Two in the Box

The Buffalo Sabres are inching closer to their season opening games with nearly $7 million in open cap space to work with. The remaining cap space has been a point of contention within the fan base, as the Sabres are poised to open their fourth-straight season with a significant gulf in cap expenditure against the NHL’s cap ceiling. 

Buffalo opened their prior three seasons with $8,826,430 (2023-24), $18,648,333 (2022-23) and $16,435,864 (2021-22) in cap space. Barring an 11th hour acquisition, the 2024-25 season will follow suit. (Figures compiled from CapFriendly.)

Some context is required when evaluating Buffalo’s recent cap expenditures. The Sabres had jumped headfirst into a rebuild in the summer of 2021, shedding core players with large cap hits and they weren’t a year removed from trading Jack Eichel and his $10 million cap hit when they hit the ice with over $18 million in space in 2022. Still, over the past 10 seasons, the Sabres have only spent within $3 million of the cap on four occasions. Certainly a reflection of the on-ice results and direction of the front office, but also well out of line with Terry Pegula’s infamous oil well line from his introductory press conference. 

The team’s current cap situation has been well documented. Jeff Skinner’s buyout is largely responsible for the available space and Adams has been on record noting his desire to maintain flexibility for future extensions by not taking on long term commitments via free agency or trade. That does run counter to some of the team’s rumored activity in the summer when they were linked to the likes of Martin Necas, but taking it at face value, it’s fair enough to say that much of the future savings from Skinner’s buyout will be eaten up by extensions to the likes of JJ Peterka, Jack Quinn and others. But don’t forget that the greatest cap benefit to buying out Skinner, comes this season. The decision to buy him out is understandable, logical even given how Lindy Ruff has said he hopes the team will play. To not fully capitalize on those savings is questionable, if not downright reckless in a season as pivotal as this one.

The ongoing debate over the use (or lack thereof) of that cap space mirrors Buffalo’s overarching spending habits these last number of years. Pegula wasn’t shy about opening the purse strings early on, but the last 10 years paint a much different picture than the days of pitching Brad Richards or hopping on a helicopter to convince Robyn Regher to waive his no trade clause. 

Based on cap information from Spotrac, Puck Pedia, CapFriendly and General Fanager (via the Wayback Machine for the latter two), the Sabres have finished the season in the bottom 10 of overall cap expense eight times since 2013-14. They have only spent within $3 million of the cap ceiling in four of those seasons. 

Context remains important in this analysis as the team worked through two significant rebuilds in this time. First, 2013-14 was the middle of the tank era 13-14 (happy 11th anniversary) and, more recently in 2021 as they shed the likes of Eichel, Sam Reinhart and Rasmus Ristolainen. The natural result of those types of moves depresses a team’s cap expense, so leeway is required when evaluating the entire timeframe. Even coming out of a rebuild, when certain players will be on entry level or bridge contracts, can result in a lower cap expenditure. For example, the Sabres were still the league’s fifth-lowest spending team in 2015-16 even after adding Zach Bogosian, Evander Kane and Ryan O’Reilly. 

Spending doesn’t immediately equate to competitiveness, but it’s a fair reflection of a team’s status and approach. Playoff teams, by and large, are spending up to the cap (even over it in some recent cases). Five of the last 10 Cup Finalists have spent in the upper half of the league with Tampa, famously, blowing past the Cap thanks to LTIR in 20-21 and 21-22. The Sabres haven’t been overly competitive over the last 10 years, but there were times when they felt they were, or at least appeared they were prepared to be. One of the better examples of this is Buffalo’s 16-17 entry, when Kyle Okposo was added on a $6 million cap hit and Dmitry Kulikov was acquired at the draft. The Sabres finished that season with $1,322,791 in cap space, a fairly narrow margin for a team that finished 15 points out of the playoffs. We can look back now and identify a litany of poor choices in how they spent their cap, but the overall approach was that of a team willing to invest cap space to add NHL talent. Interestingly, even after spending fairly close to the cap that season, the Sabres were still in the bottom half of the league in terms of total cap expense – 12th lowest to be exact. 

The Sabres highest expenditure came in 2019-20 when they were the fifth highest spending team with only $856,866 in cap space. In 2018-19 the Sabres were 14th highest in the league, those two seasons reflect the highest finish Buffalo had in cap spending over the last 10 years. The Sabres were pushing hard to compete during that time frame, once again defining the stretch with a litany of poor spending choices. Overall, Buffalo has been a bottom half spending club over the last decade, with few exceptions. 

It’s one thing to spend less in the midst of a rebuilding season, and some necessary leeway should be given when you consider the Sabres have rebuilt twice in that time span. However, it’s an entirely different animal to enter such a pivotal season with a significant chunk of cap available. Adams is working to balance a group of young, developing talent with the glaring need to break their playoff drought. Zach Benson, Peterka and Quinn are all on ELCs, meaning a notable chunk of the top six are on budget-friendly deals. Those ELCs are the deals which naturally keep a team’s overall spending down. They also happen to be the sort of luxury that would allow for premium spending elsewhere thanks to the space they create. They don’t need to spend the additional cash, but they probably should.

A trade could still materialize. After all, the Sabres were connected to a number of notable targets over the summer. Buffalo has the room and the assets to swing a trade and the burning desire for the playoff drought to end would indicate a rental acquisition would be well received. As would a player with term that could cause roster or cap headaches come next summer. You’d think a playoff appearance would paper over most concerns in that department. Besides, the Sabres will have somewhere in the neighborhood of $27 million to work with next summer and they’d hardly be the first team that needed to navigate such a circumstance. 

The need for future cap space has been what Adams has honed in on lately and it’s something they’ll absolutely need when it comes time for extensions next summer. But don’t forget, this is the summer when they have the most cap relief from Skinner’s buyout. There is cap relief over the next two years, but the buyout results in dead cap the following three years, which would likely fall when any additional extensions would be in effect. Simply put, leaving the majority of Skinner’s buyout relief unspent doesn’t square with the language of a team saying they’re “all in.”