To much money to not go all-in.
This is a FanPost written by Deploy Savoie.
30 Million dollars in cap space? Whaaat?
The Sabres just have too much cap space not to make some moves this offseason, and there is really no excuse not to go all-in. You will not find another team in the NHL going into a season with the goal of making the play-offs and not spending most of their cap space so… Me as the GM has to weaponize the massive amount of cap space I will have available.
My first order of business is to lock up Dahlin and Power to long-term contracts, I don’t need a bridge deal for Power, but if he is willing to take one and still be RFA, sure.
Then I am looking at Severson, Gavrikov, Soucy, Graves, or Orlov. That is 5 d-man I would be targeting (But I want Severson) to get one of them in free agency to fill in my top 4 d-man spot. Then I would be looking to trade Olofsson for w/e assets and just bringing up the “kids” and rolling with it.
Granato is known for developing young talent, so just get that talent on the roster. Savoie and Kulich are brought up and start opening night. And I fill in some holes on this team by looking for a 4th line either face-off specialist or physical bruiser to fill in for Okposo hopefully retiring. And last but not least I am looking at one of the UFA Goalies like Jarry, Korpisalo, or probably someone older like a Varlamov to sign to a shorter term but high money contract, something like 10 million for 2 years for a 35 year old Varlamov wouldn’t even faze me I got so much cap space, and I am trading UPL, but only if I could sign one of these free agent goalies to a shorter term contract, if not I am sticking with UPL as I don’t want to spend assets when I have cap space and UPL as a option already under contract.
And if I got some extra cap space left over (I am still saving some to maybe extend Mittelstadt mid-season) I will possibly sign another depth d-man to replace Stillman or Clague as in case of injury depth call-ups.
Opening Night Roster
Skinner – TT – Tuch
JJ – Cozens – Quinn
Savoie – Mittelstadt – Kulich
Greenway – Krebs – (Bruiser – Face-Off Specialist)
Dahlin – Samuelsson
Power – Severson
Jokiharju – Lybushkin
Stillman – Clague
Levi – Varlamov
Yes, it is a very young roster and it might get pushed around physically at times but they will score in bunches, I would guesstimate near or over 4 goals a game on average. This young d-core keeps improving and someone like Severson gives it that extra oomph to get our goal-differential looking a lot better with the help of Levi – Varlamov to backstop the team which should be a much much better duo then UPL – Anderson with Comrie sprinkled in.
The roster above in my opinion should make the play-offs and who knows man, once you make it in anything can happen, especially with a youthful team like this.