The Sabres and Penguins swapped three defensemen on Tuesday, with Buffalo sending Ryan Johnson to Pittsburgh in exchange for Caleb Jones and Daniel Laatsch.
All three players are currently in the minors, but the deal shifts the direction of both organizations. For Buffalo, it closes the book on Johnson, a player the team took with the 31st-overall pick in the 2019 NHL Draft and hoped would grow into a steady piece on the blue line.
Johnson spent four seasons at the University of Minnesota after being drafted, then turned pro before the 2023-24 campaign. He started that season in the minors, put up six assists in 23 games with the Rochester Americans, and earned a call-up. From there, he split time between Buffalo and Rochester as a rookie, finishing with seven points in 41 NHL games and nine points in 29 AHL games.
The next two seasons never really gave him a foothold in the NHL. Buffalo sent him to the minors for all of 2024-25 except for a three-game December stint that produced no points, and the same pattern repeated last year, when he opened the season on the NHL roster before returning to the minors after three games without scoring. In four pro seasons, the 25-year-old has 41 points in 153 AHL games.
Pittsburgh is betting on Johnson as an upside play while also helping clear a crowded AHL blue line.
Buffalo’s return is the more experienced Jones, a 29-year-old whose path has been far longer and more established. Drafted in the fourth round in 2015, he reached full-time pro status just two years later and carved out a regular NHL role by 2019. His best season came three years after that, when he posted 16 points and 40 penalty minutes in 73 games with the Chicago Blackhawks, both career highs.
Across 255 NHL games, Jones has totaled 56 points and 90 penalty minutes. He has spent most of his career bouncing between a depth NHL role and the top of an AHL roster, and now he gives Buffalo another option behind the scenes and on game days. He should compete for Zach Metsa’s role as extra defender, and his arrival adds insurance while captain Rasmus Dahlin deals with a day-to-day injury.
Laatsch comes in as the younger piece of the package. The 2021 seventh-round pick had his senior season at the University of Wisconsin cut short by a torn labrum that required surgery, holding him to five points in 22 games in 2024-25. Pittsburgh signed him at the end of that season, and he made his pro debut with the ECHL’s Wheeling Nailers in October 2025 after nearly 10 months away from game action.
He moved up to the AHL soon after, but injuries again slowed him down. Undisclosed issues in November and December limited him until spring.
Laatsch finished his rookie year with 11 points in 29 ECHL games and three points in 10 AHL games. He has not played a game this year, and Buffalo is hoping the change of scenery on the East Coast can finally get him healthy.
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