23-year-old Cup winner was acquired from Colorado in March
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. One of those moves could be an extension for blueliner Bowen Byram.
The 23-year-old was acquired in March from the Colorado Avalanche for Casey Mittelstadt. Sabres GM Kevyn Adams indicated at the time of the trade that he had been seeking to add a defenseman who fit into the Sabres top two pairings going back to last summer, and Byram (a 2019 fourth-overall pick who had a Stanley Cup victory under his belt) was a good fit.
Another factor in the deal was that Mittelstadt, the Sabres leading scorer at the time of the trade, was an arbitration-eligible RFA this summer and one year away from unrestricted free agency. With Tage Thompson and Dylan Cozens already signed to long-term extensions, it is unlikely that Adams was willing to sign another center for big money.
Byram has one year left on a two-year bridge deal at $3.85 million and another two years before he is eligible for unrestricted free agency. The Sabres would likely be willing to sign him to a five-year deal, buying only two UFA years and keeping his cap hit below Owen Power’s $8.35 million AAV, but a deal any longer than that would likely go somewhere between Power and Rasmus Dahlin’s $11 million cap hit.
The Sabres have the luxury of time when it comes to Byram, but if they are not proactive and he has a good year, the price on his new deal will undoubtedly go up.
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