Sabres ship Ryan Johnson to Penguins in 2-for-1 deal

Most of the NHL was still settling into the first couple weeks of the season when the Sabres and Penguins made a depth trade on Monday afternoon.

Matthew Fairburn

@MatthewFairburn

The Sabres traded defenseman Ryan Johnson to the Penguins in exchange for D Caleb Jones and D Daniel Laatsch.

Johnson is the name with the history here. Buffalo took him in the first round, 31st overall, in 2019. He then played 4 seasons at the University of Minnesota, where he put up 59 points in 143 games. The pick was supposed to grow into a real piece of the Sabres' blue line. It never really happened. He played 47 NHL games for Buffalo, and all 7 of his career assists came as a rookie in 2023-24, when he dressed for a career-high 41 games. Since then he's mostly been in Rochester. He started this season with the Amerks, playing 4 games at plus-2.

That's why the money barely matters. All 3 players in the deal are on cheap contracts and none of them are on an NHL roster right now, so neither team's cap number moves.

PuckPedia

@PuckPedia

🚨Trade To #LetsGoPens Ryan Johnson, 25 y/o D, Yr 2/3 $875K Cap Hit To #LetsGoBuffalo Caleb Jones, 29 y/o D, Yr 2/2 $900K Daniel Laatsch, 24 y/o D, Yr 2/2 $935K No net cap hit as none of traded players in NHL t.co/b7GL35F2rD

Johnson is signed through 2027-28 at an $875K AAV, so the Penguins get a 25-year-old lefty on a cheap deal for a couple more years. He's 6-foot-1 with 153 AHL games behind him. It's a low-risk bet that a former first-rounder still has something left in a new organization. Kyle Dubas has made this kind of move plenty of times, and the price was 2 depth defensemen.

Buffalo gets more bodies for the same lineup spot. Caleb Jones is 29 and has played 255 NHL games, most recently 7 with Pittsburgh at the start of last season. He's an experienced lefty who can be called up without anyone panicking, and the timing makes sense with Rasmus Dahlin listed day-to-day with an upper-body injury. Daniel Laatsch, 24, is the flier in the deal. He was a 2021 seventh-round pick, spent 4 years at Wisconsin and played 10 AHL games last season.

Nobody is putting up a banner over this one. Still, it wraps up a first-round pick that didn't work out in Buffalo, and it's worth checking where Johnson lands on the Penguins' depth chart. If Dahlin's injury lingers and Buffalo ends up calling up Jones, the Sabres will have gotten something useful out of it fast.