honest question: why retain?
I understand buffalo has the space to do so, but why complicate things?

take a 3rd rounder in 2024 and keep it simple.

He won’t have any value at 4.7 Sabres probably don’t want to retain either so he’s more than likely to be back. He scores 20+ goals every season, but you always want more from him.

I don’t think Olofsson is a good fit for the Preds. I think the defensive woes from him scare the team away

The winger market is soft. He's a rental. I'm guessing the idea is that anybody looking at rentals is gonna be near the cap. I don't know if there's any teams giving up a 3rd for him at full salary. I'm fine with keeping him if we get an actual two way center for our third line, but he's now a scapegoat for most of the fanbase.

Sabres have plenty of cap space and and still have ~15 mil to play with after the retention. Oloffson has 1 year left and will get more in a trade with retention. Sabres are very unlikely to use all that cap space as their roster is near set, could see a 4D, another depth Dman, a bottom 6 forward, and a 1B type goalie, but I’d be surprised if they did all of that. Why not retain and get more return for an otherwise wasted asset (cap space).

You buried Stillman but keep Bryson?