Creating a healthy salary cap situation for an NHL team is a bit like following a cookbook recipe.
You want a healthy dose of market-rate veterans who produce, splashed with some productive, young players on entry-level deals, a dash of cheap analytically based signings, and finally, a pinch of value contracts which are signed before a player hits his stride.
The Sabres have never been very good at that last part.
This team – under several general manager regimes – tends to offer bridge contracts to restricted free agents which often results in the team losing leverage with players as they near free agency. We saw this with Linus Ullmark, Jake McCabe and Sam Reinhart; the first two walked for nothing in free agency and Reinhart received less-than-market value because the Sabres repeatedly opted to bridge him rather than pay the man.
Sometimes they do offer big contracts to RFA players and those too end up being overpayments (Rasmus Ristolainen and Jack Eichel come to mind). Did I just call Eichel overpaid? Yes, yes I did. Maybe he’ll score 100 points for the Vegas Golden Knights this year, play 82 games and win the Conn Smythe, Stanley Cup and somehow the Norris trophy and this will be a stupid opinion. Until then, though, he’s looking a bit overpaid. The guy can’t stay healthy and his career high in points is 82 – a whopping one point more than Derek Roy’s career high of 81. He absolutely has the ability and skill to be a triple-digit point producer while playing with Mark Stone in the desert, but it’s fair to say that the $10 million per year he has made for the past four years has not yielded a positive return on investment to this point.
Anyway, all of that is neither here nor there, nor anywhere.
The point is that the Sabres desperately need to take some chances on young players who have the potential to outperform the average annual value of their contracts, which in turn will help stabilize the team’s cap situation far into the future. Kevyn Adams would do well to stop creating crises with his RFAs whereby he bridges them to the point of no return, and they then have to be moved when it becomes clear they either don’t want to re-sign or they will have to be paid full market value. By getting ahead of the crisis, the team can potentially create some real value contracts.
All of this leads us to the topic at hand: Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen.
The left-catching goaltender has yet to sign an extension this offseason as his representation and Kevyn Adams are seemingly working on a deal that will suit both parties. Now, in all likelihood, the Sabres will offer a one-or-two year deal for the youngster even though they have an opportunity to buy several more years at a discounted rate.
Keep in mind that buying low is the name of the game when it comes to creating value contracts, and Luukkonen’s value has probably never been lower. The 6’5” Finn is a former second-round pick who has dealt with numerous injury issues since he was drafted by Jason Botterill and company back in 2017. He’s only managed to play in 60 games across four seasons in the AHL due to these repeated bouts with the inactive list.
Still, there’s reason for optimism due to his play when he is available. He posted a very capable .917 save percentage at the NHL level in 9 games for Don Granato this season before injuries once again took him out of the picture. He’s a guy who is worth taking a chance on because the skill is seemingly there even if there isn’t a tremendous sample size to backstop that optimism. If he’s ever able to put the injuries behind him and get a proper workload in, he’s a definite candidate to exceed expectations. Creating a value contract for him means that you’re buying potential at a low point in his career in the hopes that he can finally be the player he was projected to be when he was merely a draft-eligible prospect. Four years at $2m sounds about right when balancing the team’s desire to minimize risk with the player’s desire to cash in some sweat equity.
$8 million guaranteed must sound awfully enticing to a player whose NHL future is completely up in the air currently.
For reference, Eric Comrie just signed a two-year deal worth $1.8m per season, so adding a couple of years to the length of the prospective Luukonen deal is going to bump up the AAV slightly. If $2 million per season seems like an over-payment on the Sabres side, consider this: UPL’s biggest hurdle isn’t performance, it’s durability, and if those problems persist, that cap hit will land on LTIR, meaning the worst-case scenario for Sabres isn’t that they have an under-performing player, rather, it will be that their talented player can’t stay healthy.
Even if he does underperform, the contract could be waived to the minors and more than $1 million of his cap hit would be rescinded from the calculation as a result, meaning that the penalty for taking this shot is less than a million dollars per year. The bet on the Sabres part is that UPL establishes himself at least as a capable back-up goalie option, which is what $2 million should buy a team.
Conversely, there exists the potential that he greatly exceeds that performance floor and the Sabres could have themselves a bona fide steal of a contract on their hands with a starting-caliber goaltender who makes a relative pittance. Buying year one of this contract fully guaranteed at the minors level could also be an incentive for UPL who likely will not see more than 30 games in Buffalo as he sits behind veterans Craig Anderson and the aforementioned Comrie. That guaranteed pay day this season could be the sugar that makes the medicine go down for Luukkonen if the Sabres fully guarantee that $2 million figure at both the NHL and AHL level level.
Taking a chance on player who could break out is how good teams get ahead of an inevitable salary cap crunch.
Luukkonen presents the perfect opportunity to capitalize on that concept.
Buffalo Sabres Blogger • 
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