Savoie for McLeod is a trade to mimic

Seriously

The Buffalo Sabres just traded prospect Matt Savoie to Edmonton for center Ryan McLeod. Judging by the reaction on Twitter, most judge this transaction to be a major loss for the Sabres. To which I say, “incorrect,” a take I don’t think is at all hot.

On its face, the story is one of giving up a blue-chip prospect for a middling NHL forward. McLeod, who turns 25 in September, just posted career highs of 14:15 minutes per game and 30 points in 81 games. He’s thought of as a defense-first bottom-six center who went missing during the Oilers’ Cup Final playoff run.

Savoie, meanwhile, was taken ninth overall just two years ago during the 2022 NHL Entry Draft. He’s small (currently listed at 5’10”, 179 lbs. on EliteProspects) but scoring points en masse. In the two seasons since his draft season, Savoie has scored 1.5 and 2.0 points per game in the WHL. This past season’s mark is the best point-per-game scoring rate for WHL forwards his age since at least the 2000-01 season.

If you look deeper than the prevailing narrative, you’ll see why this is a trade Mike Grier should mimic.

Is Matt Savoie still a blue-chip NHL prospect?

I think the easier player to start with is Savoie. You can still make a case for him as a high-end prospect, but the case gets harder to build by the day. By trading him, the Sabres acknowledge they don’t need him, or at least that they would rather have a supposed 25-year-old run-of-the-mill center instead of him. The trade itself knocks Savoie’s value down a notch.

Then there’s the fact he only has one NHL game to his name. That’s not a huge deal, but every season that passes without him playing 40 or more NHL games makes it less likely Savoie turns into a star NHLer. While the relationship between first 40-game NHL season and peak NHL impact is slight, it exists.

My rough chart here replicates the findings of Seattle’s Namita Nandakumar.

The 40-game threshold is important because a player who has been on an NHL roster for 40 games in one season accrues a year toward unrestricted free agency.

Finally, Savoie is small. There isn’t much of a relationship between size and NHL impact, but NHL player selection still skews toward size and speed and strength. Savoie will have to prove exceptional at his craft to break into the league, let alone blossom into an upper-echelon forward. His junior scoring suggests he has what it takes to be a top-tier NHLer, but the Sabres’ decisions so far — to keep Savoie in junior and to trade him despite his box-score stats — show that maybe we shouldn’t consider him a sure-fire star NHLer.

Ryan McLeod is much more than meets the eye.

If Matt Savoie probably isn’t living up to his stat line then Ryan McLeod’s stat line probably isn’t doing him justice. Three “advanced stats” models show that McLeod’s on-ice impact goes far beyond his paltry goal-and-assists numbers.

HockeyViz’s model shows that McLeod is adept at both producing lots of shots on offense and suppressing shots on defense, after adjusting for contextual factors like teammates, opponents, zone starts, and the like. He’s a decent finisher and playmaker and generally stays out of the box. All in, his on-ice impact has been like that of a high-end first-line forward.

Evolving Hockey’s model shows that McLeod has produced the same amount of expected goals above replacement at his age than names like the following:

This list of forwards comprises those who have made similar on-ice contributions at the same age as McLeod was the last two seasons. If he continues his trajectory, he may soon be considered among one of the league’s best forwards.

Top-Down Hockey’s model sees a player who, despite earning third-line minutes, is impacting the game like a second-line forward.

Like the other models will show you, Top-Down Hockey’s highlights a player whose offensive impact has skyrocketed of late to complement his already-strong defensive play. By looking at how the Oilers coaching staff deployed McLeod, we can see whether his impressive two-way profile was thanks to favorable contextual factors.

Context matters, even if these models adjust for it

The Oilers coaching staff used McLeod in a fairly difficult, defense-first assignment the past two seasons.

This chart shows that McLeod received about a team-average volume of defensive-zone shift starts while getting some of the fewest offensive-zone starts.

This chart demonstrates that McLeod wasn’t often used when the Oilers needed to score. He wasn’t quite used to preserve leads, either. But his deployment relative to the game’s score and time elapsed meant that McLeod’s offensive impacts weren’t just the benefit of chasing lost games from behind.

McLeod also wasn’t given much help with his quality of competition or teammates.

The center mostly played on the Oilers’ third line against opponents’ middle-six forwards and bottom-pair defensemen. McLeod spent much of the last two years with Warren Foegele, another forward with a strong analytical profile, and then a smattering of guys who are either in stark decline (Evander Kane, Corey Perry) or actually your run-of-the-mill NHLer like Connor Brown or Derek Ryan.

McLeod’s context wasn’t the most challenging situation in the world. It also wasn’t an uber-sheltered, offensive-zone-only sort of set up. That his statistical profile looks the way it does is especially impressive given his more well-known teammates Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl tended to get the situations most conducive to creating offense.

McLeod was able to produce offense despite fairly defensive deployment in part because of his skating speed and transition prowess.

McLeod was pretty good at getting out of his own zone and excellent at preventing opponents from entering his zone. He was so-so at crossing opponents’ bluelines and impressive at keeping them from exiting their own zone.

Can it continue?

The question the Sabres ostensibly asked themselves and answered is whether McLeod can maintain this efficiency with more minutes. It’s very easy to see Buffalo gifting him a few more offensive zone starts, stronger-in-transition linemates, or more shifts with strong teammates against poor opponents. If any or all of those things happen, it seems foregone that his current efficiency stays the course.

Of course, we could also see Buffalo’s coaching staff bury him even deeper in the land of defensive specialists, loading up his plate with more defensive zone starts at the end of games to protect a one-goal lead. Maybe he’ll be tasked with bringing along two less-than-helpful linemates and simply collapse under the drudgery of his new regime.

It’s impossible to know how Buffalo intends to use him, but it’s very easy to see his underlying metrics blossom into plenty of goals and assists given a bit easier role and better fortune.

Grier should do the same

It appears Buffalo identified an underappreciated asset on a cap-strapped team. They offered up a highly touted but perhaps overrated prospect in return. Now, the budding Sabres get a potential second-line NHL center with star upside for a player who still may not even become a full-time big leaguer. That is the type of trade Mike Grier should pursue.

Right now, the only two teams that appear to be in serious cap trouble are the Washington Capitals and Vegas Golden Knights (at least until LTIR revs up). I’m not sure there is a Ryan McLeod available on either of those teams, but Grier can kick the tires on guys like Nic Roy, Alexander Alexeyev, and Zach Whitecloud. Now that the Sharks have a few drafts at the top of the order under their belts, they can dangle players like Danil Gushchin, Luca Cagnoni, and Kasper Halttunen — guys whose public perception might dwarf their actual NHL likelihood.

Flipping Savoie for McLeod was a heady move. The Sharks should replicate it.