Curt

Yeah, it seems odd intuitively but I think that they really do have a very high opinion of Mitts. Two years ago he was slated to be the 1C before getting hurt to start the season, then he didn’t get healthy until March. Then last season, he played really well in a variety of positions and he was the one who they gave a chance on the 1st line when there was an opportunity, not Cozens, and it worked pretty well.

No. I don’t think so. EDIT: Also, two sentences, no punctuation, first and last words capitalized. Well done. Lol

Sadly, some guys just won’t pan out.

She’s got no shot.

Yeah, that’s pretty much exactly what I mean by consolidation trade. Take 2-4 assets that are maybes and turn them into one asset that is much more of a certainty. As for FA’s, even if they don’t go ever go after big FA’s, there will be other mid level guys (like Clifton) who get signed for somewhat significant money and term.

Only in my mind, lol. Um, ELCs are white, contracts already signed are green, projected contracts are orange.

A lot of questions here. I’ll address them one by one. 1) So you're projecting here that Owen Power accepts 7 years @8.5 per? Yup 2) Don't think his team will seek something more in the 4-6 range like a super bridge? I don’t know what Power will seek. I wouldn’t call anything more than 4 years a bridge, though. 3) I don't think a #1 overall pick defenseman, who looks the part, would ever sign for such a long, team-friendly deal. Well, you be wrong in thinking that it would never happen because it’s happened in the recent past. There are 18 current NHL top-5 pick defensemen who have signed past their ELC, 9 of them signed for 6+ years, and the guys who were higher end players signed for long term more often. The guys who didn’t sign long term off their ELC mostly signed 2-3 yr bridge deals before signing for longer term after. It’s a mixed bag but the idea of a highly drafted, high end young defenseman signing long term off their ELC has plenty of precedent. 4) Is the thinking that there's some kind of discount for doing it now rather than later? Doesn't much compute, otherwise. I actually don’t understand this question. Could you expand on this?

Could certainly happen. If he keeps putting up 70+ point seasons, then it surely will. I’m kind of guessing that last season was a bit of an outlier and he is more of a 50-65 point guy, with some injuries, going forward.

This isn’t a will and testament. It’s a projection. It’s a bunch of guesses. Mostly for fun, but also to demonstrate a general overview of Buffalo’s cap situation moving forward. There are so many prospects that I think it’s a near guarantee that a couple of them pop. Switch the names around if you like. But, just to address your comments, for fun: If Mitts is once again put in a position to put up 55+ points, he is going to get ~$6M. Whether it’s in Buffalo or somewhere else. If he is stapled onto the 3rd line and puts up 40 something, it will be less. Quinn and Levi, yeah, I’m just projecting continued development and that they will be good. Same with Benson. Greenway, I’m kind of projecting that he gets back to being pretty good like was a couple years ago, but I have no idea if he will, I hope so. On the flip side I’m projecting Krebs, Savoie, Kulich, Rosen, Jokiharju, Strbak, McCarthy to not really be long term significant pieces. Some will, some won’t, I don’t really know which are which. In reality this won’t be close. There will probably a consolidation trade or two at some point and also FA signings taking the places if some of these prospects. The names aren’t as significant as the numbers for contracts that aren’t signed yet.

I feel like in the 2023 draft they did that with every pick except the 1st round. It was all big strong forwards or defensemen, with a goalie sprinkled in.

It’s the term, not the dollars. They feel like they gave him a fair salary, but too many years, and an MNTC on top of it. They think if there was going to be so much term, there shouldn’t have been any trade protection, or if they were going to give trade protection, then the term should have been less. Especially for a deal being given out a year early. Comparing Okposo’s one year deal to this 4 year deal doesn’t really fly. Also, in a vacuum, it’s probably an okish deal, but their team is carrying $15 in dead cap space for the next couple seasons, and the fan base is concerned that Guerin is going to keep them perpetually cap hamstrung for the foreseeable future with deals like this. It’s not the worst deal ever but there are definitely reasons not to like it.

