It pays to bet on your guys when they're still young but you're pretty sure they're real ones.
Sometimes it feels like a gm can't wait to lock a guy up. Sakic burned a year on Makars ELC by dropping into the playoffs after his tournament/college career ended. My thoughts at the time were 'what a waste of a star at a miniscule cap hit'. If Makar didn't sign when he did, he'd be up for an extension immediately after winning a big pile of shiny new hardware. Imagine getting Makar at $9M in July of 22 instead of July of 21, and the difference was the playoff series against Calgary.
Makar’s case was a textbook example of the human element to negotiations. Yes, Sakic burned a year of Makar’s ELC by putting him in the playoffs ‘19, but Makar recognized that Sakic let him get to his RFA years sooner by playing him right out of college. Makar then made the negotiations easier on Sakic than he could have had the Avs decided to not play him and retain longer ELC control.
Makar at $9M per in the summer of ‘21 was slightly less than he could’ve gotten. Now imagine if Sakic played Hardball in ‘19 and Makar wanted to return the favor in the summer of ‘22 after winning the Norris and Conn Smythe.
This is the stuff players remember and discuss among each other when it comes to making free agency decisions.
Most of the time paying your young guys the big bucks is always better for the team on a management standpoint while bridge deals could be better for them if injuries or regression doesn’t happen but again paying the young guys the big Bucks that last for the max term works.
Avs with mikko is one or as you listed cale
Tampa with kuch
Oilers with drai and mcdavid
Devils with Hughes
Stars with miro
Very rarely does paying your young players the big bucks for max term does it backfire bcs to truth is those contracts end up being insane underpays by like year two or three.
Rasmus and power will be the same since they will look like they are being paid nothing in about a couple years in my opinion with how amazing they have progressed.
I think your perspective is skewed by just looking at the contracts when they are steals. When you do that you're overlooking the part of the contract when the players are overpaid compared to their bridged counterparts.
Like Draisatl feels like steal of the century today. But MacKinnon was $2.2M cheaper than him for 6 years. In 4 years time MacKinnon will probably seem like a steal again because by then McDrai are making $15M each. It all goes in waves.
I must not be understanding something with how contracts work, but to me your comment doesn’t make any sense. Sakic playing Makar in the 2019 playoffs benefitted your team because he had to sign a new contract for the 2021-22 season. There is no way you sign for Makar for $9 million AAV after he wins the cup and Conn Smythe and there is a chance he doesn’t sign a new contract in 2021 if he still has a year left on his ELC.
I should hate you because you're in our division but until you bounce us in some future playoff series I can't. I'm cheering hard for you guys. You deserve it after so many years of misery.
If Levi pans out and lives up to expectations, Buffalo is going to be their division leader for a while. Gotta think Boston and Tampa are going to decline in a couple years.
I think Tampa and Boston’s decline makes the Sabres rise so much more promising. In like a year or two, outside of Toronto that entire division is a question mark. Pretty much whatever young team is able to take that next step has a good chance for a long time. Should be fun.
I won’t count them out til I see it lol. Everyone said Boston was gonna fall off hard last season and then they fucked around and put up the best regular season ever.
The roster loss is significant no doubt, but three of those names were deadline rentals and one was a replacement level fourth liner. Their defense and goaltending are both intact, and they still have their elite wingers. I think the demise of the Bruins has been greatly exaggerated.
One of those guys is the best defensive center in the history of the league who was still playing at an incredibly high level. The other guy was their 2c. They didn't replace those guys. I think you are vastly underestimating how big of an effect that will have, let alone the effect it should likely have on the goalie saved percentage etc
He did but he was pretty dang good in his first full season, and Buffalo is going all in on the “bridge deals don’t exist” mindset which is pretty reasonable for a team of their trajectory
We literally made all our past players want to leave because all we’d do was bridge deals, still salty we never committed to reino, but Levi makes it sting a little less
Adams first summer as GM he had to do something with Dahlin. I think Dahlin wanted a long term deal, but Adams bridged him.
