Quoting: Mike_Gartner
McD is the exact type of guy the Sabres need on their backend.
He would be a rock solid d partner with Power.
His contract wouldn't even come close to handcuffing the Sabres, they would have $35-$55M in cap space over the length of his contract to sign any RFA's.
1. McDonagh is a LD that as far as I know has pretty much only played LD. Power is also a Ld, and asking him to switch to the right side as he is trying to find his place in the league is not a good idea IMO
2. If the Sabres young guys develop well, that cap will be chewed through quickly in years 3 and 4 of McDonaghs contract. Thompson likely needs 7+, Oloffson~4 Cozens, mitts, Krebs, Quinn, JJP, Samuelson, Dahlin, Asplund and Joki will all need new deals before that contract is up. Some of those aren’t going to be very big, but others could be quite large contracts. Adding McDonagh at the minimum likely makes it hard to make deals to get us over the top in 3-4 years when we are competitive.
3. He’s getting older. By the end of the playoffs, you could see him wearing down and not being nearly as effective as he was just a season ago in the playoffs. By the time you get to year 3/4 of this deal, he will be a lot less effective which is when it’s more important for us to have a strong roster.
4. If you’re making the Marino deal, I’d rather sign a 3rd pair LD and roll:
Samuelson-Dahlin
Power-Marino
Ld-Joki