Ryan McLeod trade excites new Sabres center

The only NHL team he really knows, the Edmonton Oilers, were calling with some shocking news that McLeod wasn’t expecting, especially so soon after an emotional end to the season. The 24-year-old had just lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final to the Florida Panthers just 11 days ago, and he still had one year left on a contract that cost him just $2.1 million against the salary cap.

But McLeod learned Friday night that he was leaving superstars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl behind when the Oilers traded him to the Buffalo Sabres. McLeod went from a favorite to win the Stanley Cup in 2025 to a franchise with one of the longest active post-season droughts in North American professional sports.

“I’m emotional but super excited,” McLeod told reporters during a video conference call Wednesday afternoon. “It’s a little bit of a whirlwind. You really don’t know what’s going on or anything. I think it’s a great opportunity. They’ve got a great group there and it seems like a great group of guys. I can’t wait to get out there and meet everybody.”

Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams and coach Lindy Ruff called McLeod after the blockbuster trade that sent top prospect Matt Savoie to the Oilers, but neither wanted to burden their new player with information or expectations. They expressed excitement about adding someone with his track record and skill set. He’s a big part of their plan to end a 13-year playoff drought.

McLeod will fill the void created by the trade of Casey Mittelstadt to Colorado for defenseman Bowen Byram, and McLeod’s role in Buffalo will be similar to the one he excelled at with the Oilers. The Sabres will need McLeod to play defensive defense, win faceoffs and kill penalties. But he wants to do more as he enters his fourth full NHL season.

McLeod plans to use what remains of his brief offseason to try to contribute more offensively after producing 11 and 12 goals in 2022-23 and 2023-24, respectively. He’s one of the NHL’s fastest skaters and exceptional at carrying the puck out of the defensive zone to start his team’s 5-on-5 attack, but he, like Mittelstadt, wants to shoot more often and get to the net more often to finish off the scoring chances he helps create.

“It was great to play with a lot of those guys,” McLeod said of his time in Edmonton, where he was a winger alongside Draisaitl and proved he made his teammates better at center. “I think my game is I try to play with a lot of speed and on the defensive side of the puck, but I’m always working on offense. I have the confidence to play with Draisaitl, a very demanding player who wants to make as many plays. You have to do that if you’re going to play with him. That experience really helped me.”

The Sabres parted ways with a prospect they drafted ninth overall just two years earlier because they view McLeod as a player who fits their short- and long-term plans. He will bring the wisdom and perspective he gained from playing in 56 playoff games over the past three seasons. McLeod was in the Oilers’ lineup for 24 of 25 games this spring, as they came within one win of the team’s first Stanley Cup since 1990. Buffalo has lost more than 4,000 games of experience since March with the departures of Mittelstadt, Kyle Okposo, Jeff Skinner, Zemgus Girgensons and Erik Johnson.

Last season, McLeod demonstrated the perseverance and unwavering belief it takes for an NHL team to recover from a tough start and become the Western Conference champion. Edmonton had to win Games 6 and 7 to beat the Canucks in the second round, then the Oilers won three straight in the conference finals to eliminate the Stars before overcoming a 3-0 deficit in the Stanley Cup Finals to force a seventh game.

The Sabres made the deal, though, because of his skill and talent. McLeod is a double-digit scorer who won 50 percent of his faceoffs last season and has become one of the NHL’s best penalty-killing forwards. McLeod averaged the seventh-best power-play goals per 60 minutes among players who played at least 100 minutes on the penalty kill in the regular season, and he wasn’t on the ice to score a power-play goal during the Oilers’ run to the Stanley Cup Final. He’s not a rental for Buffalo, either.

McLeod won’t be this cheap for long, but he won’t be a restricted free agent until the summer of 2025. He’s someone who could stick with the Sabres long-term if it works for both parties.

“You know, it’s tough to win,” said McLeod, who scored four goals while averaging 13:12 of ice time in the playoffs. “You learn that. Obviously, it’s tough to make the playoffs, especially winning every round. It’s really tough and it gets tougher every time. So you have to see how tough it is. I think the biggest thing we did in Edmonton was try to keep our confidence as high as possible. We tried to make plays throughout the playoffs. And I think I might try to do the same thing next season.”

The Sabres want McLeod to be the versatile, playmaking left-handed centre they lost in the Mittelstadt trade. Some of McLeod’s most impressive moments in the regular season came as a winger alongside Draisaitl, but the data shows McLeod elevated his linemates when he was at centre. According to Evolving-Hockey, Edmonton had at least a 57 per cent expected goals share at 5-on-5 when McLeod centred several different wing combinations, including Warren Foegele, Derek Ryan, Corey Perry, Connor Brown, Dylan Holloway, Evander Kane and Mattias Janmark.

No player in this group is known for his goalscoring at this stage of their careers, but McLeod was fourth on the team in assists per 60 minutes at 5-on-5. That latter number ranked in the 82nd percentile among NHL forwards, according to AllThreeZones, and McLeod should help the Sabres improve their zone attack, which took too long to develop under former coach Don Granato.

McLeod is shooting more often — his regular-season total jumped from 78 in 2022-23 to 106 — and he’ll help the Sabres attack with more speed, which also became a glaring problem as they finished seven points down in the standings.

There are gaps in McLeod’s game that have made him the odd man out on an Oilers team that has had to clear cap space. He was criticized in Edmonton for not getting to the net and was a 19-game goal drought in Game 3 of the Western Conference final. McLeod responded with a goal in Game 4 against the Stars and then scored three in the Stanley Cup Final.

McLeod doesn’t play a physical game, which doesn’t fit Adams’ goal of the Sabres becoming “tougher to play against,” but the 6-foot-2 pivot can use his speed to help them accomplish that mission in a non-traditional sense, whether it’s helping on the forecheck or wearing down an opponent with his ability to extend a possession in the offensive zone.

“This team has a lot of talent,” McLeod said of the Sabres. “There’s a lot of talent on the back end, too, so it’ll be fun to play with that. There’s a lot of good puck-moving players that can skate. We’ll just have to see how I can fit in. It’s a younger team than I had in Edmonton. It’s super exciting. I think it’ll be a lot of fun.”