On the Buffalo Sabres …
John Vogl of the Buffalo Sabres: The Buffalo Sabres were unable to make one trade on deadline day. GM Tim Murray:
“I made a lot of calls to set the table on trading away a couple guys,” Murray said in KeyBank Center. “I made a few calls to see if I could make a hockey trade, get younger. This is the end result.”
The Sabres didn’t have a lot of pending free agents, but they did have defensemen Cody Franson and Dmitry Kulikov that were getting some interest.
“I’m a little bit surprised,” Murray said. “We didn’t have a ton of UFAs, as you know. We had two on the back end that I thought would create some interest. I had some calls on them. Price-wise I was very open.
“My market was to just get fair value, so I didn’t miss out on trading a guy by demanding too much or by using previous trades in the day or the week as the template for what I had to do. I don’t think that came into play at all.”
Murray said he got lots of calls on Kulikov, and didn’t ask too much for him. Murray said a couple GMs said that was a fair price, but injuries came up in talks.
Murray declined offers on forward Evander Kane, adding “I didn’t like what I heard.” Kane has a year left on his deal and they are able to talk contract extension after July 1st.
“I’d be open to that. I’m not sure I’m going to do that,” Murray said. “There’s a lot of bridges to cross before that time. But would I be open to it in a scenario where a couple things he has going on off the ice go away and stuff like that, absolutely.”