Might want a goalie

That tandem isn't gonna fly this year

What's the fascination with the cap floor? Shouldn't the Sabres try to a better team? For instance have goalie Subban is horrid.

Nah, they're gunna bring Anderson back, and malcolm will be the backup on the nhl squad to help sell PK on coming here.

Agreed 100%, but I fully expect that to be what they go with.

They absolutely should. But they got financially bodied this year and last, dismal ticket sales too (yeah i know the border was closed, it barely got better when it opened back up). Ownership isn't going to spend past the floor.

Considering you guys have a plethora of picks it wouldn't be stupid to switch or simply use one to reach the floor at no cost. The easy answer's Arizona but you've got a point there.

It costs about 140m to operate an NHL team in a season. So whether a team spends 62m or 70m players salaries, that 8m difference isn't the significant in the whole budget. Trying to be bad (no goalies) will drive any "love" people have for the Sabres and drive them away even further.

I have them at 56 mil factoring insurance for webers deal. so we're talking about 14 million, which is not insignificant at all. Otherwise 1/3 of the league wouldn't be operating on internal caps that are significantly lower than the one the NHL has.

Edit: The bar is so low that when the skaters do enough to get the team to like 12th last, the attendance will double.

If the Sabres make no effort to get better at all and they will burn all of the good faith they earned from being moderately competitive even part of last season. Ownership might actually think the fans are stupid, but we’ve been doing this hockey thing a hell of a lot longer than they have. Giving Montreal a better pick than they are getting in return is also ridiculous considering they’re doing them a huge favor taking the money off their hands.

We're not taking money off their hands. Weber's deal is insured, we're taking cap off their LTIR. You can swap the picks around but they're definitely going to be interested in his deal.

Techincally, they are adding Quinn, Peterka and a full year of Power. So they are making an effort to get better, just not spending any additional assets. The fan base is so desperate right now that a run to 9th or 10th place (which the skaters are capable of doing) will bring most of the fans back.

The Sabres have missed the playoffs for a league record 11 straight years. If they don’t make the playoffs this year they better be putting their money where their mouth is and trying. Being $35 million below the cap translates to you don’t care, so why should we? At least when they signed Taylor Hall it was proof they wanted to have something for the fans to be excited about. It didn’t work, but they still did something.

Habs can give you allen and swap the 3rd to a 2023 2nd

The Hall example is exactly why they wont though. They probably figure there's more value to be had giving ice time to Quinn and Peterka than there is spending 6 mil on some third liner. Like I get spending the 6 mil would excite fans, but if and when that 3rd liner busts like most FA signings do, the fans will stop showing up again (i.e it won't matter that they spent the money, effort without the results wont inspire fans who have seen their team miss the playoffs for 11 years to come back)

I actually really like Jake Allen, his analytics are lowkey impressive. I wonder if the Sabres would do that.

Pk isnt that good though lol

People like him off reputation. He's still decent, and im sure he'll fight someone for 5 seconds when Power gets lightly nudged along the end boards and fans lose their mind.

Many of the sabres top options are on ELCs, Quinn, peterka, cozens and Krebs are all good to go and skinner, tuch, Thompson, okposo, girgensons, asplund, mittelstadt are all under contract and olofsson is an rfa.

On defense, Samuelsson and power are on elcs, dahlin and jokiharju signed and players they like in Bryson and Fitzgerald either signed or RFAs.

Odd situation where there are not a lot of spots available and a young roster full of ELCs and bridge deals.

Many of us want to play the youth, who seem to be ready and ride the wave of the 2nd half of the year

Buffalo has an opportunity to bring in a legitimate top 4 defender to lead the young core for 2-3 years. Same thing for a goaltender. If they get an above average goalie to pair with Luukonnen and a decent veteran blue liner they could challenge for a playoff spot. If they just take on LTIR cap hits to make the cap floor and do nothing else it’s going to look like they don’t care. I am aware they have the luxury of Quinn and Peterka both who are ready to make the team and might make an impact. That doesn’t mean they can’t flip useless Bjork to Philadelphia for James van Riemsdyk’s contract and a couple extra draft picks. He’s a veteran power forward who can be very useful to a team that is mostly not very big. I’m all for taking on short term bad contracts for players that might still be useful, like JVR. Taking on invisible cap hits that make no impact on your roster especially with no compensation for doing so makes them look like Arizona, who is everything but relocated to another city because Gary Bettman refuses to admit he was wrong to put them there.

we had a worse attendance than the coyotes. Short term (while rebuilding) we more or less are them until the fans come back and the team finally makes a push out of the bottom 3rd of the nhl.

Nobody is going to have worse attendance numbers than Arizona next year. Even if they sell out that college rink, they’re also asking for 400 bucks a seat, to watch that team. It’s going to be embarrassing.

Even assuming you’re right, I still feel the way I do. It’s important that the Sabres bring in players that will make them competitive next season. They can still Weaponize cap space taking on expensive contracts that are short term for players that will still actually help the team. They don’t have a single goaltender under contract right now, so it’s the perfect opportunity to go out and get the right veteran to pair with Luukkonen and try to win games next year.

For the record, I don't disagree with the sentiment that they need upgrades, but I believe the team i made is what they will mirror in the interim. They should be looking for upgrades, but I can see why theyd avoid short term expensive contracts. There's no point in using your cap to add 7 mil if the player takes a roster spot from someone who ironically might be better than him.

Personally, I think they should spend to add players they can get for good value. Mangiapane, Liljegren, Engvall, Comrie, Sturm, Allen etc. These guys are all projected to cost (both in assets and cap) less than what players with their underlying impacts would normally cost for one reason or another. But again, I cant see this happening after the year they had financially.

For the record I think of JVR replacing Björk, who is Universally considered useless. Injuries happen and having someone you can throw into the lineup that will actually do something instead of Björk is a significant upgrade. There is also no guarantee that both Peterka and Quinn make the team in training camp immediately, although I think we all expect them to. I also see what Kevyn Adams and the current front office is doing to be the hockey version of Moneyball. Maybe your approach is right, or closer to the actual reality. We will see. It’s possible he will target some of the same players you expect, but I’m definitely curious who he will actually be able to get.