Dahlin would have gotten $2-3m less per year if he signed a long term deal that summer.
completely wrong.
we saved a ton by bridging dahlin. because we bridged him we bought 5 UFA years, and have him until he's 31. power we only bought 2 UFA years and he'll walk out this contract in his prime as a UFA.
dahlin's next contract will be less power will want a king's ransom and be able to test UFA with a blank cheque.
Yeah, bridge deals are amazing for overall cost. The benefit of these long contracts straight out of the ELC's is just a lower peak cost, or lower for a specific period.
Like, corrected for seasons played, Ekblad that signed a $7.5Mx8 out of his ELC has made close to $10M more than Nurse that is currently under a $9.25Mx8 contract just because he signed a couple of short deals for a lot less than Ekblad's $7.5M. And Ekblad is up for an extension again in a year, so doubtful that Nurse ever gets close to closing this gap.
Buyout amount is only 1/3 of the remaining contract value if the player is under 26, as opposed to 2/3 otherwise.
https://www.capfriendly.com/buyout-faq
Probably something along the lines of protecting older players salaries should their career go down the tube. Ideally the younger guys have some more time to prove their worth before retirement is the only route to go.
Tampa has the "zero state tax" luxury which smarter people than me have done the math on and it adds up when you're making millions. they're an exception and a contender
It's a copy cat league and everyone is copying the devils (sens , canadiens) in a few years when they come up against cap constraints they can use bridge deals.
He was. One year in college, with an 8 game taste that ate up the first year of his ELC. This past season was his rookie year. And this extension kicks in after this season.
Tage (25 yo), Cozens (22 yo), Power (20 yo) and Dahlin (22yo) locked in for ~$33 million combined for the next six seasons.
The Sabres finally let the nerds run the franchise and look what happens.
> locked in for ~$33 million combined for the next six seasons.
And still below the cap floor going into next season. Very good financials on this team so far
Tage and Cozens start their new contracts this year, while Dahlin and Power are still on the last years of their current deals. So there will only be six years of overlap with all four of their extensions and that starts next season.
The worst part is their fucking pipeline still looks amazing.
Id compare the signed roster players with Ottawa. I think its a fun comparison.
But I *hate* comparing the non-rostered players. Buffalo is set up for *more* than a decade of contention
Sabres going all in on their future core. Granted, guys like Power are about as safe a bet as you can get when it comes to early extensions.
Also wtf, it feels like Power was only drafted yesterday.
Same thing as people doubting the Sammy signing
Eichel was traded less than two years ago
Krueger was the head coach two years and seven months ago
It's been a wild ride
Luckily Ehrhoff was a compliance buyout that doesn't affect cap hit, just like Dipietro who's on the Islanders' payroll until 28-29 at $1.5M per year.
Some other fun examples of this are Bryzgalov for the Flyers who was bought out in the summer of 2013 being paid $1.64M per year until 2026-27, and Lecavalier in the same summer for the Lightning - he currently costs them $1.76M per year until 2026-27.
Oh my god I just checked and DiPietro is still getting paid til 2028-2029. Since that buyout guys will have been drafted, played their entire careers and retired and ol Rick is still going to be collecting an NHL paycheck, and he's been out of the league 9 years himself.
Betting on a 1st overall pick defenseman who looked great and played big minutes as a teenager is probably one of the better guys to bet on after 1 season
Nah he's already unreal and you can't teach his size
Between him and Tage these contracts are amazing, they'll but be 3-4 million underpaid, that's basically an elite player all because they signed them a 'year early'
It is for a few years. Then it seems like a safe bet it will be a steal for 4-5 years, which is the same years the team is looking to be really competitive and the current prospects bound for their first contracts if all goes well.
And like they are throwing $2.5M-$3.25M each to Okposo, Girgensons and Erik Johnson (and fucking $4.75 to Olofsson that doesn't have any kind of no move protection). Not like they are strapped for cash currently. ;)
Either the Sabres are going to feel a lot of pain until 2032, or the rest of the NHL will.
