3:30 pm: The teams have made the trade official, with the Sabres acquiring Bishop along with Dallas’ 2022 seventh-round draft selection in exchange for future considerations.
1:25 pm: With Ben Bishop not expected to play again after several serious injuries, the Dallas Stars have found a way to move his contract. Kevin Weekes of ESPN reports that the Buffalo Sabres are close to acquiring his contract. No details on the return have been released so far.
Bishop has one year left on his contract and carries a cap hit of $4.92MM.
A move like this could help the Sabres get to the salary cap floor, while also helping the Stars get out of long-term injured reserve. While LTIR provides some flexibility, it also can result in negative penalties, as seen this season for the Stars, who will face a bonus overage of $675K.
Bishop is due a salary of $3.5MM this season, meaning the Sabres won’t even have to cover one of the more expensive years of the deal. The contract also includes a 10-team no-trade clause, though that likely isn’t much of an impediment given he isn’t expected to play again.
For the Sabres, who have just over $41MM in salary commitments for next season before any offseason trading, reaching the salary cap floor could be a legitimate challenge. Only Victor Olofsson sits as a restricted free agent expecting much of a raise, meaning general manager Kevyn Adams will need to be busy in the trade market and free agency.
The 35-year-old Bishop is a good start, though it is disappointing for Sabres fans that they’re not getting the goaltender from a few years ago. At one point, Bishop was among the very best in the world, finishing as a Vezina finalist three times and ending his career with an incredible .921 save percentage. That puts him among the very best of all-time, and as recently as 2018-19 he was the league leader with a .934.
Buffalo meanwhile will be looking for a real answer in net this summer, as Craig Anderson, Dustin Tokarski, Aaron Dell, Michael Houser, and Malcolm Subban are all pending unrestricted free agents.
The Dallas Morning News’ Matthew DeFranks was the first to report the return.
Jim Nill needs to clear space to overpay more 30+ year old veteran grinders and crappy d-men
or draft some more really exciting prospects
His draft success is the only reason he still has a job. He’s failed at everything else as the Stars GM. When he was first brought on, he made some excellent trades. The Seguin trade. The Sharp trade. Then he just gave up. Stopped buying. Stopped selling. Loaded up on excuses. One more year.
Yeah im sure he just stopped trying to do his job…. sounds legit.
Didn’t he retire?
Yes but when your contract is guaranteed you don’t feel out that paperwork until that contract is over
This. Teams keep these guys around for cap reasons – either to reach the cap floor or gain LTIR relief. And the player gets paid as long as he’s still under contract, so there’s no incentive for him to officially retire before the contract expires.
LTIR is not an advantage over having the player retire, which in most circumstances erases the contract from their books.
“BRING OUT YOUR DEAD”
“I can’t take him like that! It’s against regulations!”
“He’s not quite dead!”
“I think I’ll go for a rehab assignment.”
(collapses)
Rolandveras, Good point! Nill does like the old guys for some reason.
If you retire before the end of the deal don’t you leave money on the table?
He doesn’t give up any money as long as have he doesn’t file the retirement paperwork.
One exception I can think of is Datsyuk, who returned to Russia with a year and 7.5M left on his deal. The Wings traded him to Arizona (using the pick that became Chychrun as sweetener) before he filed the paperwork to return to KHL. The Coyotes were stuck with the 7.5M cap hit, but Datsyuk never saw a penny of that money due to playing in a league that isn’t the NHL.
I picked Dallas vs. Florida In this years final but that was before Quenneville stepped down and I thought Bishop was coming back. It was just 2 short seasons ago the Dallas was In the final.
Hey Sabres, how about bringing in guys that can play?
Why?
In 2 years the Sabres will have the following prospects as RFAs…..
Dahlin, Power, Quinn, Peterka, Joker, Krebs & Mitts.
Only Tage & Cozens are for next off season.
So if any team wants any of the above players they will have to sign them to 3 1sts offer sheets (or more).
If the Sabres sign a bunch of FAs now to multi year deals they will be like the Canadians last off season with no cap space to resign their RFAs & then teams can poach them for 1st/3rd (or less) offer sheets.
Meant young players not prospects.
Feels like the Knights and Bruins should be calling Buffalo to dump some salary
I think Buffalo might be interested in some of the VGK RFAs.
Boston? It’s gonna cost them a lot more than a 7th & no contracts with over 1 year left.
Wait all Buffalo got was a 7th to take on nearly 5mil?
Likely that insurance will pay the salary. They get $5 million off their cap floor (and they will save that money by not paying it out) and a 7th for handling some paperwork.
