Winners and Losers of the JJ Peterka to Utah Mammoth Trade

After all the rumors and speculation about what the Buffalo Sabres and high-scoring forward JJ Peterka were going to do with each other, things came to a head late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning.

The Sabres traded the 23-year-old to the Utah Mammoth for defenseman Michael Kesselring and forward Josh Doan. It's a draft-time trade, yet no picks were involved in the deal.

Peterka was going to be a restricted free agent this summer before the Mammoth signed him to a five-year extension that comes with a $7.7 million cap hit ($38.5 million total).

It's yet another trade that sees the Sabres dealing away a young, up-and-coming star player early in their career. He was tied for second on the team in scoring with 68 points and third in goals with 27, trailing only Tage Thompson (44) and Alex Tuch (36).

Like all trades, there are winners and losers to be found. And before everyone starts screaming about the Sabres being the losers, we're going to dig a little deeper than that. On its face, it's an easy deal to break down, but there are layers to sort through.

Winner: JJ Peterka

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JJ Peterka

One of the rumors that popped up in recent weeks about Peterka had to do with him allegedly wanting to get out of Buffalo.

If that was true (we reached out to his agent, Allan Walsh, for confirmation but did not get a reply), the German knew the easiest way to get Sabres GM Kevyn Adams to send him on his way.

Adams has made it a point that he wants players who want to be in Buffalo, and if Peterka said he didn't want to be there anymore, then that's that, right?

Still, Peterka was a restricted free agent and after being tied for second on the team in scoring, he was going to be able to demand a big raise. After all, he's improved his point and goal totals year after year in his first three seasons and an upward trajectory like that means getting paid.

It wasn't always easy this season for him, though. Going from playing for Don Granato to Lindy Ruff is a massive adjustment and a demanding one. Those adjustments aren't always easy and the fun is limited when the losses pile up.

Now that Peterka heads to Utah, a team that's on the way up the standings and gets to play for a players' coach like André Tourigny and gets to work alongside other young stars such as Dylan Guenther, Logan Cooley and Clayton Keller, the fun level of the Mammoth just took a huge step up.

Loser: Kevyn Adams

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Hoo boy, where to begin.

Tuesday morning, Adams spoke with us in the media ahead of the NHL draft and the lead topic of discussion was about Peterka and whether he asked to be traded.

"I don't want to say yes or no, because I just don't think it's the right time," Adams said. "And I can probably, after the draft and when we have other conversations, get into more specifics on things, but I just don't think it's fair to the player, to be honest with you, to really even respond to that. I think it's just better to keep it to the fact that we have a plan."

If the plan was to trade the team's second leading scoring forward for a second- or third-pairing defenseman and a bottom-six forward, then it was executed perfectly.

Peterka is two years younger than Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart when Adams was more or less forced to trade them in 2021.

The Eichel trade netted them Alex Tuch, Peyton Krebs and a first-round pick that became Noah Östlund, while the Reinhart trade got them Devon Levi and a draft pick that became Jiri Kulich. The Peterka deal nets them a couple of players who should play in Buffalo right away, but without a top-60 draft pick involved, it feels deeply lacking.

The pressure is now sky-high on Adams to land a top-six forward to replace Peterka in the lineup in a Bowen Byram trade that has felt inevitable since the season ended. No pressure, right?

Winner: Mammoth GM Bill Armstrong

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A year ago, at the draft in Las Vegas, Utah general manager Bill Armstrong seized everyone's attention when he made, arguably, two of the biggest trades on the first day.

He acquired defensemen Mikhail Sergachev and John Marino in separate deals and served notice that this was no longer a team being run on the cheap like he had to in Arizona.

Fast forward to now and running a team that was in serious need of an offensive injection, he strikes fast and hard to land Peterka from Buffalo, all while keeping all of his picks. It's a huge score for a team that's rapidly rising in the Western Conference.

Utah's offense struggled at times, and it's part of why it fell short in the race for the wild card. Clayton Keller was incredible, putting up 91 points, but the drop-off to Logan Cooley (65), Nick Schmaltz (63) and Dylan Guenther (60) behind him was huge.

Adding Peterka and his 27 goals and 68 points makes the team deeper and more dangerous offensively, especially because of how much Peterka's numbers have gone up each season in the league.

