Did Rasmus Dahlin request a trade?
It is not a secret to anyone that the Buffalo Sabres have been terrible this year. They are stapled to the bottom of the Eastern Conference and will miss the playoffs for the 14th straight season. But when Paul Bissonette of Barstool Sports said defenseman Rasmus Dahlin requested a trade from the Sabres, fans were stunned. On Thursday, Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman cleaned up the reporting and took the blame for the confusion.
“This is kind of my fault, okay, I'm not getting into it any deeper than that but it's kind of my fault,” Friedman said of the Dahlin trade rumors. “So last week Dahlin requested a meeting with [Sabres general manager] Kevyn Adams and I think he just wanted to know what's our direction?
Friedman continued, “I heard that Dahlin left that meeting satisfied with what he heard and now they just have to put it into action.”
Dahlin publically pushed back against Bissonette's report before this Friedman clarification. So whether the Sportsnet insider got bad info or the Barstool personality misunderstood what was told to him we may never know. But the implication here is that Friedman gave Bissonette some info that maybe wasn't supposed to go public.
The Sabres cannot trade Rasmus Dahlin
Before this season, the Sabres named Rasmus Dahlin their captain. He is in the first year of an eight-year extension worth $11 million per season and is one of the top-scoring defensemen in the league. Trading him now, even if he requested it, would not make any sense.
This meeting happened before the NHL trade deadline, according to Friedman. So the direction that Adams sold Dahlin likely included trading Dylan Cozens. The 23-year-old center was not living up to his $7.1 million deal and needed a change of scenery. He has played well in Ottawa since the trade that brought Josh Norris and Jacob Bernard-Docker back to Buffalo.
Hopefully for Sabres fans, Adams' plan includes spending big in free agency. They need top-end scoring to supplement Tage Thompson's output and there are two guys on the market. Could Mitch Marner or Brock Boeser come to town to bring Buffalo to the postseason? It feels unlikely, as both players are chasing their first title, but they have to try.
Sabres fans can breathe easy knowing that captain Rasmus Dahlin is not going anywhere despite erroneous rumors. He is solid on Buffalo's plan that can finally break the playoff drought.
