Savard did not retire until January of 2018. In fact, his contract was traded 2 times since his second concussion. The Bruins got the benefit of LTIR for the CAP and Savard still got paid (by the NHL insurance company I believe). Now, a doctor has to sign off on the fact that KO is not well, but if that's the case, KO gets paid, has no more health risk, and the Sabres don't have a CAP hit of $6 million for the next 5 years. A potential Win-Win-Win situation.