Mitchell Marner, Unrestricted Free Agency

[JohnC]

9 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Buffalo has one thing going for it: it's close to Marner's family. He just had his first child and he may want to stay near his folks. Remember this is the same reason Jeff Skinner waived his NMC to come to Buffalo. I'm just sayin'.

I got a laugh listening to the recent Instigators podcast, after ragging on the Sabres for not spending to the cap, they pivot to "you know, Buffalo doesn't have enough cap to sign Marner AND their RFA's." 🤣

In isolation, it would be difficult to sign Marner at his expected salary and then be able to address the RFAs. But that doesn't preclude the Sabres making transactions that subtract salary. Juggling contracts, such as bringing in and shipping out contracts, is what every GM is required to do the cap system.  

[Taro T]

7 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Buffalo has one thing going for it: it's close to Marner's family. He just had his first child and he may want to stay near his folks. Remember this is the same reason Jeff Skinner waived his NMC to come to Buffalo. I'm just sayin'.

I got a laugh listening to the recent Instigators podcast, after ragging on the Sabres for not spending to the cap, they pivot to "you know, Buffalo doesn't have enough cap to sign Marner AND their RFA's." 🤣

Well, 2 things can be true at the same time.  The Sabres HAVE been at least $8MM under the cap each of the past 4 seasons (after the Norris trade and injury callups they ended up with "only $6.5+" in space as the season ended, but they started at or extremely near $8MM in space) and courtesy of a $4.44 buyout charge for Skinner this coming season they likely would be hard pressed to sign Marner and ALL (which includes Byram) their RFAs this off-season.  

But, am pretty certain they aren't bringing Byram back and based on all the noise about Peterka at the trade deadline wouldn't be shocked to see him part of a trade package either.  So, it doesn't really matter that they couldn't bring ALL those guys into the fold this coming season.  There's not really any intention to be doing so with or without Marner.