we can do as a team to support him through what was probably not an easy time for him.
He bled blue and gold. He really meant a lot to all of us. We know we meant a lot to him. We were happy to see him get an opportunity. He meant a lot to this team. It was sad.”
The Sabres also lost their NHLPA player rep, Casey Mittelstadt, another popular player in the dressing room, along with Erik Johnson, the 35-year-old Stanley Cup winner who was brought in to provide a green team with his veteran guidance. That’s a lot of leadership to lose in 48 hours.
And yet the Sabres responded Saturday with a 3-2 win in a shootout against the Edmonton Oilers. They held Connor McDavid off the scoresheet and improved to 6-3-1 in their last 10 games.
Don Granato was steely-eyed in discussing Okposo’s departure Saturday before the game. If he felt any bit of sentiment about the move, he wasn’t in the mood to show it before puck drop.
That reflected the attitude of the team. It played like a group of players relieved to have the trade deadline behind them.
“It definitely was a weight off a lot of guys’ shoulders once the deadline was passed,” Dylan Cozens said.
The next question for the Sabres is who steps into the leadership void left by Okposo. The team isn’t in a rush to name another captain and hasn’t yet handed out another letter to account for Okposo’s departure.
But Granato loved the response from players like Rasmus Dahlin, Tage Thompson, Tuch and Cozens on Saturday. Heck, even newcomer Bowen Byram, who was a co-captain for Team Canada at the World Junior Championship, has shown on-ice leadership in just two games.
“There’s a little more sense of responsibility, but one of those things that Kyle has done with us is make sure that we’re all leaders, that we lead one another and hold each other accountable. That’s something everyone in here has taken to heart,” Thompson said.
Leave a Reply