Buffalo Sabers offseason roadmap, part 1: How much can Kevyn Adams spend?

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Over the weekend, the NHL announced that the salary cap for the 2024-25 season will be $88 million, slightly higher than the initial projection. That means, according to CapFriendly, the Buffalo Sabers will enter the summer with a $23,518,930 cap hit and 13 players under contract.

Over the next few days, we’ll go through the Sabres’ offseason road map piece by piece, starting with the salary cap, then moving on to potential trade targets and ending with a projection of the moves we would make. to repair the team. This is both the most important and trickiest offseason for Kevyn Adams as general manager. Some of that cap space will be eaten up by extensions, and Adams will need to bring in some new faces to give head coach Lindy Ruff the type of players he needs to fill out Buffalo’s roster.

We outlined some top-six and bottom-six free agent targets earlier this offseason. But how will they allocate this cap space and how much will be left taking into account their internal expenses?

Expired contracts: Zemgus Girgensons, Tyson Jost, Eric Robinson, Victor Olofsson, Eric Comrie

The Sabers have five unrestricted free agents and you could argue they don’t need to bring any of them back. Victor Olofsson is on his way out after a frustrating season spent in and out of the lineup. Tyson Jost and Eric Robinson haven’t done enough to warrant new contracts. Eric Comrie found himself as the odd man out in the three-goalie rotation with Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Devon Levi. Adams had a lot of positive things to say about Zemgus Girgensons after the trade deadline, but he’s also not ready to return to Buffalo. The Sabers could use those five spots elsewhere.

Restricted free agents: Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, Henri Jokiharju, Peyton Krebs, Jacob Bryson, Kale Clague

This is where the Sabres’ salary cap situation gets tricky. How many of these players will be back with Buffalo next season? Luukkonen is a lock, but his cap number is the question. Will he and the Sabers find common ground on an extension? The floor for him at this point appears to be the $3.75 million salary Filip Gustavsson signed last summer after a similar season with the Wild. We’ll generously project Luukkonen at a $4.5 million cap hit over a four-year deal to account for the salary cap increase.

This brings us to Henri Jokiharju. The minimum qualifying bid for him is $2.6 million. That’s a comfortable price for what Jokiharju brings to the roster, and the Sabers could always trade him after qualifying if they attract interest from other teams.

The Sabers can probably afford to give up Jacob Bryson and Kale Clague, given the emergence of Ryan Johnson as a solid depth option on defense. Between Rasmus Dahlin, Owen Power, Bowen Byram, Mattias Samuelsson, Connor Clifton, Jokiharju and Johnson, the depth chart is already crowded without accounting for offseason additions.

Peyton Krebs should at least receive an offer from the Sabres. Considering his production last season, a contract with a cap hit between $1.5 million and $1.8 million seems reasonable. But he should also have to find his way into a full-time role in the lineup.

Those three deals would cost the Sabers just under $9 million against the cap, leaving the team between $14 million and $15 million for the remaining seven roster spots.

One of those spots will go to Devon Levi and his $925,000 cap hit. Another could potentially go to Johnson and his $925,000 hit, but he’ll likely end up going back and forth between the NHL and AHL. We will leave his spot open to allow for cap space, since he can still be sent to the AHL without a waiver.

And the prospects?

The next step is to determine if any of the prospects within the organization could fill a spot or two. Lukas Rousek will be a candidate in the final year of his contract, which carries a cap hit of $775,000. He works as a 13th striker and showed last season that he is capable of filling a role. He forechecks hard and understands how to play away from the puck. Counting Rousek in the picture, that leaves just over $13 million in cap space.

Will one of Matt Savoie, Jiri Kulich, Isak Rosen or Noah Ostlund make the NHL? That could depend on what the Sabers do in the offseason. They shouldn’t count on more than one of these players to contribute to the NHL team next season. The roster is already young to begin with, and getting younger would be a risk Adams may not want to take during such a crucial season. Let’s assume these four prospects start the season in Rochester.

Off-season shopping

Factoring in that the Sabers have two goalies, seven defensemen (Johnson can serve as the eighth and stay in the AHL) and 14 forwards on the 23-man roster, the Sabers will have room to add a defenseman and up to four attackers, even with Krebs and Rousek in the picture. They would also have a little over $13 million to spend on these parts. Does that leave them enough room to add a top-six forward and revamp the bottom-six while adding another experienced defender?

It’s possible, but they are stricter on the cap indicated by the $23 million figure. If they add a big player via trade or free agency, that will limit their spending to the bottom of the list. One way to handle this would be to offer a prospect to fill a spot. Another solution would be to trade Jokiharju, Krebs, or both to provide additional room under the cap. Either way, though, the Sabers shouldn’t have a problem with cap space, provided they’re willing to spend closer to the cap than they have in recent seasons .

The other good news is that the salary cap is expected to increase further next summer, which will help the Sabers in potential future extensions. Peterka, Byram, Levi and Jack Quinn are all entering the final season of their contracts. Any additions the Sabers make through trade and free agency will have to account for upcoming contracts. But there’s no excuse for the Sabers not to make at least $10 million in additions this summer.

(Photo by Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)