Disagree here. Sabres can afford Mitts on a $6-7M contract. If Quinn and/or Peterka have a big breakout of sorts in the next two years and earn a big contract, it could necessitate a difficult decision down the road. But there is no guarantee that either of those guys ends up as good as Mitts; and Thompson, Cozens, Mitts is one heck of a C spine.

Do many people in Buffalo actually like Patrick Kane a lot? Honest question. I mostly see people from the area dragging him because he has publicly represented the area pretty poorly throughout his career.

Ok everyone, I got the image uploaded. Not sure why it wouldn’t work last night. Enjoy.

I have an interest tracking and projecting the Sabres future cap situation. I did this exercise last offseason as well, and I’ve gone through and updated it. The Sabres situation is interesting right now. In some ways they are very locked into their core players, in other ways they have tons of flexibility around the edges. Its interesting just trying to predict how things will develop. Obviously this is no where near how things will go. There will be more free agent role players and fewer prospects who make it. By projecting Mitts, Tuch, Quinn and Levi for largish long term contracts as well as a star breakout, and equivalent contract, for Benson, I tried to demonstrate how the Sabres could accommodate a few additional big salaries in addition to those that we already expect (Skinner, Tage, Cozens, Dahlin, Power) Anyway, this is mostly for fun, so enjoy! Click on the image for a clearer view.

@dudacek Not saying you are wrong or anything, it’s just really weird, and the NHL’s classifications here aren’t really meant to be a guide on a player’s age during a certain season. Case in point, any player born in late September or early October will not play a single at their age for the season. For example, Jack Quinn turned 22 a week and a half ago. Should we really call this his age 21 season? Even though he will be 22 for every single game? Doesn’t make any sense to me. I go by Hockey Reference’s classification, which uses a Jan 31 cut off date.

Not that this invalidates your overarching point, but Devon Levi will be in his age 22 season this season, not his age 21 season.

Sure, but that is a league wide thing, and doesn’t affect Benson in particular relative to the rest of the league.

I mean, he was officially weighed at 170 lbs at the draft combine, but whatever.

Sabres Role Player type forward prospects: Wahlberg, Rousek, Nadeau, Poltapov, Cederqvist, Kozak, Miedema Those are just the guys who seem destined for a career in that type of role. They have plenty of role player prospects. There are also a bunch of guys who are real top-6 hopefuls who could transition to a bottom 6 role. Benson, Savoie, Kulich, Krebs, maybe Östlund, to name a few.

This is interesting but like you, I wonder what metrics were actually being used. I really think that a lot of this is coaching, and I don’t mean that in a negative way. Granato has referenced before that he was at first purposely coaching the team in a way as to focus primarily on generating offense, and that he then was shifting to tighten up the defensive side of their game. The implication was that, with such a young group, it was too much to try to coach them produce offense, play good defense, keep their confidence up, and learn to adjust to the NHL all at the same time. By focusing on offense, they were able to keep confidence up, find their way in the league, and make strides in terms of results. Towards the end of last season, over the last 25 games or so, I think you could see the team put more focus on their defensive play and make some improvements there. This sort of step by step implementation of strategies is sometimes used by coaches when trying to make major changes within a team and build up towards success. I don’t hear it spoken about that much in hockey, but in soccer it’s a pretty common concept and refereed to as “tactical periodization”. Basically implementing layers of tactics one at a time, over a certain period of time. I think that’s what Granato is doing.

That’s fair. I was just sharing info.

I seem to remember he was voted best defensive forward in the WHL in a coaches poll, but I’m not finding it now. He was definitely lauded by multiple scouting sources as one of the best (sometimes straight up the best) defensive forwards in the draft.

Interestingly, the NBA did. In the past they could draft players in their high school graduation year. Now they have changed it to one year after their high school graduation year.

Calls??? Please. DM’s.