December 18, 2025 by Jeff Ade

This feels like one of those potential trades that makes too much sense to ignore.

Let’s start with the obvious. Buffalo has three healthy goalies once again. Colten Ellis cleared concussion protocol on Thursday morning after being run into by Edmonton Oilers forward David Tomasek on December 9. Carrying three NHL goalies never works long term. It clogs the roster. It muddies roles. It creates noise for no reason.

Colten Ellis is back on the ice today at morning skate! 🙌 pic.twitter.com/D8i5BPr2Lx

— Buffalo Sabres (@BuffaloSabres) December 18, 2025

Alex Lyon is the cleanest pressure release for the Sabres.

From the Oilers side, this is a no brainer. Lyon is more than capable as a backup. He doesn’t need development reps, he doesn’t need promises, and he’s steady. He just plays. At $1.5 million for this season and next, he’s cheap enough.

Pickard has done what he can. That avenue has been explored. Lyon is a direct upgrade in reliability and calmness. He’s not a savior or a gamble, he’s just a better option when the puck drops and the game tightens.

This is exactly the kind of goalie Edmonton should be targeting. No rental panic, no summer problem created by a short-term mid-season fix. Just clean roster math.

The Lyon King 🦁#LetsGoBuffalo | @DYouville pic.twitter.com/tqC7xPiZfJ

— Buffalo Sabres (@BuffaloSabres) December 15, 2025

Now let’s zoom out further.

Both teams are in transition. Edmonton is trying to stabilize a contender without blowing it up. Buffalo is trying to shake up a roster that’s stuck in neutral.

New regimes don’t always signal change with blockbuster trades. Sometimes they do it with practical trades that quietly fix something everyone complains about.

From Buffalo’s perspective, this would finally end the three goalie experiment that a lot of people never loved. It also would give new GM Jarmo Kekäläinen an early win. Solve a real problem. Adjust the roster. Make your mark without waiting for the offseason.

As for the return for the Sabres, it wouldn’t need to be loud.

Beau Akey? The Sabres don’t need another right shot defense prospect clogging the pipeline. They just selected right-handed defenceman Radim Mrtka ninth overall in the 2025 NHL Draft. He’s clearly a priority and is likely headed to the AHL next year. Carrying two similar right defense prospects in the same development lane makes little sense. A forward prospect would be a better fit.

One of those mid-tier Oilers prospects would likely be enough. Roby Jarventie makes a lot of sense. Kekäläinen likes his Finnish players. Jarventie could slide onto the Rochester Americans roster next year, and the Sabres could see what is there. A prospect involved in this deal doesn’t need to be flashy. Jayden Grubbe, James Stefan, Matvei Petrov… it doesn’t matter, pick one.

Add a draft pick, even if it’s a pick multiple years down the road. Edmonton has already shown a willingness to do that. A mid-round pick in the distance barely registers on the radar for a team firmly in a championship window.

A potential deal would probably look something like this in my opinion:

It’s clean, logical, and boring in the best way.

From Edmonton’s side, it’s competence over chaos again. From Buffalo’s side, it’s finally choosing direction instead of juggling immediate competitiveness with building for the future.

If this happens, it will feel obvious in hindsight. Most good trades do.

Editor’s note: The Oilers have a difficult cap situation to navigate around, but this deal is totally possible. The peripheral pieces are up for debate, but Tomasek’s involvement isn’t.

As it currently stands for the Oilers, they would need to send down their current AHL reinforcements (Quinn Hutson, Max Jones, Connor Clattenburg, and Riley Stillman), have Tomasek join them, and then have to remove one other player making at least $787,500 from the active roster. Sending down Curtis Lazar or Noah Philp wouldn’t be enough. They aren’t sending Matt Savoie or Spencer Stasney down. The next guys up after that would be Kasperi Kapanen and Mattias Janmark.

Adding Lyon would change the equation slightly, but not the outcome. If Tomasek was to be moved to the Sabres and Pickard was to be sent down to Bakersfield or moved elsewhere, the Oilers would still need to shed $1,237,500 to become cap compliant before all of Kapanen, Walman, and Philp are activated from LTIR. The closest players to that number are Kapanen and Janmark.

Kapanen has been a great fit for the Oilers. They would likely prefer to move Janmark not only because of hockey reasons, but because his $1.45 million cap hit next season would basically cancel out Lyon’s cap hit for next season. Janmark has a modified no-trade clause that includes a ten team no-trade list. Buffalo is almost certainly on that no-go list. Janmark could be moved to a different team in a separate trade though, as could Kapanen.

The developing story out of Boston on Thursday night is that Tristan Jarry left the game late in the second after hurting himself while pushing himself laterally across the crease. If Jarry is set to miss any time, then the Oilers might be forced to make a move before the Christmas holiday NHL roster freeze begins at 12:01 AM on Saturday morning. Stay tuned.