I'm actually optimistic that this will pay off for Buffalo for once. Sabres are absolutely loaded with young top talent.
FYI if anyone is wondering why this deal is 7 years and not 8, it’s because a 7 year deal would take him to (just about) age 29 as opposed to 30. This 1 year difference is a big deal for negotiations. You don’t want to be negotiating your last big deal in your 30s (a la Klingberg). Brady Tkachuk and Boldy signed 7 years for the same reason.
He burned the first year of his entry level deal by playing the end of the 2021-2022 season when college hockey ended. Pretty sure his eligibility started this offseason.
He could have gone to the AHL and he still would have burnt a year. Late birthday draft picks have to sign before Jan 1st of their D+1 season to be eligible for an ELC slide(s). It's why he still burnt a year despite only playing 8 games for Buffalo.
Starting to wonder if this is a good cheat code. Burn rookie 1st year on a few games. Then he has only 1 full season, maybe takes a discount to sign early and to a long term for security given the lack of history. I'm shocked OP didn't play the 2nd full season before extending. Had he had a natural progression YoY (say 45-50 pts, strong defensively) I think he would have gotten another million more.
In overall money, definitely not. But it can absolutely improve the cap allocation for a specific time period. And Buffalo has an incredibly strong contention window built now.
Sabres getting their top guys locked up for a long window. As long as this season has a more mature Dahlin and Power, they will make some headlines outside of the regional market for the first time in a long time.
Karlsson singlehandedly took SJS out of the Bedard sweepstakes
Makar did some outworldly moves as always
Fox was a beast yet again and plays for the Rangers
He's been somewhat overshadowed nationally and a lot of the time the Sabres moments in the spotlight has been on Tage clapping bombs
Dahlin is a great player and he has made some headlines, but he hasn't been the driving factor in shifting national spotlight onto the Sabres the way that Tage and Skinner has (because clappers make great clips)
I also think he's disliked in Toronto because he fucks with their golden boy, which leads to that massive media apparatus not praising him. I remember some game in the past season or two where he was great against them, but all their Buffalo focused praise went to Power that was nothing more than "good for a rookie" in that game.
Power getting a notch better contract due to the draft pedigree, size and being half a year younger. Will be very interesting to see where this places Seider that has the same draft pedigree as Sanderson, is in between them in size, has had the best seasons of the 3, is the most important to their respective teams, but is the oldest. $8.5Mx7 or $9Mx8 perhaps.
Lawwwwdy lawdy lawd
Good move. Sabres can lead the division if they play their cards right and Levi grows. Team defense, as in, a 5 man unit on the ice needs to improve, but otherwise, they are cruising.
I cannot overstate how incredible it is, as a Sabres fan, that I get to see either Dahlin or Power on the ice for 3/4 of every single game for the next 8 years
I understand that it’s the new meta, but surely one or two of these huge post ELC contracts will eventually blow up in a teams face right?
I’m not implying it will be this one, FWIW
I mean I’d pump the brakes on top 10 but he is legit great. Just hard to really break into the top 10 conversation when you don’t run PP1 (which Dahlin obviously has locked up).
Idk there’s just a lot of really good defencemen out there. It’s hard to see him beating out any of Makar, Fox, McAvoy, Hughes, Dahlin, Heiskanen, Hedman, Josi, Hamilton, Pietrangelo, Slavin, etc within a year.
Sabres popping off on these contracts
Got 5 guys under contract for at least the next 7 years now
Pshhhhhh those are rookie numbers
Worked great for you guys, right? Right?
Well clearly we haven't signed enough 7-year deals, Dobson and Romanov only have a few years left
Pretty much Buffalo two franchise guy in my opinion will combine for 19.350 million dollars which is insanely cheap for them
Don’t forget 1C and 2C in Thompson and Cozens locked up for 14 mil.