Sad that the league allows trading players that will never play again.
Must suck to be a Buffalo player and know your management just wants to reach the cap floor.
Yeah, no cap circumventing here, right Gary?? One more to add to the list of Horton, Hossa, Pronger, Datsyuk, Clarkson and more. ( Clarkson was traded by Toronto for Horton…then they re-acquired Clarkson..now Toronto had 2 guys that would never play again on their payroll…nothing fishy there!!
Pronger was never gonna play again, yet had his contract traded to Arizona to inflate their cap floor while he was still being paid by the leagues head office. Yet Cauncks get nailed for circumvention for the Luongo contract when it was signed legally…Gary was just pissed teams found a loophole. All the league had to do was reject them and make teams restructure their contracts so they didn’t have to pay a recapture penalty.
And don’t forget the Evander Kane fiasco going on now too…now way should San Jose be getting off free and clear, and there should have been no way he should have been able to sign with another NHL team until it was figured out.
Luongo wasn’t hurt, he voluntarily chose to retire and you can’t LTIR that, so he gave up the last few years of his contract at 1M+ each.
Not really circumventing if it’s within the parameters of the rules my guy.
Exactly my point…the Luongo deal was within the parameters of the CBA…or why would the league approve it? The league changed it under the new CBA and retroactively punished those teams. The Luongo deal was front loaded, bringing his average salary down so when he was older his cap hit was less, and if he retired the cap hit would be low. They would still have to pay him a salary until he’s was in his early 40’s…the duration of his contract. The player agreed to it, the team agreed to it, and the league begrudgingly let the deal happen. All the league had to do was reject those contracts, and close the loophole in the next CBA.
We all know Luongo “retired” to help out the Panthers and basically is being paid out the money he left on the table as an employee. Totally hooped the Canucks in doing so.
The fact that you can trade for a player ( multiple times ) that will never play again, to change your salary cap is by far a worse case of this, that is still happening.
Buffalo is all about the future & having the cap space to lock up their core younger players.
Besides what is the gripe here? If another team is willing to take on a remaining cap hit that is not circumventing anything.
That GM for the sabres clearly aint that good. 5 mil and all you get back is a 7th? Helping a team clear 5 mil that you have to pay and all you get is a 7th?
Im fairly confident that there have been vontracts with no salary owed that got a better sweetner than that. What a dummy
Wake up.. Dallas is helping the Sabres. You can’t see that?
You can’t see that the Sabres have a bunch of young guys coming up for contracts in two years? You can’t see that if the Sabres don’t reach the salary floor they will get penalized?
Learn the rules and then talk smack and call people names. Why call someone a dummy without knowing all the rules and everything involved? Not cool.
I do know all that. I also know he could sign players to 1-2 year contracts, even slightly overpaying in order to reach the floor. And thats the type of stuff a smart person would say in a negotiation with a team looking to get rid of 5 mil in dead cap space in order to convince them they dont have to make the deal. Especially since its a goalie. Teams dont enjoy having 10s of millions spent o he goalie position.
Thats why I called him a dummy(extremely soft insult) since he could and should have got way more than a 7th rounder.
I think that instead of signing two guys that make two and a half million they’d rather give playing time to young guys that are still on low dollar contracts.
Sabres are going nowhere next year. May as well continue the development of the youth. You’re not going to bring in a veteran for 2.5 let alone two of them. This helps the team in many many ways and I think it’s a smart move. He’s not a dummy.
I have had enough of ten years as a bad team. These aren’t the Sabres from my youth.
They finished strong, have a good upcoming group of young players already signed & they have multiple high draft picks to use to add to this group. GMKA is also making sure he has the open cap space in a few years to keep his young core together.
afl, I think we all are. But you can see the direction we’re headed. Heck we’ve been through how many GM in the last 10 years. Give this guy a chance because look at the moves he’s made.
Hired the right coach, made the right draft picks, completed great trades, and there are stretches of the Season where they’re playing winning hockey.
This thing is coming together and if the guy above can’t see it he’s not looking. It’s very clear the Sabres are on the right track.
No. Just like the Butcher & Boychuk deals this past season it was to get to the cap floor using 1 year remaining contracts. If Buffalo asked for more another team needing cap slots could have swooped in. Bishop’s salary is only $3.5 million for this upcoming season.
Do love this the owners/gm back gary when plays tough with players. the minute deal is signed same owners/gm find loopholes .Perfect example great great american business practices. Only cheating when someone else does it. lol