Fantasy Take: Sabres Ship Peterka to Utah for Kesselring, Doan

Michael Clifford

2025-06-26

There was a significant trade made overnight on Thursday as the rumoured dealing of JJ Peterka finally came to fruition. The former Buffalo Sabres winger had his name in trade rumours going back months into the 2024-25 regular season, and though trading a 23-year-old winger with 55 goals over the last two seasons and coming off a career-high 68 points isn't necessarily ideal, it seemed as if the writing was on the wall. Peterka was sent to the Utah Mammoth in a three-player swap:

Utah subsequently signed Peterka to a five-year deal with a $7.7-million cap hit. Let's break it down.

What Utah Gets

In my recent article reviewing the teams in the Atlantic Division, Peterka and his offensive ability was a focus. Also, back in early May, I wrote about Peterka's preseason projection and how some of his underlying numbers support the offence he produced. Go check out both those pieces for a bit more of a dive into the numbers driving his offence.

The short story is that Peterka's offensive profile is that of a very, very good player. He generates a lot off the rush, he is a very good shooter, and he's shown flashes of being a good playmaker. Though his shooting is better than his playmaking, Peterka is a dual-threat forward who has established himself, at the least, as a second-line scoring winger who can work the top power-play unit. He doesn't turn 24 years old until January, so he's just about to hit his prime, and there should be even more improvements to come.

Where Peterka frequently fell short was the defensive side of the puck. Over the last three seasons, his expected goals against impact at Evolving Hockey ranks 276th out of 302 forwards with at least 2000 minutes at even strength. Of course, this was all for the Buffalo Sabres, and he wasn't even a bottom-3 forward on that team by this measure over those three seasons (Jeff Skinner, Victor Olofsson, and Dylan Cozens all rated worse).

For some context, by that expected goals against impact metric, Sam Reinhart had a high-end second-line mark over his final three seasons in Buffalo and then became one of the top two-way wingers in the league in Florida. Jack Eichel went from below-average defensively in Buffalo to above-average defensively in Vegas. Heck, even Skinner just had his best defensive season in years in his first campaign with Edmonton. Just because Peterka isn't a good defensive player now doesn't mean he can't at least be average for Utah. And if he can be just average defensively, with his great offensive skill, then this is a bona fide top-line winger.

Going to Utah does create a bit of a jam, though. Clayton Keller is the team's top left winger, so Peterka won't get that role. Nick Schmaltz had seen some time at left wing on the second line when the team jumbled their lines late in the year. Presumably, Peterka will take that spot from Schmaltz while Schmaltz moves back to centre, likely on the second line with Peterka, or maybe even just straight to right wing.

This is also a problem for the power play. It is safe to assume that Mikhail Sergachev runs things on the blue line with Keller and Dylan Guenther as two of the four forwards. If they add Peterka, it leaves one of Logan Cooley or Schmaltz on the second unit. My guess is that would be Schmaltz, but it also leaves the top PP unit with Cooley as the lone centre and he is a 41.5% career face-off guy. It is hard to see the Mammoth making this trade then leaving Peterka on the second PP unit, but I wouldn't be shocked to see a change a month or two into the season.

Peterka skated 18:11 per game last year with Tage Thompson as his most-common forward line mate and Rasmus Dahlin his most-common defenceman. He is going to a Utah team where he'll be the second left-wing option and the only regular winger who skated over 17 minutes a game last year was Keller. Even if Peterka is the third most-used forward on Utah's roster, that means about 18 minutes a game, or basically identical to Buffalo, and he could very well earn less than that. The hope is that the power-play production ticks up skating on a Utah team that was 7th by goals per minute on the PP compared to Buffalo's 22nd-ranked goal rate. All told, if Utah decides to go with a top line of Keller-Cooley-Guenther, then Peterka is getting a downgrade in line mates at even strength and an upgrade on the power play. It puts 70 points within range, but he'd need some good fortune to get to point-per-game status.

If Utah doesn't trade Matias Maccelli, this locks Maccelli and Lawson Crouse into bottom-6 roles.

Sending Kesselring to Buffalo opens a spot on Utah's blue line for Maveric Lamoureux. They do have seven defencemen signed but they can easily send Nick DeSimone to the AHL and lose him on waivers if necessary.  

What Buffalo Gets

Letting Peterka go is a very tough thing for Buffalo to do given he's a second-round pick from just five years ago who has blossomed into a top-6 scoring winger. But it seems as if there was an impetus for this trade, and so it goes.

Getting Michael Kesselring is a big deal for Buffalo. While Kesslering may not be a name known to a lot of casual fans, he's a mobile, puck-moving 25-year-old right-shot defenceman standing 6'5 and signed for one more year with an AAV of $1.4-million. If he can just be a number-4, second-pair option for the Sabres, that is a pretty good player in real life, and he won't be expensive to extend after this season.  

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The problem is Kesselring's role may not be wholly different in Buffalo than it was with Utah. He skated third-pair minutes for the Mammoth at 16:24 per game at even strength. If he goes to Buffalo, their number-4 defenceman by ice time per game was Mattias Samuelsson at 16:30 and that's because Rasmus Dahlin and Bowen Byram both played far more minutes than anyone else. Even if Byram is traded (which has been rumoured), Kesslering will still be stuck behind Dahlin and Owen Power, and maybe even Samuelsson as well. It is a situation where Kesselring should technically move up the depth chart from a number-6 option to a number-4 option, but because of the usage distribution on those specific teams, the actual even-strength ice-time change is negligible.

The same goes for the power play. Kesselring was the number-2 option in Utah when Sean Durzi was hurt, and the number-3 option when he wasn't. Even if Byram is traded from Buffalo, Kesselring will be no higher than the number-3 option for the Sabres. If Byram isn't traded, Kesselring may be off the power-play entirely.

The crux to this trade is how Josh Doan develops. He has just 12 goals in 62 NHL games, but he has scored 0.74 goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 in those 62 games, and that's the rate of a mid-tier second-liner. That limited sample has also shown good two-way play. If he can be a good two-way winger and pop 20 goals, that is a very good winger for the Sabres. He had 37 goals in 90 AHL games over the last two years, so between that and the solid NHL scoring rate, he does have that goal-scoring upside. Maybe not a perennial 30-goal option, but 20 goals are within reach.

Doan's role depends a lot on what the team decides to do with Tage Thompson. At times last year, the team moved Thompson to right wing, which pushed Alex Tuch to the second line. If they proceed with that again, Doan is stuck in the bottom-6 and likely with secondary PP minutes, so a position very similar to the one he left in Utah. But if Buffalo decides to leave Thompson at centre, there is a spot on one of the top two lines for Doan to earn.

That spot also depends on what the team does with Jack Quinn. Quinn needs an extension as an RFA, and he hasn't developed into the impact player for the team hoped for. This now gives the Sabres a replacement option if they decide to move on from Quinn while also giving them insurance if they extend Quinn and he doesn't take a step forward. For now, this gives Quinn direct competition for valuable top-6 minutes.

Who This Helps

Maveric Lamoureux

Josh Doan

Who This Hurts

Nick Schmaltz

Jack Quinn

Matias Maccelli

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