Curt

Regarding salaries increasing with the cap, that’s true, but also only part of the reason that Dahlin could make more than Makar or Fox. There is also the issue of RFA years versus UFA years. UFA years generally are a good amount more expensive to get a guy under contract than RFA years are. This is because players have a lot money re control and leverage over those years are are thus able to command more money. Both those other guys’ contracts started directly after their ELCs, which means that 4 out of their 6 or 7 contract years are RFA years. Compare this to Dahlin signing after a 3 year bridge deal. This means that only 1 out of 6 or 7 or 8 years would be would be an RFA year, the rest would be UFA years. That is also going to slant Dahlin’s contract towards being more expensive. You can never really just look at the raw AAV numbers of other players to decide how much someone should be paid. It’s going to be influenced by some factors that are a little more nuanced than that.

I know right. It’s weird that this is very rarely done by any team.

Well yeah, because the Bills are favored by a fair amount, so the bookmakers cut gets kind of buried in the difference. Yeah, I’m taking about the spread. Spreads and over/unders are often equal prices on both sides, but not always. For example, just look at this other NFL game. The spread is very close, so you can see the moneyline prices are both negative in this case as well. It’s because of the book’s cut. It’s always like that.

Hmm, don’t bet much, do you? It’s minus on both sides because the bookmaker takes a cut. That’s how it is for all sports betting.

Same, same. Haven’t pulled the trigger yet. Also, anyone think the Sabres can get 100 points? That’s +220. Bet $100, get $220 profit if you win.

I was more so looking for specifics. I might agree or disagree with you. I have no idea. Your proclamations are too vague. If your only point is that the cap will go up, yeah, we know. Publicly rumored to be going up $4-5M each of the next two offseason.

Oh, I do recall you repeating it ad nauseum, please believe that. What do you mean by “approaching” though? Is that $95M?, $99M? And 5 years? Is that the 2028-29 season? Perhaps Power is considering a shorter deal as opposed to 6+ years for this reason. I have no idea.

Recent D who were drafted top-5, played like #1 D in the making, and then signed 6+ year extensions of off their ELC’s; they have generally signed for 10-11% of the cap. This is guys like Doughty, Ekbland, Pieterangelo, Heiskanen, Makar. The cap is 83.5 this coming season, and rumored to be going up to 87-88M the next. So maybe if Power plays very well this season and the cap goes up to $88M, maybe he could get close to $9.5M max on a 6+ year extension, but that would be the true max max that I think is even plausible.

Well that’s one less thing to worry about I guess.

I mean, I guess it depends on what you mean by “inspire confidence“. Did it inspire confidence that he was gradually improving as a player over the course of 3-4 years? I think everyone would agree that last year’s 2nd half was the best he has played, but you kind of made it sound like he was basically the same, kinda crappy player for 4 1/2 years, then had a really good 1/2 season, and that seems kind of fluky. I’m saying that he showed a fair amount of gradual improvement over 4 1/2 years, then had a really good 1/2 season, and it doesn’t seem completely flukey. The truth is that he probably isn’t going to be the guy from last season’s 2nd half going forward, because if you take any player’s best half season from a 5 year sample, they probably aren’t going to live up to that over the long term. However, I think he will be a pretty good middle-6 player going forward. As for point totals and GP, if I have to choose between raw point totals, without GP, and Pts/game, I’d say that pts/game is much more useful to analyze. That’s all I was saying.

Why are you focusing on goals for a players whose strengths are playmaking a puck possession? And listing out point totals while ignoring the number of games played? Commonnmann His point production for his 5 NHL seasons: Pts/Game: 0.32, 0.29, 0.54, 0.48, 0.72 Pts/60: 1.4, 1.4, 2.0, 1.8, 2.7 Pts/60 ES: 1.0, 1.2, 1.5, 1.4, 2.3 Looks like an upward trajectory to me.

I have to agree with @GASabresIUFAN on this one. I think Mitts has shown fairly steady improvement, interrupted by periodic injuries. His first two years, he was pretty terrible, the next two he was decent, then last season he was better than decent.

