Los Angeles, Calif. (WGR Sports Radio 550) - Shortly after the start of Day 2 at the 2025 NHL Draft in Los Angeles, the Buffalo Sabres made a trade with the Pittsburgh Penguins involving a trio of defensemen.
The Sabres have sent defensman Connor Clifton and the 39th overall pick in the 2025 NHL Draft to the Penguins in exchange for defensemen Conor Timmins and Isaac Belliveau.
After going as a second-round pick of the Colorado Avalanche in the 2017 NHL Draft, Timmins has bounced around a bit as he tried to battle injuries and find a spot on the back end of a NHL roster.
After playing 33 total games for the Avalanche over a two-year period, he was traded to the Arizona Coyotes in a package that landed Colorado goalie Darcy Kuemper. However, Timmins only saw eight games of action with the Coyotes before then being shipped off to the Toronto Maple Leafs in December of 2022.
Timmins finally found some success with the Maple Leafs, where in parts of three seasons with the club, he played 101 games, while scoring five goals and adding 27 assists for 32 points as mainly a bottom-pair defenseman.
This past season saw Timmins split his time between the Maple Leafs and Penguins, where he played 68 games while scoring three goals and registering 12 assists.
The 6-foot-3, 213-pound defenseman is the second right-shot defenseman the Sabres acquired via trade within the last week. This after also picking up Michael Kesselring from the Utah Mammoth as part of the return for JJ Peterka earlier this week.
As for Belliveau, he spent most of the 2024-25 season with Pittsburgh's ECHL and American Hockey League affiliates. The 22-year-old played 22 games with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins last year, scoring a goal and adding six assists for seven points.
Meanwhile, Clifton was entering the final year of his three-year contract he signed with the Sabres in the summer of 2023. In two seasons with Buffalo, Clifton played 152 games, scored five goals and put up 34 points on the blue line.
With the trade, the Sabres now have eight more selections in the 2025 NHL Draft. Their next selection comes in the third round with the 71st overall pick.