As Jason Botterill celebrated the new Wednesday – the on-ice debut of Rasmus Dahlin, the trade for Conor Sheary and Matt Hunwick – the Sabres’ general manager dipped back to the past.
Specifically, the idea of Sam Reinhart as a center.
Reinhart showed signs of true promise during the second half of last season. As the right winger for center Ryan O’Reilly and a net-front presence on the power play, Reinhart recorded 20 goals and 39 points in the final 44 games. Botterill plans to re-sign the restricted free agent in the coming weeks.
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While Reinhart’s offensive numbers came on the wing, he rose to junior hockey prominence at center. That was his position when Buffalo drafted him second overall in 2014. Reinhart started at right wing in Buffalo, but there have been too many center experiments to count during his opening three seasons.
There could be another experiment coming. The Sabres have Jack Eichel, Casey Mittelstadt and O’Reilly leading the middle, but the latter remains the object of constant trade chatter. The answer to who would replace O’Reilly might be the guy who skated to his right.
Botterill mentioned the idea in response to a question about Sheary, who was acquired from Pittsburgh, becoming Eichel’s left winger.
“Until players get on the ice, you’re never going to know that for sure,” Botterill said in HarborCenter. “We’re always looking to add to our group, especially on the wing to add more skill. Being a part of some talented centermen in Pittsburgh, those guys are always in flux, they’re always in motion. That’s what gets us excited about our group here right now is we have Sam on the wing and he can play in the middle. We have obviously Jack, Ryan, Casey, so we have talented centermen throughout our group there.”
Reinhart’s passing skills and hockey IQ make him an intriguing center candidate. Though not the fleetest of foot, he can drive the offense. According to the numbers at NaturalStatTrick.com, Reinhart trailed only Evander Kane and Jason Pominville in shots generated relative to his teammates and ranked fifth in fewest shots allowed. O’Reilly was noticeably better with Reinhart than without him.
Reinhart’s relative numbers are more impressive because his competition includes Eichel, the team’s most dynamic player and an infrequent even-strength linemate.
While the Sabres are ultrathin at left wing – they have Sheary and Zemgus Girgensons as the only full-time NHLers – the right side could conceivably survive the shifting of Reinhart.
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The production of Kyle Okposo, Jason Pominville, Nick Baptiste and Justin Bailey last season ranged from disappointing to average to lackluster (they combined for 38 goals and 88 points in 203 games), but Botterill has praised the play and potential of all four during the last week. There are still moves to be made with trades and free agency, but it’s possible those will be the four right wingers when the season starts.
That would leave Eichel, Reinhart, Mittelstadt, Evan Rodrigues and Johan Larsson in the middle. There’d be a lot of youth and finger-crossing with that group, but no one said it’d be easy to rebuild the NHL’s last-place team in one summer.
It was a fun day for the rebuild Wednesday. Botterill gave Pittsburgh just a conditional fourth-round pick in 2019 for Sheary and Hunwick. The 26-year-old Sheary has 41 goals during the last two seasons, while the 33-year-old Hunwick adds depth to the blue line.
Sheary scored 16 of his 18 goals last season at even strength. The Sabres were last in the NHL with 119 goals at five-on-five, trailing 30th place Montreal by 11 and sitting a whopping 77 behind top-scoring Tampa Bay.
“We were looking to improve our even-strength scoring,” Botterill said. “We knew that we had to try to get a little bit of scoring from our wingers, and what I’ve always liked about Conor’s game is he’s played in playoff situations, had success winning two Stanley Cups in Pittsburgh. I think especially at even strength he creates a lot of chances out there.”
As Botterill talked under the stands in HarborCenter, nearly 2,000 fans had just saluted – and been saluted by – Dahlin and other top prospects. The Sabres opened their four-day development camp with a standing-room-only crowd, and most came to see Dahlin. The first overall pick in this year’s draft delivered skill-showcasing highlights, and the defenseman joined others in skating to center ice to wave their sticks to the fans.
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“It was a great crowd and a bunch of excited players,” Sabres assistant GM Steve Greeley said. “The building was electric. I thought the most exciting part was when the players saluted the fans there and you saw their reaction. It almost gives you goosebumps or chills.”
In other notes from the opening day of development camp:
*Alex Nylander, who joins Mittelstadt as the Sabres’ top forward prospects, won’t skate during the camp because of a lingering injury.
“Everything at this point is precautionary,” Greeley said. “He’s here. He’s doing all the off-ice workouts.”
*Botterill has been asked about O’Reilly often since trade talk heated up at the draft Friday.
“It’s very difficult to predict if something is going to happen or materialize,” Botterill said. “Look, you have a ton of rumors out there right now on Ryan. I think a lot of them are very creative. I would just say from Day One we’ve been very happy with Ryan being a part of our group. We’ve said before that it’s no surprise that teams are calling on him. He has a great reputation throughout the National Hockey League, especially with what he’s accomplished in international hockey.
“So I understand why people call on him, but the validity of a lot of the rumors are simply not true.”
(Photo by Bill Wippert/NHLI via Getty Images)