Agree regarding using FA to fill mid tier roster holes as opposed to going big game hunting. The goalie situation is the one that really bothers me. It should be better. Levi should have a reliable guy to share the crease with. There wasn’t much goalie movement this offseason, but it’s a multi year issue that Adams has to be considered responsible for. Hopefully Levi is good, Comrie/UPL are serviceable, and it’s not a real problem. Kind of beating a dead horse here though.

Thanks, that’s good!

I agree. Just a random thought to add on. I hope Cozens is able to fill out more over the next few years. He has sort of a slight/lean frame so it may be tough for him, but if he is 6’3” 195 right now and can get to say 210, he would be a real beast. He has the mentality to take advantage of it too.

Yeah, it seems odd intuitively but I think that they really do have a very high opinion of Mitts. Two years ago he was slated to be the 1C before getting hurt to start the season, then he didn’t get healthy until March. Then last season, he played really well in a variety of positions and he was the one who they gave a chance on the 1st line when there was an opportunity, not Cozens, and it worked pretty well.

No. I don’t think so. EDIT: Also, two sentences, no punctuation, first and last words capitalized. Well done. Lol

Sadly, some guys just won’t pan out.

She’s got no shot.

Yeah, that’s pretty much exactly what I mean by consolidation trade. Take 2-4 assets that are maybes and turn them into one asset that is much more of a certainty. As for FA’s, even if they don’t go ever go after big FA’s, there will be other mid level guys (like Clifton) who get signed for somewhat significant money and term.

Only in my mind, lol. Um, ELCs are white, contracts already signed are green, projected contracts are orange.

A lot of questions here. I’ll address them one by one. 1) So you're projecting here that Owen Power accepts 7 years @8.5 per? Yup 2) Don't think his team will seek something more in the 4-6 range like a super bridge? I don’t know what Power will seek. I wouldn’t call anything more than 4 years a bridge, though. 3) I don't think a #1 overall pick defenseman, who looks the part, would ever sign for such a long, team-friendly deal. Well, you be wrong in thinking that it would never happen because it’s happened in the recent past. There are 18 current NHL top-5 pick defensemen who have signed past their ELC, 9 of them signed for 6+ years, and the guys who were higher end players signed for long term more often. The guys who didn’t sign long term off their ELC mostly signed 2-3 yr bridge deals before signing for longer term after. It’s a mixed bag but the idea of a highly drafted, high end young defenseman signing long term off their ELC has plenty of precedent. 4) Is the thinking that there's some kind of discount for doing it now rather than later? Doesn't much compute, otherwise. I actually don’t understand this question. Could you expand on this?

Could certainly happen. If he keeps putting up 70+ point seasons, then it surely will. I’m kind of guessing that last season was a bit of an outlier and he is more of a 50-65 point guy, with some injuries, going forward.

This isn’t a will and testament. It’s a projection. It’s a bunch of guesses. Mostly for fun, but also to demonstrate a general overview of Buffalo’s cap situation moving forward. There are so many prospects that I think it’s a near guarantee that a couple of them pop. Switch the names around if you like. But, just to address your comments, for fun: If Mitts is once again put in a position to put up 55+ points, he is going to get ~$6M. Whether it’s in Buffalo or somewhere else. If he is stapled onto the 3rd line and puts up 40 something, it will be less. Quinn and Levi, yeah, I’m just projecting continued development and that they will be good. Same with Benson. Greenway, I’m kind of projecting that he gets back to being pretty good like was a couple years ago, but I have no idea if he will, I hope so. On the flip side I’m projecting Krebs, Savoie, Kulich, Rosen, Jokiharju, Strbak, McCarthy to not really be long term significant pieces. Some will, some won’t, I don’t really know which are which. In reality this won’t be close. There will probably a consolidation trade or two at some point and also FA signings taking the places if some of these prospects. The names aren’t as significant as the numbers for contracts that aren’t signed yet.

I feel like in the 2023 draft they did that with every pick except the 1st round. It was all big strong forwards or defensemen, with a goalie sprinkled in.