Blue Jackets trading Eric Robinson to Sabres: How he fits with Buffalo

The Columbus Blue Jackets are trading winger Eric Robinson to the Buffalo Sabres a conditional seventh-round pick in 2025, the teams announced Wednesday. Sportsnet first reported the news.

Robinson had a career-high 12 goals last season playing exclusively a fourth-line role with significant penalty-killing duties. But, along with several other players in Columbus, this season has not gotten off to a strong start.

The Blue Jackets sent Robinson to AHL Cleveland less than a week into the regular season, his first stint in the minor leagues since the 2019-20 season. He stayed there for a month before getting recalled to Columbus in late November.

Robinson, 28, has played in only seven of the Blue Jackets’ 27 games this season, totaling one goal and a minus-3 rating. That goal was a game-winner versus the Devils on Nov. 24 at New Jersey.

The Blue Jackets have used Robinson along with Sean Kuraly as their top penalty-killing forwards in recent seasons, but with Alexandre Texier, Justin Danforth and Cole Sillinger taking on expanding roles on the PK, Robinson was deemed expendable.

Robinson returned to the lineup for Tuesday’s 4-3 overtime loss to Los Angeles, but he’d been a healthy scratch in the previous two games.

Buffalo announced it is sending Brandon Biro to the minors to make room for Robison.

If Robinson plays in 45 games the remainder of this season with Buffalo, the Jackets will get a seventh-round pick in 2025. The Sabres have 56 games remaining, starting with Thursday’s game in Boston.

Is this a surprise?

Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekalainen has been trying to trade a forward since the summer, so this move is hardly a surprise. Robinson is making $1.6 million this season, the final year of a two-year contract signed in the summer of 2021. He’s an unrestricted free agent next summer.

The Blue Jackets have several options for call-ups from AHL Cleveland if they want to replace Robinson’s fourth-line role. James Malatesta, a first-year pro after a stellar run with Quebec Remparts of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, may be ready for a call-up soon. Carson Meyer, Hunter McKown, Brendan Gaunce and Josh Dunne would also be candidates. — Aaron Portzline, Blue Jackets senior writer

How Robinson fits with the Sabres

Robinson is not a flashy addition, but Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams needed to do something. His team is currently on a four-game losing streak and has the second-worst point differential in the Eastern Conference. Injuries have piled up at forward with Alex Tuch, Jordan Greenway and Zemgus Girgensons all out for at least another week. The Sabres have plugged holes in their lineup with call-ups from the AHL like Biro and Isak Rosen, but this is a team that is already the youngest in the league. Getting younger isn’t the answer.

The absence of Greenway and Girgensons matters with this move. Those two have played a ton of minutes on the penalty kill. So have Tuch and Tage Thompson, who just returned from a hand injury and isn’t getting penalty kill minutes. After a strong start to the season, the Sabres’ penalty kill has slipped to 14th in the NHL. Robinson has a ton of experience killing penalties.

And while Robinson doesn’t have a strong history of offensive production, he is a bigger forward with a willingness to hit. He had 124 hits last season, a number that would have led the Sabres. The team has talked about needing more pushback and aggressiveness in their game, and maybe Robinson can bring some of that. He also happened to have a hat trick against the Sabres last season, so maybe they see something in him offensively.

At the very least, the Sabres are making a low-risk move for a player who fills a short-term need. This isn’t a trade that will dramatically alter the makeup of the roster, but Adams sensed the need to give his team a boost given the way things have gone recently. Whether this move is enough to do that remains to be seen. — Matthew Fairburn, Sabres staff writer