22-year-old winger scored career-high 28 goals last season
The Buffalo Sabres are expected to be a busy team this summer with Lindy Ruff returning as head coach and the pressure on GM Kevyn Adams is expected to pull out the stops to improve his roster. One move that could happen before July 1 is the buyout of winger Jeff Skinner. The reason for that would be Skinner’s unwillingness to waive his no-movement clause, and the Sabres beginning to see the decline in the 32-year-old’s performance, but another reason may be to clear some of his $9 million cap hit to extend other players.
Over the next few days before the buyout window officially opens, we will take a look at where Adams may want to allocate the cap space freed up by a Skinner buyout. The most likely of those moves would be a preemptive extension of winger J-J Peterka.
The 22-year-old German emerged after an impressive performance at the 2023 World Championships and finished behind only Tage Thompson last season with 28 goals. Peterka enters the final year of his entry-level contract and becomes eligible for a contract extension on July 1.
Adams has a history of being proactive on players coming out of their ELCs, signing Dylan Cozens, Mattias Samuelsson, and Owen Power before or during the final year of their deals. A Skinner buyout would result in a cap hit of $4.44 million in 2025-26 (when Peterka’s new deal would kick in) and $6.44 million in 2026-27, but would still provide Buffalo with some cap relief from his $9 million AAV the next three seasons.
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