So, about that salary cap

[gilbert11]

On 8/5/2025 at 8:55 AM, dudacek said:

Your answer is Sam Reinhart.

NHL teams in general sign players to deals like this with the assumption the player will be overpaid at the start of the contract and underpaid at the end of the contract as they develop.

The Sabres in particular also have to deal with the issue of attracting/retaining talent as one of the league’s less attractive markets and are more sensitive to the realities of “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” than, say, Vegas.

Those are your big picture contextual answers.

As to Power himself the tools and the pedigree are obvious; it’s also pretty clear after two years of watching him train, practice and interact that they regarded the person as someone they are comfortable investing in long-term.

When they signed him Power was coming off his second season with these statistics:

• ES points 26
• icetime 1880
• Corsi 52%
• GF% 53%
• xGF% 47.2%

These are Power’s peers at the time of signing their second contracts.

Luke Hughes

• ES points 28
• icetime 1506
• Corsi 56%
• GF% 52.8%
• xGF% 55%

Jake Sanderson

• ES points 15
• Icetime 1687
• Corsi 50%
• GF% 47.5%
• xGF% 49.2%

Moritz Seider

• ES points 24
• Ice time 1833
• Corsi 45%
• GF% 48.6%
• xGF% 42.7%

Rasmus Dahlin (bubble season)

• ES points 12
• Ice time 1211
• Corsi 55%
• GF% 43.6%
• xGF% 50.7%

Seider $8.5m and Sanderson $8m signed similar deals to his. We’ll see what Hughes gets soon. Dahlin signed a bridge for $6M which (with inflation) represents roughly what would have been the alternative to what Power signed.

I’d also point to the deals signed by the likes of Miller and Provorov this summer under the growing cap as a sign of things to come and a warning of how $8M is not going to be what it was, very soon.

None of that changes the fact that Power regressed in the 1st year of his 2nd contract while his peers continued to develop. We’ll see if that is a blip, or whether he bucks the trend and fails to emerge the way most players of his pedigree tend to, and the way he was on track to in his first 2 seasons.

Bringing it back to Reinhart. There's an example of a high-pedigree guy who wasn't an immediate star and the Sabres did not lock up. Fear of repeating that mistake has to be a motivator.

Your question was what did they see in him. There’s an answer. The contract still has 6 years to prove its worth.

I guess I just have to accept that Power is who he is.  I expected a 6’6” 225# defenseman to have a lot more than 26 hits in 79 games.  What a waste of size!    He’s like a 7 foot NBA player hanging out at the 3 point line.

[steveoath]

Why is the expectation for power to be a hitter? Was never like that prior to the draft.