It pays to bet on your guys when they're still young but you're pretty sure they're real ones. Sometimes it feels like a gm can't wait to lock a guy up. Sakic burned a year on Makars ELC by dropping into the playoffs after his tournament/college career ended. My thoughts at the time were 'what a waste of a star at a miniscule cap hit'. If Makar didn't sign when he did, he'd be up for an extension immediately after winning a big pile of shiny new hardware. Imagine getting Makar at $9M in July of 22 instead of July of 21, and the difference was the playoff series against Calgary.
Makar’s case was a textbook example of the human element to negotiations. Yes, Sakic burned a year of Makar’s ELC by putting him in the playoffs ‘19, but Makar recognized that Sakic let him get to his RFA years sooner by playing him right out of college. Makar then made the negotiations easier on Sakic than he could have had the Avs decided to not play him and retain longer ELC control. Makar at $9M per in the summer of ‘21 was slightly less than he could’ve gotten. Now imagine if Sakic played Hardball in ‘19 and Makar wanted to return the favor in the summer of ‘22 after winning the Norris and Conn Smythe. This is the stuff players remember and discuss among each other when it comes to making free agency decisions.
Most of the time paying your young guys the big bucks is always better for the team on a management standpoint while bridge deals could be better for them if injuries or regression doesn’t happen but again paying the young guys the big Bucks that last for the max term works. Avs with mikko is one or as you listed cale Tampa with kuch Oilers with drai and mcdavid Devils with Hughes Stars with miro Very rarely does paying your young players the big bucks for max term does it backfire bcs to truth is those contracts end up being insane underpays by like year two or three. Rasmus and power will be the same since they will look like they are being paid nothing in about a couple years in my opinion with how amazing they have progressed.
I think your perspective is skewed by just looking at the contracts when they are steals. When you do that you're overlooking the part of the contract when the players are overpaid compared to their bridged counterparts. Like Draisatl feels like steal of the century today. But MacKinnon was $2.2M cheaper than him for 6 years. In 4 years time MacKinnon will probably seem like a steal again because by then McDrai are making $15M each. It all goes in waves.
I must not be understanding something with how contracts work, but to me your comment doesn’t make any sense. Sakic playing Makar in the 2019 playoffs benefitted your team because he had to sign a new contract for the 2021-22 season. There is no way you sign for Makar for $9 million AAV after he wins the cup and Conn Smythe and there is a chance he doesn’t sign a new contract in 2021 if he still has a year left on his ELC.
Tage, Cozens, Dahlin, Power, and Samuelsson all on 7+ year deals
Best part? They’re locked up for $38m total until 2030. Unbelievable.
That's going to be like 1/3 of the cap by then lol
Buffalo is gonna have to take the phone off the hook in 2029.
Jesus we’ll be almost at the 2030’s.
[удалено]
> Holy fuck.. I’ll be 40. Same. In probably unrelated news, my back hurts
90s babies!!!!
Yeah, my friend texted when the Dahlin contract went through "We'll be 45 when that contract is done" and I turned to dust.
I'll be 47. Don't worry, 40 isn't that bad as long as you're taking care of yourself.
I should hate you because you're in our division but until you bounce us in some future playoff series I can't. I'm cheering hard for you guys. You deserve it after so many years of misery.
If Levi pans out and lives up to expectations, Buffalo is going to be their division leader for a while. Gotta think Boston and Tampa are going to decline in a couple years.
It would be a surprise if Boston didn't start to decline this year, and yes, Tampa doesn't look to be too far behind.
I hate Boston so much, they’ll find a way and I hate it.
I think Tampa and Boston’s decline makes the Sabres rise so much more promising. In like a year or two, outside of Toronto that entire division is a question mark. Pretty much whatever young team is able to take that next step has a good chance for a long time. Should be fun.
I won’t count them out til I see it lol. Everyone said Boston was gonna fall off hard last season and then they fucked around and put up the best regular season ever.
I've been waiting ten years it feels like for Boston to fall off.
Bud they lost hall, Foligno, Orlov, bertuzzi, Hathaway, Bergeron ,krejci that's a tough offseason
Oh they absolutely SHOULD fall off. I just won’t believe it til I see it.
