Yesterday Lowetide put out an article about Mark Pysyk called, “A Few Things About Mark Pysyk“. It got me thinking because I’ve been receiving a lot of messages regarding Nail Yakupov from my sources and what they’re telling me is that he’s gone but the destination is unclear. Which isn’t really news at all. As Oilers fans, we all pretty much know he’s never going to play another game for the Oilers. I’m sure we’ve all read Detroit, Montreal, Philadelphia, or Buffalo as possibilities but it’s still hearsay and we’re all going to have to wait until next weekend and see where he really goes.
AN OFFER
But for today, I wanted to talk about a potential swap that I worked out in my own twisted headbone. Which is the following (click their names to check out their contract status’):
To Buffalo – Nail Yakupov
To Edmonton – Mark Pysyk
The way I see it is that both of these players could use a change of scenery. The Sherwood Park native can’t seem to spend an entire season with the Sabres NHL club and Yak… Well he can’t seem to earn the trust of his GMs or coaches, past or present.
I think that Yakupov’s value is sitting somewhere in the 2nd-3rd round draft pick range. Not good. So getting a player back that was a first rounder himself (23rd overall in 2010) and has been marinating in the minors whilst getting cherry minutes and zone starts in Buffalo when he has turned out for the Sabres, could turn out to be a good deal for the Oilers.
On Twitter I put out a poll asking “How would you feel if Nail Yakupov were traded for Mark Pysyk?” and this is where it stands right now (6/19/2015 2:16pm Taipei Time):
- 40% would be happy with the deal.
- 7% would be devastated with it.
- 23% don’t care.
- 30% think OJ really did it.
It’s not as overwhelming as when Oilers fans were asked who they should draft in Yak’s draft year… Ask Stauffer about the numbers on that one or just wait until Yak is traded and he’ll bring it up on his show.
The bottom line is this. The Sabres would like to add a scoring RWer. In my opinion, it looks like they are going to try to relieve themselves of Zemgus Girgensons and move Sam Reinhart to the centre position next season and they need a sniper who could potentially fill a top 6 role.
Losing former Edmonton Oil King Captain Mark Pysyk would be a painless sacrifice as the Sabres have Zach Bogosian and Casey Nelson to fill in behind Rasmus Ristolainen with Chad Ruhwedel coming up through the pipeline on the right side.
In this scenario Pysyk would replace Mark Fayne. I’ve heard Fayne could get bought out but we won’t know for sure until something happens, right? So if we compare the two defensemen using Domenic Galamini’s HERO charts, they look like this:
Fayne didn’t bring a lot to the table last year. As if you didn’t notice. But Pysyk is a definite upgrade in a third pairing and penalty killing role. A solid two-way defender who is cheap.
If you’d like to know more about Pysyk, click the link to Lowetide’s post at the top of the page. It’s really in-depth and well, Lowetide wrote it; so you can be assured that it’s thorough and his point is made very clearly. I’ll include Pysyk’s career stats below.
What do you think? Would you do the deal 1 for 1 line that or would you try to send Griffin Reinhart over and ask that Zemgus Girgensons be included? Maybe you’d prefer some swap of 1st rounders this year. Let me know in the comments below!
I think Reinhart for Pysyk makes more sense. I would be keeping yak for a trade with the Devils for Severson or the islanders for Strome or Nelson.