Team: 2022-23 Buffalo Sabres

Initial Creation Date: Mar. 24, 2022

Published: Mar. 24, 2022

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

FA-Singings:
Buffalo has the luxury to sign Kadri without sacrificing much cap flexibility in the next couple years. For this reason a deal that is a year too long for ~1 million too much will only bite them if all young guys hit their ceiling earlier as expected. And that would be a nice problem to have as this definetly means playoffs with some guys still on their ELC. And bridging one or two of them till Kadris contract is up is the way to go then.
The reason why he comes here is a big payrise on an up and coming team that has the chance to make a serious push while he is here.

Hinostroza and Pysyk have earned their comback at reasonable contracts. And ich would keep them around for two years right when the young guns contracts needed to be sorted out.
Olofsson gets a proof me contract after a injury riddled season at two years for the same reason. 24/25 is the season where the though desicions with contract extensions needed to be made, and the flexiblity is needed. If Buffalo is on track an extension can be worked out even with him being UFA.

I like what i see from Bryson and take a bit of a gamble for 3 years.
The goalie situation is rather shaky but I don't like any of the goalies in UFA or available in trades, so I bet on Koskinen beeing a good enough filler till the young guys take over or we have to make a trade. I wouldn't mind Anderson back but I think in a better supported defensive system than the Oilers Koskinen can be fine enough. I'm not sure if the money is fitting for Koskinen, but a million more if needed won't change anything.


Trades
Trading for Petry IF he wants to come here AND he plays strong till the end of the offseason. The price might seem steep but mind a 1.250.000 retention for 3 years is quite big and taking Bjork that is an okay warm body we won't need and probably would want to lose if Quinn and Peterka are fully ready is a plus to me. Pilut as a sweetener we have no use for and might want to come back to north America with everything happen in Europe. Petry is there to stabilise the right side and be a learning partner for Power, Dahlin and the other young guys.


Outlook
The target is to fight for a playoffspot next year and hopefully make it as a wildcard-team. The year after is the target to make the playoffs and make some noise and gain experience although I don't think they will be a serious contender in any way by then.
The year after is the year the contention-window should open.

I didn't put much effort into putting the guys into the right lines as these things will change from season to season too much with the new guys. The line-up should be really balanced in ice time with no real 14-20 minutes to each of the forwards and rather equal ES time on defence depending on daily performance.