Introduction
This is a FanPost written by Tage Against The Machine
Inspiration
While I’m a relatively new commenter around here, I’ve hung around DBTB for a while. There were two things that kept me coming back for more with this site. First was obviously the GM for a Days, the effort spearheaded by T McGee and supported by the Brassmaster, Matt in Cleveland, and Seneca. But the other thing that kept me around, besides the fabulous writers such as Chad, Anthony, Calvin, Melissa and more, was Temson’s cap spreadsheets. The GM side of team building has always fascinated me. Since I didn’t have access to many video games as a kid, I’d find some bootleg armchair GM websites to create rosters. Sometimes I’d go back through draft classes on HockeyDB and redraft the Sabres from the end of the Darcy era. Temson’s cap sheets were super helpful because they helped keep things somewhat realistic. There was always optimism for the future, something we desperately needed as Sabres fans. I’ve seen a few people wanting another spreadsheet, so I thought I’d give it a try. Think of it as a placeholder until Temson’s back to teach us all again.
Setting the Cap
We’ll take a look at CapFriendly for some help with the numbers. The NHL is unpredictable with this stuff, for next year’s cap it could rise anywhere from $1 million to $5 million based on how much income the league receives.
You’d think the league would want to get back to the rate of growth that existed pre-Covid, so there is a distinct possibility for a massive cap increase in the next 2-3 years as a way to make up for lost time. CapFriendly is predicting exactly this. Of course, Bettman could be the cheapskate he always has been and continue to screw over the players. I think that’s much more likely but we’ll go with the optimistic scenario here.
And one more thing. I’ll refer to contracts like “8×10” or “4×5”, it means “four years, $5 million AAV”. For example, Tage Thompson has a 7×7 contract.
Sabres Cap Situation
Current State
The Buffalo Sabres are probably one of the healthiest cap situations in the league. This is not a typo. Right now the Sabres are sitting at around $7 million in cap space, a healthy number. However, beyond this year the cap looks even better. Cozens and Thompson’s big boy contracts start this season, Dahlin’s 8×10 will start next season, likely alongside whatever contract Power gets. Apparently Power is pushing for a long term deal despite his agent’s preference for a bridge contract, which says a lot to me. This also means Power likely gives us a long term discount. My guess is he gets a 6×7 at some point this summer. The Sabres can essentially reset their defense and bottom six at the end of the upcoming season.
New signing Erik Johnson joins Bryson, Lyubushkin, Jokiharju and Stillman as free agents in the defense corps. My guess is we see Ryan Johnson graduate to the NHL on an entry level deal and we sign another cheap defenseman to pair with him on the third pair. Or we go big on a young D4 and move Clifton to the third pair. We can afford to.
Among the forwards, Mittelstadt and Krebs hit RFA status while Olofsson, Okposo, Girgensons and Jost hit UFA status. The Sabres, once you account for the Dahlin and Power extensions, will have $30 million to bring back who they want from this group of free agents. Krebs will likely be brought back at a low cap hit of $2-3 million AAV, perhaps Jokiharju or Lyubushkin is brought back at a similar price.
Mittelstadt might be brought back, he might not be. I expect his contract would be something like a 4×5 contract. The Sabres will likely have a wave of entry level contracts coming in after next season. Kulich, Rosen and Savoie will be heavily considered for making the leap to the NHL, Ryan Johnson will surely be considered as well. I think Nikita Novikov would have an outside chance of cracking the team in 2024/25.
This would make it much easier to pursue potential targets via free agency or trade, and it would also make it much easier to envision extensions for Alex Tuch and maybe Jack Quinn and JJ Peterka as well. Adams has done exceedingly well in timing the transition of prospects from the AHL to the NHL so that the team avoids cap trouble both now and in the future.
Setting the Cap
This might be a little too far to predict at this particular moment in time, but 2025/26 might be the season we start to feel a cap crunch. Tuch will be entering the last year of his deal, Quinn, Levi, Johnson and Peterka will be RFAs, and we will only have Jordan Greenway coming off the books. I imagine Quinn and Peterka’s AAV to be anywhere from $7-10 million combined, Levi probably gets a long term deal at around $6 million per year, and Johnson will be fairly cheap to retain.
Factoring the extensions for Dahlin, Power and Krebs, the cap space we’d have would be $20 million, $15 million if we keep Mitts. But we’d have to bring in a few free agent forwards, a free agent defensemen, and a backup goalie by this point. So we’d have about $10 million in space without Mitts, probably less. Still healthy, but then you’d have Tuch getting a big new deal while Kulich, Savoie, Rosen, Novikov and Ostlund hit RFA status the year after.
So what’s the conclusion? The Sabres are set up very well for the future.
No major albatross contracts screwing up the books, loads upon loads of cheap entry level talent to break into the team as the core members become more expensive, and most of the core members likely locked up long term in the next 12-24 months.
The only question I have at this point is whether or not Mitts is considered a core player. I tend to think, given the number of forward prospects we have at this time, that Mitts is likely expendable at some point down the line. But listening to Adams and Granato, they might feel differently. With how much they value culture, and the part Casey has taken to turn around said culture, they might view him as indispensable. Which isn’t a bad thing whatsoever. Just makes things a little tighter cap wise.
Adams has done well to rebuild this team. Now the time is upon us to exit the rebuild and enter the contending window.