TSN: Sabres may have internal cap in low $70M range

[Doug Prishpreed]

Winter is coming. More specifically, with no meaningful revenue incoming since mid-March and none on the immediate horizon, hockey’s long winter is approaching amid the uncertainty surrounding the 2020-21 NHL season.

Meetings to slash expenditures, reduce payroll and set internal hockey operations budgets below the salary cap limit have been ongoing for most of the 27 teams in off-season mode.


Sabres related tidbits

— The Buffalo Sabres are the only coaching staff to reject a request for a voluntary pay reduction. Sources indicated that the Sabres staff had pay reduced by 20 per cent from April 1 until July 13, at which point they turned down a subsequent request for a 25 per cent reduction.

--Sources say the Sabres are considering an internal salary cap in the low $70 million range; the Arizona Coyotes, who recently failed to make on-time signing bonus payments to a number of players, may be operating just south of $70 million under their next GM; the Pittsburgh Penguins are reportedly planning to budget in the low-to-mid $70 million range on an $81.5 million limit.



The article paints a pretty bleak picture for NHL franchises.

Holy shit. How does Buffalo even get down to $70M with the contracts they have?? Eichel and Skinner alone would be almost 30% of the cap

Click to read more...

 

[Shootica]

With how widespread the hurting is, I can't believe the owners agreed to the amended CBA's escrow limits.

 

[Fjordy]

Holy shit

 

[joshjull]

With how widespread the hurting is, I can't believe the owners agreed to the amended CBA's escrow limits.

Not just that but the decision to keep the upper limit kicked in at 81.5mil. Players will be getting much more than 50% of league revenues for the next couple years.

I don’t see their gate driven revenue back on track until the pandemic over. That won’t happen this up coming season.

 

[Buffaloed]

Seravalli: At least 17 NHL teams have reduced pay amid COVID-19 crunch - TSN.ca

Sources say the Sabres are considering an internal salary cap in the low $70 million range; the Arizona Coyotes, who recently failed to make on-time signing bonus payments to a number of players, may be operating just south of $70 million under their next GM; the Pittsburgh Penguins are reportedly planning to budget in the low-to-mid $70 million range on an $81.5 million limit.

Please confine discussion to salary cap only. There's a separate thread to discuss Krueger and NHL staff pay cuts.

 

[Buffaloed]

Eichel might not have to ask for a trade. They might do it to save money. That's the way things were done during the Regier years.

 

[sabremike]

Eichel might not have to ask for a trade. They might do it to save money. That's the way things were done during the Regier years.

If they do that then right after the NHL just needs to negotiate a settlement with the Pegulas to contract the team because the market will have been killed off so bad pulling the plug and letting us die with dignity is the only option.

 

[Zach716]

Eichel might not have to ask for a trade. They might do it to save money. That's the way things were done during the Regier years.

Different owner during the Briere/Drury era but if this happens I will really be questioning if I want to actively still follow this team for the short-medium term

 

[HaNotsri]

Eichel might not have to ask for a trade. They might do it to save money. That's the way things were done during the Regier years.

It's like being back where it all started!

Good thing we wasted money on Gorges, Moulson etc

 

[Der Jaeger]

Eichel might not have to ask for a trade. They might do it to save money. That's the way things were done during the Regier years.

I don’t see that happening. Sabres were in a much different spot when Rigas was convicted.

 

[Gabrielor]

They surprisingly can still turn this thing around on a budget. Adams just needs to make the exact right moves.

 

[Jim Bob]

Adams will likely have to move Reinhart for futures.

Cozens is likely to get rushed.

Mitts and Thompson are likely to make the roster whether they are ready or not.

That Skinner deal is looking amazing right now...

 

[Jim Bob]

Eichel might not have to ask for a trade. They might do it to save money. That's the way things were done during the Regier years.

Given that they cut him a $7.5M check on 7/1, I don't believe we are there yet.

If these budget restrictions remain in a couple of years, I do expect Eichel will be traded for pennies on the dollar before his next signing bonus payment on 7/1/2022.

 

[Jim Bob]

https://twitter.com/DuaneS39

I won't post the tweet itself because of the language used, but Duane let it all out with regards to the news of the Sabres internal budget.

I doubt too many Sabres fans will argue with him.

 

[truthbluth]

I tend to think Sabres management is the epitome of buffoonery, but this is happening all over the league. Hockey is a slim margin enterprise as it is and many teams are trying to keep losses as low as possible for the next year. It isn't unreasonable, and I do not think this is cause for concern.

