The NHL free agency period is set to open on Monday, July 1 at 12 p.m, however the negotiating period with free agents is well underway.
The Buffalo Sabres are expected to make some moves this free agency period as the team continues to build for a bounce back 2019-2020 season under new head coach Ralph Krueger.
Kevin Allen from USA TODAY joined Schopp and the Bulldog on Friday to breakdown the top free agent options and the possible offer sheet market.
Here is some of what he had to say:
"There's not a lot of pizazz to this group. I mean, are there players on the list that can help teams? Certainly. But I don't think it's as good as it's been in previous years when we've had several big names."
"In order to make a kind of offer that would sort of persuade a team not to match that offer, you got to make it so difficult that you may not even want to do it yourself, and I think that's kind of the issue. And on top of that obviously, there's the compensation involved. So if you want to go after Mitch Marner or even Sebastian Aho, in order to make it tough on the [Maple Leafs and] Hurricanes, you would have to make it tough on yourself if you did get the guy and then you're going to give up a lot of draft picks."
"When this salary cap came into being after the lost season in 2005, what was said by general managers at the time was, 'Hey, there's going to be a lot of change on teams. Teams are just going to accept the fact that they're going to lose players, but you're going to get other players from other teams. There's going to be a rotation. It'll be a little bit more of a revolving door, but it'll be exciting.' But it hasn't evolved like that. What has happened instead is that teams work harder, and what that means is they pay more money, and they give longer terms to younger players to keep them tied up and to buy some of their, what we would call their free agent years - buying some of the time that they could become a free agent."
"You look at the way the rosters are constructed now - everyone's paying two, three, four guys a lot of money, there's a shrinking middle class, and then in order to balance your check book, you got to have seven or eight guys at the bottom of your payroll that are inexpensive. These are the million dollar guys, and usually those are young players, college free agents. And you'll see more and more of those guys entering the league."
You can listen to the entire interview below: