I don't see the Sabres moving a second for a rental. The vibe i get is hat they are still more interested in developing thier team this year than making the playoffs.

Take out Krug and a second and its a good offer

Krug at 5M is not that bad for a team in a rebuild...

Hes a cap dump, and we dont need him for the next 5 years clogging the system

Why is Timo Meier worth 2 times what Matthew Tkachuk was worth? They have the same contract status, same age, same position, similar stats, and that trade occurred less than 1 year ago.

It was a 1st, a B prospect, and 2 very expensive skaters.

What? Tkachuk returned an elite LW who just had scored 115 points in 80 games and an elite RD defenseman in MacKenzie Weegar AND an unprotected 1st lol, this offer isn't close to that.

They make a combined 130 million over 8 years. They cannot possibly out perform their cap hit. They were traded because of that. They’re both 29 with 8 years of term.

Just stop, an 115-point player and an elite RD-defenseman AND a 1st is WAY better than a cap dump in Krug, Neighbours and two late 1sts.

Absolutely no.

You have 2 2nds and an A prospect, and are retaining millions of dollars for 4 years.

Just no.

The chance of two 2nds a 1st and Neighbours even getting close to an elite defenseman or a 115 point player is minimal.

The problem with this and all other Meier trades is looking at next year. Try putting this team in and how to work around the addition of 5.5 mil for each of Thomas and Kyrou and + 3.5 or so for Meier. Don’t see how it’s possible.

I feel many fail to understand how player value works. I’m not trying to be rude.

Doug Armstrong does. It’s why he let 2 captains walk.

Every NHL team has the same cap. It is a competitive environment to the extreme with billions of dollars on the line.

What ultimately matters is performance for cap. Winning teams get more performance for cap dollars than losing teams. That’s it. That’s the whole formula. If two teams spend the cap, and one gets double the performance for cap dollars (Tampa), then they will win. But every year everybody gets older.

A human is in their “prime” roughly ages 25-29. This changes person to person, and other people have different definitions, but the physiological reality is that the human performs the best in roughly this age range. Prior to this they may be faster, but lack experience. Later than this they are often burdened by the injuries that are inevitable over a multi-hundred game career, are slower, but have experience.

Additionally, in the NHL, skaters typically receive UFA status their first contract expiry after their 27th birthday. There’s a way it can be sooner with 7 years of service. Once they become UFA, the number of potential buyers increases, as does their annual pay.

Therefore:

A players value is based on his age and his performance for cap dollars, with his contract status impacting both.

It is ideal to draft a player, elc them, bridge them, then 8 year them. You get ages 20-31. Anything else is inefficient.

Signing a 29 year old is not ideal. Especially for 8 years.

Weegar and Huberdeau were basically given away because florida did not want to pay them, they wanted to get younger. Calgary is now screwed because they have a very inefficient core that they will have to either buyout or somehow trade or just suck with as time moves forward. 4-6 years from now they will be in a world of hurt.

Weeger and Huberdeau are good NHL-ers. But next year will occur. They will age 1 year. And so on. Ultimately their performance will drop, as would any humans.

A great player under elc is worth much more than weeger and huberdeau combined because you can get them to outperform their cap hit, and therefore the opposition.

The goal is to beat the other teams, and players are not in a vacuum.

Gms make 4 trade offs:

Risk

Money

Wins

Time

Every choice to help one impacts the others.

You can never satisfy all 4.

You don’t have to believe me, look at Seattle, or Vegas back when they drafted. Seattle, besides Matty Beniers, is ages 23-31. Vegas was similar except Marc andre fleury. The goal is performance for cap dollars, not whether a player got 111 points or whatever last year. If the nhl continues to have expansion drafts in the same manner those teams will persistently be good because they have free reign to target this. Neither team has a “star” or somebody who had some resume. It’s about how humans perform, how they age, and the structure of the nhl’s salary system only. The only ones who tend to break this are in the hall of fame or will be as soon as it’s their turn to be voted on. Like Patrice Bergeron, Sidney Crosby. Players who are never traded because they are so uniquely good that they will always outperform their cap hit.