I could’ve done without the agonizing breaks between games of the Stanley Cup Final, but it’s worked out in a way. Playing game seven on Monday sets up a sprint to Thursday’s draft and the opening of free agency on July 1 In between, Fanatics launched their new on-ice jerseys with the Kings and Ducks dropping their new designs for 2024-25. The end of this week could be a whirlwind of action as teams play catchup on trades and signings now that the Cup has been awarded. 

The Sabres will be among those clubs as they are expected to buy out Jeff Skinner when the buyout window officially opens. The buyout will give the Sabres an additional $7.5 million in cap space and the onus will fall on Kevyn Adams to use that space wisely. As previously discussed, there are some financial hurdles to clear with Skinner’s buyout. Even with the cap expected to rise, the three added years of dead cap eats up the approximate salary of a bottom six player. There’s also the larger cap hit in year three to contend with. In order to extract full value from this decision, the Sabres need to cash in on the cap and roster space created by the buyout. That means finding established NHL talent to acquire this offseason in order to tangibly improve the roster and break the playoff drought. They can seek players with term, but this buyout also opens the door for a rental acquisition. Adams has the most space to play with this summer, he has to use it to his advantage. The Sabres can lean on their pipeline when the dead cap stings the most, but they can’t use a buyout on Skinner and not use the cap savings to improve the roster.

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