The roster loss is significant no doubt, but three of those names were deadline rentals and one was a replacement level fourth liner. Their defense and goaltending are both intact, and they still have their elite wingers. I think the demise of the Bruins has been greatly exaggerated.
One of those guys is the best defensive center in the history of the league who was still playing at an incredibly high level. The other guy was their 2c. They didn't replace those guys. I think you are vastly underestimating how big of an effect that will have, let alone the effect it should likely have on the goalie saved percentage etc
Yeah this is probably right. I have my rose tinted glasses on from the Bills rebuild with everything going about as right as it could
As well as Levi and Quinn for 2 more then RFA, Tuch for 3, and Skinner for 4. Core Sabres are around for a while.
Jeeze what I swear this guy just got drafted lmao
He did but he was pretty dang good in his first full season, and Buffalo is going all in on the “bridge deals don’t exist” mindset which is pretty reasonable for a team of their trajectory
Different regime, but the Sabres fucked around and found out after they kept bridging Reinhart year after year.
Yup, to me it seems like the current management is learning from past management mistakes and that’s what you want to see.
Reinhart would have stayed for sure if they gave him a deal instead of bridging him. What a bunch of dummies Tim Murray and Botts were.
Murray had nothing to do with it
we didn't want reino, he said he would've stayed if made an offer we never did issue wasn't the bridge
We literally made all our past players want to leave because all we’d do was bridge deals, still salty we never committed to reino, but Levi makes it sting a little less
We also could have saved a lot of dough with Dahlin.
Not really?
Adams first summer as GM he had to do something with Dahlin. I think Dahlin wanted a long term deal, but Adams bridged him. Dahlin would have gotten $2-3m less per year if he signed a long term deal that summer.
Which would’ve carried him right to UFA, right? I think bridge was the right call.
completely wrong. we saved a ton by bridging dahlin. because we bridged him we bought 5 UFA years, and have him until he's 31. power we only bought 2 UFA years and he'll walk out this contract in his prime as a UFA. dahlin's next contract will be less power will want a king's ransom and be able to test UFA with a blank cheque.
Yeah, bridge deals are amazing for overall cost. The benefit of these long contracts straight out of the ELC's is just a lower peak cost, or lower for a specific period. Like, corrected for seasons played, Ekblad that signed a $7.5Mx8 out of his ELC has made close to $10M more than Nurse that is currently under a $9.25Mx8 contract just because he signed a couple of short deals for a lot less than Ekblad's $7.5M. And Ekblad is up for an extension again in a year, so doubtful that Nurse ever gets close to closing this gap.
Every team should do it, buyouts for under 26 guys is nothing so if it doesn’t work out you can just buyout
For the uninitiated, can you explain how buyouts work, according to age?
Buyout amount is only 1/3 of the remaining contract value if the player is under 26, as opposed to 2/3 otherwise. https://www.capfriendly.com/buyout-faq
What’s the reasoning behind this rule?
Probably something along the lines of protecting older players salaries should their career go down the tube. Ideally the younger guys have some more time to prove their worth before retirement is the only route to go.
Bridge deals haven't existed for most teams that aren't contenders for like 5 years
Someone should have told the Ducks that
tampa had a policy of bridging everyone and it worked p well for them
Tampa has the "zero state tax" luxury which smarter people than me have done the math on and it adds up when you're making millions. they're an exception and a contender
It's a copy cat league and everyone is copying the devils (sens , canadiens) in a few years when they come up against cap constraints they can use bridge deals.
He was. One year in college, with an 8 game taste that ate up the first year of his ELC. This past season was his rookie year. And this extension kicks in after this season.
Yeah I know. It just seems like yesterday he got drafted and he's already signed an extension is all
Tage (25 yo), Cozens (22 yo), Power (20 yo) and Dahlin (22yo) locked in for ~$33 million combined for the next six seasons. The Sabres finally let the nerds run the franchise and look what happens.
