Sabres decline

Buffalo isn't paying to take on 2 years if Bailey at 5 million, letting him block our prospects

Have you seen the market? Bailey is gonna take real assets to move.

Sabres easily decline, even if the Islanders offer Bailey and a 3rd for a bag of marbles they decline. Also, no way Dobson signs that deal. Maybe 1 year at $3.9 if he has too.

Bailey is not going anywhere, the cost may be a 1st or 2 nds to do so.

Stop with Sandin, Salo is just as good is cheaper and you don’t trade a pick.

Milano will most likely be on a PTO with teams and get the league minimum.

I think everybody is finally getting it. Including the teams themselves. I never understood the cost of cap dumps before, it always seemed like bad teams undervalued the space they would give up for a late round pick and a promise to be their friend. The irony to me is that now that the market has finally corrected itself, the Sabres likely aren't going to take any advantage of it.

Part of the problem is most players that make enough to get a good return sent with them as a cap dump have a NTC or at least a 10 team one. Most players have the Sabres in the bottom 10 of their preferred destinations, so we can’t get them to come here usually. We saw that with the potential Matt Murray trade, wouldn’t be surprised if there were more similar potential deals that got nixed early on.

Honestly, and it truly pains me to say this, but I think that I'd rather have Josh Bailey this year at $5M than Phil Kessel at $2M - and I love Phil(!) Kessel. The cap works with Bailey replacing Kessel here, and as others have said, Buffalo will probably want a strong asset back for eating 2x$5M. I think Bailey and Kessel will produce similar numbers in a middle-6 wing role, so eat the extra cap while we have the space and think about moving Bailey next summer when it'll be easier - he'll be an expiring contract, and hopefully the cap will sneak up a little more to give some more flexibility w/r/t retaining money on him or another player you want to move out.

Salo is just as good as Sandin eh? Go look at the list of Defenceman who won the top Defenceman award at the world Juniors and tell me that.

World Juniors is not the NHL.

I think Sandin winds up a better player than Salo in the long run, but I honestly don't think there would be a huge difference between the two players playing LD3 for the Islanders this year. If the cost for the minor upgrade between the two players right now is a 2nd and a prospect, I'd just keep my guy and deal with the slightly worse player for the 14 minutes a night you'll be giving him anyways.

Disagree to an extent. Look what arizona did last year. Took a little under market value but guaranteed themselves to get all the cap dumps leaguewide.
Also 1st rounders and the potential that they have if they end up in the lottery are picks that teams arent going to move to clear cap. I think the market will settle at the price point of the last couple of seasons. Idk if youll see many cap dumps with a 1st attached.

Look at the list of past winners. All of them apart from 1 over the past 20 years has been a high end player. All but 1. Well other than guys still too young to have hit their stride yet. It's almost a guarantee if you win that award you will be a very good NHL player.

This is such a bias statement.

definitely not a guarantee you become a superstar in the NHL..

Not necessarily a superstar but a high end NHLer is almost everyone who won the top defenceman at the Juniors. Just look it up. The list is impressive

yes the list is impressive I agree, but a player himself can't just say "I won the mvp, therefore I can do whatever because I'll be a guaranteed high-end player". I guess there's different perspectives from a fan to a player. I understand your point

I am just saying Sandin is going to be really good. As is Niemela. You don't win that award without becoming really good.

serious question: how much of a difference does Sandin have on the game over Salo in the 15-16 minutes a night they're getting? not sure how it's biased when i say Sandin's going to have the better career but at this moment in time I don't think there's a big enough difference between the guy with 28 points in parts of 3 seasons versus the guy with 6 in his first 21 games to justify sending a prospect and a pick over for him.

Just to take your factual comment further. Over the last almost 100 years we have hundreds, maybe thousands of American Hockey League players dominate that AHL but make the adjustment and play in the NHL. Same can be said for junior and NCAA players.

Of course, that's silly. However looking at comments on here. Sandin is just a low potential prospect now. Like every leaf player or prospect, Capfriendly people dump him on the scrap heap. He's never going to be more than a 3rd pair player. Niemela won't even become an NHLer only because of the team who drafted them.

Look up their advance stats bud. What impact? A major one. It's not remotely comparable