Just an hour into the NHL’s free agency signing period, the Buffalo Sabres signed two veteran defenseman, Erik Johnson and Connor Clifton. Defense has been one of the team’s longstanding weaknesses and this pair of experienced d-men promise to shore up the franchise’s defensive soft spot.
Let’s look at each of them and examine what they have to offer.
1) Erik Johnson
Erik Johnson played as part of the Colorado Avalanche’s Stanley Cup winning team last year. With 13 seasons under his belt, the right-shooting defenseman made 102 blocks and 121 hits, with 16 takeaways and 17 giveaways in 2022-23. His stats for the 2021-22 Cup victory season were 136, 165, 35 and 29, respectively. Setting aside the COVID-19 shortened year in 2020-21, his block and hit numbers have consistently stayed above 100 for the past five seasons.
Johnson also knows how to stay out of the box. His PIM (penalties in minutes) numbers are relatively low, with the defenseman only serving 12 total minutes last year. He hasn’t ventured out of his own zone lately to score many goals but does help out with assists, getting eight total this past season and 17 in 2021-22. Despite his quiet recent offensive stats, Johnson has a career 88 goals, 249 assists and 337 total points.
Here’s one of those goals, when Johnson shot the puck from the blue line to beat Blues goalie Ville Husso and tie things up in a playoff game:
Reaction in the sports world to Clifton’s signing was mostly positive. Sion Fawkes of SabreNoise was positively ecstatic about the deal, writing that the Sabres “struck gold” with the pick. Fawkes pointed to Johnson’s experience, leadership, Stanley Cup win and physical presence as four major selling points.
Lance Lysowski of the Buffalo News was slightly more muted about the choice, opining there’s a risk to signing both Johnson and Clifton, since neither player had a top-four role in their former team’s defense. However, Johnson’s wisdom and insights can only benefit the Sabres’ young roster, as Lysowski acknowledged.
Erik Johnson made some great defensive moves in the past. In an oldie-but-goodie from April 18, 2014, he raced to Colorado’s empty net to stop the puck from crossing the goal line and keep the Minnesota Wild from scoring an empty netter.
Maybe he’ll make some more plays like that for the Sabres and show the roster’s young defensive group how it’s done.
2) Connor Clifton
If there’s one phrase to describe Connor Clifton’s career, it would be continuous improvement. In his five seasons in Boston, Clifton’s blocks, hits and takeaways increased from 13, 40 and 10 to 120, 208 and 20, respectively. His shots on goal went up from 22 to 93 and his total points from 1 to 23. His PIMs finished 2022-23 with 60, but he was, after all, playing for the Bruins.
Buffalo gave Clifton a three-year, $10 million deal, in contrast to Erik Johnson’s one-year $3.25 million contract. Adams sees the younger Clifton (still just 28) as part of the Sabres’ longer-term future, while the older Johnson may not be around more than one season.
WGR 550’s Paul Hamilton liked the choice, saying the Sabres added grit on defense with Clifton’s signing and calling him a “rugged defenseman who is tough to play against.” Hamilton also speculated that with more veteran defenseman such as Clifton in Buffalo, Ilya Lyubushkin, Riley Stillman or Jacob Bryson might be on borrowed time.
Steve Silverman of ClutchPoints predicted the Sabres would make an offer to Clifton, because the Bruins didn’t have the cap space to keep him and the defenseman would go where he’d get more money and respect. The Blue and Gold need to improve defense and physicality. Clifton can help in those areas.
He showed some of that physicality in a game against the Philadelphia Flyers, when he dropped the gloves against Nicolas Aube-Kubel:
Like many d-men, he doesn’t score a lot of goals but does have his moments. One of those was getting his own rebound to open the scoring against the Florida Panthers on Dec. 19, 2022:
Erik Johnson and Connor Clifton are two new veteran defensemen playing for Buffalo in 2023-24. What do you think? Can they help strengthen the Sabres’ defense and end the team’s playoff drought?