Sabres Re-Sign Sekera

On Wednesday, the Buffalo Sabres announced that they re-signed 25-year old Slovak defender Andrej Sekera to a new 4-year deal, reportedly worth $11 million, a $2.75 million cap hit per season.  Sekera was a restricted free agent this Summer, who had an arbitration hearing scheduled for Monday, which has now been cancelled with this new deal being in place.

Sekera had a very good season with the Sabres in 2011, finishing 50th among all defensemen in scoring with 3 goals and 26 assists in 76 games for the club.  He should be considered a definite hockey pool defenseman, especially with the improvements that the Sabres have made in the off-season.

It will be interesting to see where Sekera fits in the picture, with a couple more names on the blueline through trades and free agency coming on board, but the pairings should be solid down the line.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Thomas Vanek	Christian Ehrhoff	Ryan Miller
Brad Boyes	Tyler Myers
Ville Leino	Jordan Leopold
Drew Stafford	Andrej Sekera
Jason Pominville	Mike Weber
Tyler Ennis	Robyn Regehr
Derek Roy	Shaone Morrisonn
Nathan Gerbe
Paul Gaustad
Jochen Hecht
Cody McCormick
Patrick Kaleta
Ales Kotalik

With the addition of Sekera to the team table, the Sabres are now projected to be over the salary cap ceiling for the regular season, but not necessarily over the ceiling for the off-season, yet.  The Sabres now have 13 forwards, seven defensemen and a goalie on their table, plus a buyout on the books, for $66.7 million, projected for the end of the season.  That currently sits $2.4 million over budget and the team still needs to add a back-up goalie to the mix, officially.

The little bit that is over-budget should be easy to overcome, as that could mean a player like Ales Kotalik gets bumped down to the minors again, which would leave $600,000 to use for a goalie and the team would be able to play, so it isn't a very big deal at the moment.