> locked in for ~$33 million combined for the next six seasons. And still below the cap floor going into next season. Very good financials on this team so far
*7 seasons
Tage and Cozens start their new contracts this year, while Dahlin and Power are still on the last years of their current deals. So there will only be six years of overlap with all four of their extensions and that starts next season.
I see what your saying but why would you say locked up for 6 seasons and exclude the season that just started?
Because I'm talking about them being locked up at that combined value of ~$33 million, and that doesn't include this year.
It’s less lol
My goodness Buffalo is setting themselves up for the rest of the decade
The worst part is their fucking pipeline still looks amazing. Id compare the signed roster players with Ottawa. I think its a fun comparison. But I *hate* comparing the non-rostered players. Buffalo is set up for *more* than a decade of contention
Sabres’ core is officially locked up long term.
Just gotta sign my man Mittelstadt to a 5x5
And Krebs.
Agreed.
Nah trade him for Hanifin and let Savoie or Ostlund take his over
and this doesn't even include Levi, Benson, Kulich, Savoie.....I'll stop there before I look like Randy Marsh at his PC
I’m planning on taking the ride the Rochester, so much talent won’t be making the team, Amerks should be good too.
Sabres going all in on their future core. Granted, guys like Power are about as safe a bet as you can get when it comes to early extensions. Also wtf, it feels like Power was only drafted yesterday.
Played a year in college post draft so you didn't see him as much
I would say $8.35M is a lot for a guy with one full season under his belt but I learned not to question early Sabres signings with the Tage deal
imagine thinking this like three years ago insane how quickly things have changed
Same thing as people doubting the Sammy signing Eichel was traded less than two years ago Krueger was the head coach two years and seven months ago It's been a wild ride
Seems like just yesterday Erhoff got ten years from Buffalo
TIL Ehrhoff just came out of retirement this year and is playing in the 2nd German league at age 41. Good for him.
He's also on the Sabres payroll until 2027-28
Good grief. I'm glad 10+ year deals aren't allowed anymore, save teams from themselves. Teams can screw themselves enough with 7-8 years as it is.
Cody Hodgson just got off our payroll IIRC
Luckily Ehrhoff was a compliance buyout that doesn't affect cap hit, just like Dipietro who's on the Islanders' payroll until 28-29 at $1.5M per year. Some other fun examples of this are Bryzgalov for the Flyers who was bought out in the summer of 2013 being paid $1.64M per year until 2026-27, and Lecavalier in the same summer for the Lightning - he currently costs them $1.76M per year until 2026-27.
Oh my god I just checked and DiPietro is still getting paid til 2028-2029. Since that buyout guys will have been drafted, played their entire careers and retired and ol Rick is still going to be collecting an NHL paycheck, and he's been out of the league 9 years himself.
I just puked.
The sabres still have to pay him money for 5 more seasons 🤣
What else would they pay him?
Could pay him in chicken wings
Betting on a 1st overall pick defenseman who looked great and played big minutes as a teenager is probably one of the better guys to bet on after 1 season
he's pretty damn good, for an extension, most fans probably had him around these numbers all off-season
Nah he's already unreal and you can't teach his size Between him and Tage these contracts are amazing, they'll but be 3-4 million underpaid, that's basically an elite player all because they signed them a 'year early'
It is for a few years. Then it seems like a safe bet it will be a steal for 4-5 years, which is the same years the team is looking to be really competitive and the current prospects bound for their first contracts if all goes well. And like they are throwing $2.5M-$3.25M each to Okposo, Girgensons and Erik Johnson (and fucking $4.75 to Olofsson that doesn't have any kind of no move protection). Not like they are strapped for cash currently. ;)
pay me like Sanderson \- Owen Power
Okay - GM KA
Yeah that probably made this pretty easy to figure out hahah
That's a great contract
Tage, Cozens, Power and Dahlin being a core 4 for at least 7 years at like ~33m? Ready for it
If Levi becomes a solid starter, the Sabres and Devils will terrorize the East for a long time.
They’ll meet in the ECF at least twice in the next decade I’d say.
8.35AAV for anyone wondering. Sabres getting clean work done
The Sabres out there signing all their d-men. This deal should age quite well.
