The Buffalo Sabres will be over the NHL’s salary cap floor by the start of the season, that much is obvious. While CapFriendly currently has the club sitting $2.3MM below the $60.2MM benchmark, that is with a 22-man roster that does not include unsigned RFA defenseman Rasmus Dahlin. While the 2018 first overall pick is not quite yet proven himself worthy of the considerable long-term deals signed by other top defenseman this off-season, he will surely make more than $2.3MM AAV on his next contract.
Yet, that does not end the Sabres’ battle with the cap floor. Just because they begin the season over the floor, does not mean that they will remain as such all season – or at least not if they wish to have flexibility with their transactions. Buffalo is again expected to be among the NHL’s worst teams this season and will be open to selling current members of the roster. Of course, Jack Eichel is the biggest name who could be available. However, at $10MM AAV it has been brought up numerous times that an Eichel trade is not as easy as it may seem. A team may offer a plethora of top picks, prospects, and entry-level players, but the Sabres would not be able to make that deal alone, as it would leave the team well below the salary cap floor regardless of Dahlin’s contract. Buffalo would have to acquire a nearly equal amount of salary back in the deal or else be prepared to quickly turn and add that salary in another deal. As a rebuilding team, the Sabres also won’t eager to add high-priced veterans who serve little purpose to a team with no title hopes. It makes an already difficult situation with Eichel all that much more tricky.
Even if Eichel begins the season with Buffalo, which seems increasingly likely, and even plays out the year with the team, the cap floor will still come into play. As the trade deadline approaches, the Sabres want to be in position to take full advantage of their valuable trade assets. The team has four forwards, four defensemen, and two goalies who are impending UFA’s and whose expiring contracts would be worth far more to another team. Colin Miller ($3.875MM), Will Butcher ($2.823MM), Cody Eakin ($2.25MM) and Vinnie Hinostroza ($1.05MM) stand out as potentially popular trade candidates at the deadline. Depending on Dahlin’s contract, could they move Hinostroza or maybe even Eakin or Butcher without going below the floor? Probably. But Miller? Or multiple moves? Likely not. The deadline is also not a place that is likely to offer even salary swaps.
If GM Kevyn Adams and the Sabres want to enter the 2021-22 season with the confidence that they can make any move they want without limitation, they need to find a way to sensibly add salary to the roster. For a rebuilding team, it may be difficult to think about adding salary to a team that won’t contend, but it would be a short-term sacrifice to ensure their long-term plans are not affected. The team could explore the trade market for a veteran or two that can help to develop the young roster or perhaps a young, but overpaid reclamation project. Or maybe they could entertain adding a legitimate starting goalie. They could also explore the free agent market which, even late in the summer, still has some attractive names available. With the Sabres pegged to give roster spots to minimum-salary fourth-liners like Drake Caggiula and John Hayden, it might make more sense to give those slots and more importantly more salary to a high-upside project like Ryan Donato, Alex Galchenyuk, or Nikita Gusev or a veteran leader like Tyler Bozak, James Neal, or Jason Demers.
The Sabres have plenty of options to solve their salary cap floor conundrum beyond just re-signing Dahlin. However, those options could disappear if they don’t act quickly, and with it their transactional flexibility this season.
Kim Pegula has run this team in to the ground
No, below the ground. What an embarrassment. Hopefully fans will boo and boycott. Hope this team relocates
WTH?
50 years history.
Roam Hockey (YouTube) did a video on NHL teams winning %s.
The Sabres are near the top in winning % even including the last 8 years. So stop being so negative.
Even with the lack of playoff success (Eichel/Rhino/Risto deserves some of the blame) the team has (like I mentioned below) 5 players drafted in the top 10 (all recently) along with other prospects.
There’s plenty of clubs looking to move players with term who can attach assets to make it worth Buffalo’s while. Connolly from Chicago, Lucic in Calgary, Johansen in Nashville etc. Buffalo could easily solver their problem. They’re just waiting until other clubs get desperate and overpay for cap space.
Appreciate the optimism Manos, but Lucic has a NMC and he isn’t waiving it for Buffalo, and Nashville has 11M in cap and said they wouldn’t pay Seattle to take a bad contrqct so why would they pay Buffalo to? And Connolly is only paid 3.5M so it’s not really much help and I doubt Chi would be willing to add much to lose that contract. Could they find a contract or 2 to take on to make the floor if Eichel is traded? Sure. But its not as easy as people believe.
