Sabres 'Actively Shopping' Another Defenseman (Non-Byram Division)

Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff wasn't impressed with Mattias Samuelsson this season

While pending restricted free agent Bowen Byram is taking up a lot of the oxygen on Buffalo Sabres trade talks (along with forward JJ Peterka), he isn't the only Sabres blueliner on the block this summer.

According to David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period:

The Sabres have also been actively shopping defenceman Mattias Samuelsson, who is entering the third season of a seven-year contract.

But while Byram and Peterka have both expressed that they would like a change of scenery, there's no word that that's the case with Samuelsson, though the Buffalo fans might very well feel that way about the 25-year-old.

He became a bit of a whipping boy this past season, and was the subject of several healthy scratches. Head coach Lindy Ruff said after one of those benchings that the 6'4" Samuelsson needed to make himself harder to play against.

“Just a higher level of defending where he’s a guy the other team knows is on the ice,” said Ruff. “His play, it’s just been up and down. Reaching a consistent level is all we’re really looking for.”

Samuelsson was one of those singled out as being completely uninterested in his team or teammates after the ugly incident where star forward Tage Thompson nearly had his head taken off on a dirty hit from New Jersey's Stefan Noesen. Nobody came to Thompson's defense, most notably the hulking Samuelsson.

Mattias Samuelsson is being actively shopped by the Sabres

He still has five years to run on a seven-year deal that pays him an AAV of $4.29 million. It's not an onerous cap hit for a d-man who plays 20 minutes a night and is a plus-rating player (+21 over the last three seasons).

He finished this past season with a career-high 14 points, along with 105 hits and 93 blocked shots and a plus-3 rating. There's certainly some promise here, and it should be intriguing to see if another team is willing to take on that term.