A day after the Los Angeles Kings made a blockbuster trade in goal to acquire Joonas Korpisalo, they’ve added Erik Portillo to their organizational depth chart, prying him from the Buffalo Sabres with a 2023 third-round draft pick.
Portillo, 22, is a former third-round draft pick of the Sabres back in 2019. He’s playing out his junior year at Michigan, but he was going to be eligible for unrestricted free agency this summer via the “NCAA Loophole” because of the year he played with the Dubuque Fighting Saints in the USHL. There were reports that he was leaning toward going that route, too.
To say that Portillo has struggled this season is an understatement. He’s sporting a career-worst .908 save percentage to go along with his 19-10-2 record as of this writing, and the tape hasn’t been particularly complimentary either. The hope is that this season is a blip, based on his track record of strong play at Michigan in the prior two seasons.
Portillo was the ninth-ranked prospect in the Sabres system when we looked at their prospect pool in our offseason rankings ahead of this season.
