Welcome back to all! On Tuesday night, I found myself skipping around going from game-to-game and landed for a bit on the Buffalo Sabres/Montreal Candiens game. Why? Well, I have a good friend who's a Sabres fan and, as a bonus, I currently roster Juraj Slafkovsky in fantasy.  As I'm watching (Sabres feed), the tone was dreary and it made sense, this is a team that has now lost 11 straight, with their last victory coming against the Sharks that capped off an encouraging west coast trip for the club. I began to think, is this a coaching issue, on-ice talent, but mostly for today's article, is the salary cap for the club negatively impacting them on ice by the contracts that they currently have in-house. Let's open the hood here on the Sabres' cap and see if we can't fix this club and get them moving in the right direction.

Buffalo Sabres
Current Cap Space – $9,688,170
LTIR pool -$0
2025 – 26 Projected cap space – $26.21M
*Jeff Skinner Buyout/Retained at $1.4 this season

We don't have to go back too far here to remember the days when the Sabres were one of the clubs that I honestly thought would be fighting to get to the cap floor instead of the opposite. Remember, this is the club that tried to inherit Ben Bishop's remaining contract, but the NHL waived their finger at that. This team feels like it's in a perpetual rebuild but as I look at the salary and the numbers matched to each player, I can't see just how that's the case. Most of the time here, the clubs that are going through what the Sabres are currently are either your clubs that are young and building (Chicago, Anaheim, etc.), or the ones that may have gotten too creative with their cap and in that regard, had to let go of real assets that could potentially help the team for cheaper (Nashville, hello!). For the Sabres, I can't really find much money that I wouldn't want on a white board right now when I'm projecting things out. Their biggest cap hit for forwards are with Tage Thompson ($7.14M AAV), which should age great, and just below him is Dylan Cozens ($7.10 AAV), which might be a little high but I'm all in favor here of being strong up the middle instead of weaker, so I say good money spent.

On the blue line, and where I really think you can get into the most trouble when dealing with the cap, you have Rasmus Dahlin at $11M per season until 2027-2028. That's a high number, and one that was rumored to go over $10M all last season. What worries me about that number is that Dahlin has not been healthy since training camp, and will possibly be able to play on Friday. Best case, he's healthy moving forward and you don't lose pieces of a bridge deal due to injury. When healthy, he's dynamic and it shows, as he was tied as the club's point leader last season.

Looking at the rest of the blue line, I don't mind some of the names here and the numbers associated with them. Owen Power at $8.25 could be worth every penny of that in a season or two given his young age, Mattias Samuelsson ($4.29M AAV) has been good for them, but just too much in-and-out of the lineup with injuries. I also have to give a shout to Bowen Byram for whom they traded Casey Mittlestadt last season. I really liked Byram in the 2019 draft; I thought he skated excellent for a defender and I'm not giving up on him at all. He's had a rough start to his career with concussion issues, but this is a player that I don't mind having on my blue line.

In net, I've heard people say things like Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen isn't it for this team even after he just signed a four-year $4.75M AAV deal last season, and that past goalie of the future Devin Levi should be dealt. Just eye test here and going over some goaltending stats for Luukkonen, but he's been good this season for them and at 25 years old, this is someone I don't mind having in net. Levi is even younger at 22, but he may have been thrown to the wolves too early and will be a great asset to have down the road.

For Buffalo, they do have $1.4M retained from Jeff Skinner, which I'm just saying here, I'd rather have him right now than not. I thought he was a play-driver for them but just looking at the deal, I can maybe see how this has worked out for both sides, despite that buyout number only going up for the Sabres for the next two season.  

So, what's the issue here if not for the Salary Cap which is in good shape! They have good young talent that is at a good price point and at least 4-5 players who could hit 30 goals in a season. We're going to start hearing the rumors of different trades for the Sabres and my rule of thumb is that it's always easier to tear it down than consider the option of re-tooling or staying the course. If I'm Buffalo though, unless it's a Godfather offer for a player that I can't walk from, I like this roster as it's constructed and feel like if this team can get production in front of the net, they'll be in good shape. I will say, and this goes back to last season, I think this team needs a good vet to have on this squad when things look grim. The eye test backs that up, trust me on that. I know a lot has not gone right the past month but looking at their cap and the decisions they could make going forward, this club could build something really fun here instead of trading pieces away for yet another rebuild.

*Salary Cap data from PuckPedia.com  

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