 

[Shootica]

Unless he forces himself out, Eichel will be damn near the last guy traded for monetary reasons. Eichel puts butts in seats, he sells merchandise, and he generates so much interest in the team.

And above all of that, trading Eichel for monetary reasons would be the Pegulas admitting that they have failed the organization, the fans, and the city. And I don't think they're close to believing that let alone admitting that. I think they very much feel that this is a COVID-induced blip on the radar and that it'll bounce back to normal once the pandemic becomes history and NG prices go up again.

 

[Montag DP]

Look at the bright side: maybe this will force us to stop blowing cap space on dead weight.

 

[Jim Bob]

Look at the bright side: maybe this will force us to stop blowing cap space on dead weight.

The fact that they don't have a lot of experienced people making the calls with regards to building the roster, I am not that hopeful about that.

They will just blow less cap space on dead weight.

 

[Fezzy126]

I tend to think Sabres management is the epitome of buffoonery, but this is happening all over the league. Hockey is a slim margin enterprise as it is and many teams are trying to keep losses as low as possible for the next year. It isn't unreasonable, and I do not think this is cause for concern.

I agree, the reactionary vitriol on social media is tiring. If people took even 2 minutes to scan the TSN article instead of reading a headline or a retweet, they would realize that this isn't a Sabres thing, it's a league-wide NHL thing.

If people are going to speculate about Eichel getting moved for salary reasons, then they should be equally excited about the potential availability of other high priced stars like McDavid and Crosby. Personally, I don't think any of that happens. As others have mentioned, it's much more likely that we see a wave of low money, short term deals for 2-3 years until society slowly edges back to normal operations.

 

[Montag DP]

The fact that they don't have a lot of experienced people making the calls with regards to building the roster, I am not that hopeful about that.

They will just blow less cap space on dead weight.

Quite possibly so, but it's a new GM. Might as well give him a chance before writing him off.

 

[sabresnyper]

The internal cap is paid salary, not cap hit. FWIW

 

[BloFan4Life]

We are getting back to the days where the large markets (and most of the Canadian teams) will be spending much more than the other 25 teams in the league.

I didn't understand why the owners agreed to the CBAs they recently did, now it makes sense. They are just going to collectively spend less (meaning the 25 teams, not the larger markets). That should collectively decrease players contracts.

With the 20% escrow, and then spending 10-15 million less than normal, you could cut your actual payroll by 25-30 million.

NHL salaries have been way too high for the niche aspect of the sport. Owners will reel it in since Bettman refuses to decrease the salary cap.

 

[SackTastic]

The internal cap is paid salary, not cap hit. FWIW

There isn't much delta between the two with the contracts on the books currently.

Only deals that differ :

Skinner : $9M cap #, $10M paid salary. (Most of that is the signing bonus this year.)
Johansson : $4.5M cap, $4M paid salary.
McCabe : $2.85M cap, $2.8M paid salary.

For once I'm not crapping on the Pegulas for being cheap ; this is clearly a leaguewide thing. This will likely lead to fewer long term deals for the next few seasons ; owners won't want to commit because of uncertainty, and salaries will be reduced. Players won't want to sign long term at lower salaries in case things recover in a couple years, then they'd be shafted.

 

[Zman5778]

I'm honestly baffled by all the vitriol regarding this news. I would imagine half of the teams if not more will be operating under some sort of internal spending cap, probably for the next 2-3 years until league (and world) finances re-stabilize.

I don't think this news would even be a thing if the NHL actually reduced the salary cap like they should have. I think people see a roughly $10mil difference between our internal cap and the NHL salary cap and flip out. If we had the same internal cap on a $75-77 mil NHL cap....not a peep would be made.

 

[Jim Bob]

Quite possibly so, but it's a new GM. Might as well give him a chance before writing him off.

The Pegulas have lost the benefit of the doubt when it comes to hiring rookie GMs.

This time they have hired a rookie GM with even less NHL front office experience than either of their previous two hires that didn't work out. I don't believe going with less and less prior experience will work for them unless they had chosen to go with an outside of the box approach and gone all in on analytics with a hire like Megan Chayka or the like.

Also, they haven't given Adams a lot of support to make up for the lack of experience that he has. Adding someone like Dudley would have been a no-brainer to many as he has a ton of experience to help a rookie GM and accelerating the learning curve.