Bad examples I guess but with a flat cap for the foreseeable future, teams will start to get desperate. Those were just a few examples but there’s so many more – Bobrovsky in Florida, van Riemsdyk in Philadelphia, Matheson in Pittsburgh, Henrique in Anaheim, Karlsson in San Jose, Tarasenko in St. Louis, Dadonov in Vegas… some of these guys have NTCs or NMCs but my point is there are options out there for Buffalo. And contrary to popular belief, not every player is opposed to going to Buffalo. It used to be a good hockey town once upon a time. It’s just a mess right now. They have other options too in being a third party in other trades as just a team retaining salary. We saw a lot of those deals at the deadline last year. It’s not as grim as it seems.
fold em
Yes, fantastic, logical idea bro
I’m not rolling my eyes at all
bigguccisosa300 this guy is just a genius, dont be too harsh on him
Fold a 50yo franchise who is in the top 10 all time in franchise %s.
Top players like Ike, Rhino & Risto deserve some of the blame for the team not making the playoffs in 8 years.
The positives?
Because of that the team has 5 top 10 drafted players & that is not counting Ike over the last 5 drafts (his trade will add more young talent). This includes Powers who sign after his college season. They also have other young players signed over the last few seasons. Their HC has ample experience coaching younger players.
So please keep your uniformed comments to a minimum.
Thanks Zach. I have been saying this in just about every Eichel rumor posted for 2 months. The Sabres situation is not as comfortable and easy as most believe.
Can Buffalo trade Eichel but only retain some of his salary for a few years?
I do not believe this is possible directly. Is it possible in a 3 way trade?
whatever salary is retained it is spread out thru the duration of the contract, it cannot be for just 1 or 2 years.
A team can’t retain an aggregate amount of salary that’s more than 15% of what the cap is when they make the trade. So Buffalo can retain a little over 12M of the 50M owed Eichel, and if that’s spread equally over the remaining 5 years of the contract, we’re talking at most 2.4M / year. Not a big deal. And it’d also handcuff them in that you can only retain 3 salaries a year and doing this on Eichel takes one spot from you for each of the next 5 years. The ability to retain salary becomes extra valuable at the deadline, and could be the difference between a 3rd and a 2nd (or even a 2nd or a 1st) coming back your way.
Sabres are better off taking back a short term contract instead of retaining any of Eichel’s salary.
Because of the lack of success under players Eichel, Risto & Rhino when they were playing (yes the top players have some of the blame) the team currently has 5 players drafted in the top 10 (Eichel not counted) …….
Dahlin
Mitts
Cozens
Quinn (signed last year)
Powers (will sign after his college season)
+ Joker, UPL, Victor, Skinner (he is bound to rebound) & a few more prospects that signed over the last year.
The eventual trade of Eichel will also add some prospects to the team. The team also has Portillo (21yo & a college teammate of Powers) along with D. Levi for more added future goalie depth.
D. Granato the HC has experience coaching young players.
Adding salary to do what? Max out? Limit playing time to your younger players/prospects? Pass.
Now if you are talking about being the 3rd team in a trade that is only retaining $1mil to $3mil (1 year only) for draft picks. That’s ok. What draft picks? From who? How many are we talking about?
They
They’re not even close to the cap maximum. They need to add cap hits to reach the agreed-upon minimum.
Once they sign Dahlin they will be at the cap floor (or a bit over). Eichel’s $10mil per salary is still on their books.
Why should a team like the Sabres spend to the cap ceiling? They are going to allow their prospects & younger players a opportunity to get significant playing time. They will get to the cap floor once Dahlin signs & they will have to take back other cap hits in the upcoming Eichel trade. Also having that open cap space will allow the Sabres to pivot in so many ways. It also forces another team to have to offer sheet Dahlin at $9mil+ per to have any chance of the Sabres not matching (3 to 4 1st round draft picks offer sheets).
Nobody said anything about spending to the ceiling. Theres 20 mil between floor and ceiling. Hes saying they cant dip below at any point during the season so it would be easier to make trades at the deadline if they didnt hafta worry about dipping below the cap. Doesnt mean hea saying to max out cap lol
The Sabres can trade Eichel & at the same time agree to be the middle man on another trade to retain salary for a draft pick. Not to mention they will probably get back a player (or 2) that has a decent cap hit.
Why would bozak sign in buffalo unless they offer crazy money. Someone is going to lose a center and sign him. He should holdout for a team that may win. If they offer anything to Neal donato, gusev. they should sign immediately doubt there is any market for any of them. Gusev will probably go back to khl.