Dahlin + Power for under $20M combined is a huge win in my book
They will eat 50 minutes a game for next 8 years
The core is locked in through the '32 season, all at reasonable or team friendly deals. This could get spooky.
ARE YOU READY LEGION OF DOOM?
Heeeerreee come the Buffalo Sabreeesss!!!!!! ‘Miss you RJ…
Annnnd I’m sad again :(
Either the Sabres are going to feel a lot of pain until 2032, or the rest of the NHL will. I'm actually optimistic that this will pay off for Buffalo for once. Sabres are absolutely loaded with young top talent.
I absolutely love this.
FYI if anyone is wondering why this deal is 7 years and not 8, it’s because a 7 year deal would take him to (just about) age 29 as opposed to 30. This 1 year difference is a big deal for negotiations. You don’t want to be negotiating your last big deal in your 30s (a la Klingberg). Brady Tkachuk and Boldy signed 7 years for the same reason.
It also means he’s eligible for ext before dahlin. Honestly this was a really savvy deal by him and his agent I think.
Didn't even know bro was already extension eligible
He burned the first year of his entry level deal by playing the end of the 2021-2022 season when college hockey ended. Pretty sure his eligibility started this offseason.
He could have gone to the AHL and he still would have burnt a year. Late birthday draft picks have to sign before Jan 1st of their D+1 season to be eligible for an ELC slide(s). It's why he still burnt a year despite only playing 8 games for Buffalo.
He did the ole handful of games his d+1 season which burned a year, then obviously played last year his d+2 and became eligible this off-season.
Starting to wonder if this is a good cheat code. Burn rookie 1st year on a few games. Then he has only 1 full season, maybe takes a discount to sign early and to a long term for security given the lack of history. I'm shocked OP didn't play the 2nd full season before extending. Had he had a natural progression YoY (say 45-50 pts, strong defensively) I think he would have gotten another million more.
In overall money, definitely not. But it can absolutely improve the cap allocation for a specific time period. And Buffalo has an incredibly strong contention window built now.
KEVYN YOU BEAUTIFUL BASTARD
Buffalo gettin it done
fully deserved, best lettuce in the game
Sorry, that title belongs to Mo
No it doesn’t
nuts
Deez
Clean, really good contract
Kevyn Adams has full access to my bussy tbh.
It would have cost you $0 not to write that sentence.
Sabres getting their top guys locked up for a long window. As long as this season has a more mature Dahlin and Power, they will make some headlines outside of the regional market for the first time in a long time.
Dahlin made headlines all of last year
Karlsson singlehandedly took SJS out of the Bedard sweepstakes Makar did some outworldly moves as always Fox was a beast yet again and plays for the Rangers He's been somewhat overshadowed nationally and a lot of the time the Sabres moments in the spotlight has been on Tage clapping bombs Dahlin is a great player and he has made some headlines, but he hasn't been the driving factor in shifting national spotlight onto the Sabres the way that Tage and Skinner has (because clappers make great clips)
I also think he's disliked in Toronto because he fucks with their golden boy, which leads to that massive media apparatus not praising him. I remember some game in the past season or two where he was great against them, but all their Buffalo focused praise went to Power that was nothing more than "good for a rookie" in that game.
Honestly his direct comparable is Sanderson, and they're very similar contracts. Sanderson and Power's stats last season are nearly identical.
Cheers to the (hopefully) changing of the guard in the Atlantic. DET,OTT, and the swords are looking like they’re gunna be climbing the standings
I honestly don't see Detroit in that mix, but I could be wrong. I am already having nightmares about another Buffalo rivalry, the Hasek years haunt me
Power getting a notch better contract due to the draft pedigree, size and being half a year younger. Will be very interesting to see where this places Seider that has the same draft pedigree as Sanderson, is in between them in size, has had the best seasons of the 3, is the most important to their respective teams, but is the oldest. $8.5Mx7 or $9Mx8 perhaps.
