Buffalo Sabers to use Jeff Skinner buyout

The Sabers choose to move away from the popular avant-garde, but it costs a lot

NHL insiders have been telling us for weeks that the Buffalo Sabers are going to end Jeff Skinner’s stay in Western New York. With Sunday being the last day they could activate the buyout, the Sabers are now taking action after failing to trade him, and the 32-year-old forward will become a free agent tomorrow when the NHL free agent market begins .

Speaking at the close of the 2024 NHL Entry Draft on Saturday night in Las Vegas, general manager Kevyn Adams said:

“We started the process today, so it’s a step-by-step process. We started this process early this morning. That’s our intention going forward.

With a ball in the balance: a contract worth $9 million for eight years, Buffalo finally decided to limit its losses by choosing to buy Skinner. The striker still had three years of contract to run, and the calculation is simple, but not very promising in the long term.

Adams is betting that an annual increase in the NHL’s salary cap will offset sunk costs, particularly in years four through six, when many members of the current core will receive huge sums of money. However, it’s in years two and three, when the salary cap hits, that the consequences will really be felt.

According to Puckpedia’s buyout calculator, here’s a quick summary of what this deal looks like, and here’s a warning: It’s not a pretty sight when you look ahead. His age of 32 makes his buyout multiplier 0.67, and with $22 million of his base contract remaining, that leaves a buyout amount of $14,666,667 which is then divided over six years (double the remaining term of his current contract), to give you $2,444,444.

However, that gives Buffalo some breathing room this season for new returning head coach Lindy Ruff to try to revamp this roster into a team capable of making the playoffs, ending a drought that feels like to the 40-year stay in the desert of the Israelites. The Sabers now have about $31 million in cap space entering free agency.

It remains to be seen whether the Sabres will use that cap space to make a big move, but Adams has so far failed to make any big deals, although he did complete one yesterday for bottom-six forward Beck Malenstyn.