Gonna cost quite a bit more to dump them

A 1st per player

I would say Bailey with 10 million left over 2 years, should be a first. Panik is over 2 million, but it's only one year, so maybe a second or a third plus something. Trouble is, nobody is taking cap dumps, so whatever I think is fair doesn't matter. The answer is probably "no. Change my mind".

There is no chance Bailey is a 2023 first to dump. Sure his cap hit isn’t great at $5mil but he’s barely a negative asset. He’s a solid producer of 45-50 points and has a great track record of performing in the playoffs. Don’t get me wrong, Bailey is nothing special and I don’t want it to seem like I’m overrating him, but he’s not some Andrew Ladd type player that is making $5mil to not even play of an NHL roster. He’s maybe like a 3rd to dump. Also, I don’t see why the Isles even need to trade Panik. His cap hit when buried in the AHL is $250k. So really, any team could just take him on for free and bury him in the AHL to help reach the cap floor.

Also, I am not saying the two should be dumped to the sabres, just if they were to be dumped in general

That's probably a fair point, not all cap dumps are straight garbage, some are productive, just making more than you would like to pay them. Unfortunately, almost nobody is taking cap right now. The Sabres are just over the floor, and all indications are that's where the owners want them to be, hopefully just for this season. Two seasons ago, when covid was really crushing attendance, the Sabres had instituted am internal 70 million dollar cap, but when Taylor hall agreed to come here, ownership signed off on going well beyond. My point is, the Sabres likely aren't taking cap unless it's too good to be true, or the sweetener is. Lou probably has a plan, it sounds like there's some handshake agreements right now, but I doubt he's moving anybody to buffalo.