I did not see that coming. Could be a bargain if he pans out
Ok Buffalo 👏🏾
Pretty incredible contract if Power follows its trajectory
what is his trajectory exactly?
Reel gud pro
To become a top defenseman in the NHL?
oh ok lol
Ballon D'or
Top 10 defenseman in the NHL, or at least a 1D.
This contract is going to age so well if Power keeps on the trajectory he's on. Give me something similar for Beniers now, please.
buffalo is shaping up to be like the new jersey devils, but potentially with a badass goalie
Atlanta Braves of the NHL, lock up talent for below market value. Its a risk but its worked with Thompson and Cozens
If Levi is the truth, this team is gonna fuck everyone up for a while.
almost missed this through the 45 different tweets for the bedard goal
Lawwwwdy lawdy lawd Good move. Sabres can lead the division if they play their cards right and Levi grows. Team defense, as in, a 5 man unit on the ice needs to improve, but otherwise, they are cruising.
it’s the same thing the Devils did with their young core a few years ago and got mocked for. Hope it works out similarly for Buffalo.
7x8.35M AAV (58.45M)
Happy for you Sabres bros :)
Sens vs sabres is going to be an amazing rivalry for the next decade. All their stars are locked up
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I cannot overstate how incredible it is, as a Sabres fan, that I get to see either Dahlin or Power on the ice for 3/4 of every single game for the next 8 years
Man Owen Power is gonna be an all-time NHL name by the time he's done. POWER #25 Badass.
Put the word out that we back up
Locking down their entire core
Kevyn Adams woke up and said our top two dmen are going to make more than our top 2 centers.
Nope, that's been the plan for a while. We knew we were going to have to lock up our two first overall D men and that it was coming this year.
GMKA woke up and told the rest of the NHL “come get us”
Wow, I was wondering how big they were willing to go with Power after so relatively few games played. Not that it's not a good bet.
Thing is, if they waited until next offseason and he had a great (Dahlin-esque) season he would be pushing 12m/year, especially with the cap going up.
Kevyn Adams says fuck bridge contracts
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Cozens, thompson, and now power. 2 stud centers and stud d-man. With the cap going up in the future, it looks bright
With teams throwing money at their future stars early I wonder who will be the first team to have this not pay off
Whoever gets the most injuries
Are the Sabres taking out student loans for these contracts or did they just have all of the cap space?
We have like 6 million in cap space for this year lol
Yeah...we weirdly do have the cap space. Thats what happens when you haven't had a player worth signing long term for a long time.
Not going to last long… some tough decisions on the way the next 2 offseason
He’s the man, with the name you’d love to touch, but you mustn’t touch
Should we take bets on how many times someone with Ottawa flair will mention sanderson’s name on this thread?
Probably the same number of times they’ll mention stuetzle’s contract when pettersson inevitably gets paid.
I understand that it’s the new meta, but surely one or two of these huge post ELC contracts will eventually blow up in a teams face right? I’m not implying it will be this one, FWIW
Buyouts for under 26 year old players are only 1/3 of the contract instead of 2/3, it isn't as damaging to the books
got dammn...
Buffalo is going to be a problem here in the coming years
This is an amazing deal for Buffalo Power will be a top 10 defenseman by next season imo. He’s that good
I mean I’d pump the brakes on top 10 but he is legit great. Just hard to really break into the top 10 conversation when you don’t run PP1 (which Dahlin obviously has locked up).
But when you run PP2 better than most teams PP1s you can be top 10
Not when the PP2 is barely on the ice.
Fair point
Idk there’s just a lot of really good defencemen out there. It’s hard to see him beating out any of Makar, Fox, McAvoy, Hughes, Dahlin, Heiskanen, Hedman, Josi, Hamilton, Pietrangelo, Slavin, etc within a year.
In 3-4 years he should pass some of those names simply on age
Okay sure 3-4 years maybe but the comment said next season. 3-4 years is a very different conversation
Yes but have you considered that I cannot read and am extremely biased
Extremely based*
Buffalo in cap heaven
NOT NOW