Armstrong could afford to give up defenseman Michael Kesselring because of how much deeper the Mammoth blue line got over the past couple of seasons with Sergachev, Marino and Sean Durzi. With young Maveric Lamoureaux on the way up as well, it's a solid group.

Trading Josh Doan might be the most stunning part, given how big of a deal it was for them to draft him while still in Arizona and the heart-warming story it was.

If anything, this totally closes the book on this group's days in the desert.

Loser: Buffalo Sabres Offense

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Despite many of the Buffalo Sabres' flaws, being able to score goals was not one of them last season.

Tage Thompson returned to his goal-scoring ways with 44 and Alex Tuch piled up 36 goals of his own. Rasmus Dahlin was otherworldly on the blue line and had 68 points, too. Even Jason Zucker and Ryan McLeod had 20-goal seasons.

But it was Peterka who was their second-best point producer at forward. His 27 goals were the third-most and his 68 points tied him with Dahlin for second-most on the team behind Thompson's 72.

If the Sabres don't find a proper way to replace Peterka for next season, the candidates to replace his production come with a lot of "ifs" and hopes for growth.

Whether it's Jiri Kulich, Jack Quinn, Zach Benson or a hopefully healthy Josh Norris, they'll need at least two of them to take a big step forward offensively to help everyone forget about Peterka. Can that happen? Sure.

All of those players are immensely talented and have shown the ability to score either in juniors, the AHL or the NHL. Doing it consistently in the NHL would save Kevyn Adams, Lindy Ruff and Sabres fans everywhere a lot of anxiety.

Winner: Michael Kesselring

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On paper, the return the Sabres got for JJ Peterka doesn't say, "Wow!" But the addition of right-handed defenseman Michael Kesselring solves a massive problem they've had with their blue-line corps.

Finding the right balance between left and right shots on defense is a big deal for technical reasons, but the hope is the 25-year-old will be able to work on a pairing with Owen Power, who's had a wide array of defense partners the past few seasons.

Getting someone reliable defensively who's right-handed next to Power is a huge upgrade.

Power has worked with other lefty shots where he'd occasionally end up playing on his off-hand side and that's an uncomfortable thing for most defensemen.

Kesselring's possession numbers at 5-on-5 the past two seasons have been very good, and he had a steady workload last season playing 17:41 per game.

A lot of what Power does on defense is outstanding, but you have to watch him closely to see that he excels at it (using his stick to deny entries, taking space away from puck carriers with his reach, etc.)

The offensive numbers have lagged and when compared to Rasmus Dahlin, he gets (sometimes unfairly) compared poorly because he doesn't play physically.

If Kesselring becomes his everyday defense partner and it helps unlock Power's full potential, it'll make losing Peterka almost an afterthought because of how the Sabres will be able to control the game from the blue line. He'll get every opportunity to be that guy and considering his game has grown each season with Arizona/Utah, it's OK for Sabres fans to be encouraged by this move.

Loser: Buffalo Sabres Fans

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If you're not a Sabres fan, you're likely already familiar with their plight. The 14-year playoff drought is unthinkably long, and they've wanted a sign from anyone in the organization that things are truly headed in the right direction.

Two years ago, when they finished with 91 points and appeared to see light at the end of a long tunnel, it turned out to be another oncoming train when they dropped back to 84 points last season and fired Don Granato because of it.

The hope that came with bringing back Lindy Ruff was dashed when the team went on a ghastly 0-10-3 streak in late November and early December that ended any dreams of making the postseason.

They sat last in the Eastern Conference for months and rallied late in the season to get to 79 points and made the best out of what, for a while, looked like another one of the worst seasons in recent memory.

The bright spots have always been the young, homegrown players. Those who made the pain of losing eventually pay off because they had to be the guys to change everything, right? And now for the third time in four years, a top young player they drafted is headed out of town.

Seeing the guys who used to play here win the Stanley Cup year after year recently doesn't help guys want to stay in Buffalo when they've seen how leaving town turns into postseason parties and parades.

Buffalo fans have been living the meme of Squidward looking out the window through his blinds at SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star having fun for way too long and watching a different kind of parade of players leaving town makes it even more upsetting.

It's become so hard for Sabres fans to see so many of their number take a "call us when you figure it out" approach to following the team. And trades like the one that went down early Thursday morning—whether it pays off in the end or not—are why.