The Buffalo Sabres have clear goals in this off-season, including being a better defensive team. But one of the biggest tasks for the Sabres has to be getting a key defenseman locked up under contract for as long as possible.
We’re speaking, of course, of young defenseman and pending RFA Bowen Byram. The 23-year-old is coming off a season in which he set personal-bests in assists (31) and points (38), and Sabres GM Kevyn Adams cannot afford to let Byram get away.
It’s definitely going to be costly to get Byram’s signature on a contract extension. He’s been making $3.85-million for the past three seasons, and a healthy raise will put him in the area of $6-to-$8-million per season. But while that amount of money will carry with it a certain degree of sticker shock for Sabres fans, what’s the alternative here – letting Byram walk away? That would hurt Buffalo more than figuring out how to keep him in a Sabres uniform.
You have to know there will be teams prepared to pay Byram that amount. And considering that the NHL’s salary cap ceiling will rise exponentially in the next few seasons, giving Byram a major raise won’t hurt as much as it would in a flat-cap situation. Most teams are paying quite a bit to keep their top-four defensemen happy, and Byram is definitely a top-four talent on the back end.
For that reason, Adams has to do whatever it takes to keep Byram in the fold. If the Sabres are going to finally take that next competitive step and get into the playoffs next season, they need to have Byram’s dynamic performance working for them. Buffalo ownership can’t let a million dollars here or there be the reason why Byram chooses to play elsewhere, and signs an offer sheet with a different team that drives up his asking price even higher than it’s already projected to go. He’s still not close to his prime, so investing in him now makes a lot of sense.
Sabres Facing An Off-Season Of ChangeThe Buffalo Sabres, at their season-ending press availability, were all singing from the same hymn book, and the song was Bruce Hornsby’s “Gonna Be Some Changes Made”. The questions that will be utmost in the minds of a frustrated fanbase will be what kind of changes, and in the end, will those changes have the desired effect of ending the club’s 14-year playoff drought.
Byram isn’t a lockdown defensive specialist, but he is a savvy offense-minded D-man whose skill set would be highly-valued by many teams. The Sabres landed a solid talent when they acquired him from the Colorado Avalanche, and now their job is to keep him around for the foreseeable future.
And if they don’t, Sabres management will be rightfully ripped for letting an above-average asset get away.
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