Nilsson Bolts The Sunshine State, Sabres Rejoin Top Ten

For the second time in the space of just eight picks, the Buffalo Sabres visited the trading floor with one of their fellow basement dwellers – after switching picks with Columbus, General Manager Jay Byers then sent centre Carl Soderberg along with Ottawa’s second-round draft pick, #52 overall, to the Florida Panthers in exchange for talented winger Robert Nilsson. The twenty-six-year-old was already part of a big trade in December 2010, when Florida gave the Columbus Blue Jackets two first-round picks in the 2011 draft, and a first-round and fourth-round pick in the 2012 draft in exchange for his services; he was coming off a pair of fifty-point seasons with the Blue Jackets, and finished the 2010/2011 season with 59 points split between the two teams. However, his salary and his attitude earned him few friends among the Panthers, least of all Philip Ricketts – with the Panthers sitting at $54 million and with players like German Kournikov, Martin Biron and Alex Bourret all out of contract after the season, removing Nilsson’s $2 million salary from the team was seen as a welcome move, albeit with only limited effects as Soderberg’s contract guarantees him $1.1 million for the next two years. The addition of Soderberg to the Panthers is expected to improve the hitting and defensive effort provided by their forwards, first and foremost, and he’s expected to anchor the second or third line in Florida.

Of more interest to us is the improvement Nilsson will provide to the Sabres offense. Like Soderberg, Nilsson’s expected place is to be on the second or third line depending on how the management chooses to handle Sid Sorensen; despite being a three-year veteran of the league at the tender age of 21, it’s not believed that Sorensen has finished developing and so Nilsson may well see both second-line and powerplay minutes in his stead. Of course, Sorensen is operating a good rate of point production, with a 63-point career year in 2009/2010 and a junior season where he amassed 156 points in 75 games for the Oshawa Generals, and is only expected to get better – this may mean Buffalo have a position battle on their hands already. On the subject of the ITC Draft, a further three picks have been made since Leon Fooland became a Sabre; Nashville picked up a second rookie defenseman to go with Ladislav Strnad in Jean-Michel Taillefer, Phoenix also opted for a blueline prospect with Simon Mulder and Chicago chose versatile winger Jason Mason.

But no sooner had this trade gone through than news of another emerged. The New York Islanders had been looking to move down and acquire more picks in the first or second round from their position at #10, and despite attention from Vancouver, it was Buffalo who came out on top, although there will surely be rumblings that they overpaid – for the tenth overall pick, GM Byers gave up picks #22, #30 and #34, which could either be a smart gamble or a big mistake – given the range of players who could conceivably have been picked at #10, the latter is though to be more likely. Candidates for the pick include forwards Gordie Coleman and Pelle Ottosson and defenseman Ilkka Heiskanen, but the Sabres have still not addressed their need at goaltender and so may elect for Andy Green instead.