Sabres Ink Beaulieu

The Buffalo Sabres signed one of their off-season acquisitions on Monday afternoon, penning a new deal with defenseman Nathan Beaulieu, who they acquired from the Canadiens back in June.  The move was made by the Canadiens, who were in need of just a little bit more cap space, understanding that they had depth on the blueline and Beaulieu was a marketable asset, as well as a restricted free agent.

The deal on Monday was a 2-year pact, reportedly worth $4.8 million, which by all accounts, could be a very cost efficient deal for the Sabres, especially looking at Morgan Rielly in Toronto or Jonas Brodin in Minnesota, both in the same age range, scored less than Beaulieu in 2017 and both make north of $4 million per season.

Talking about scoring, Beaulieu was 60th among all defensemen in scoring, picking up 4 goals and 28 points in 74 games and the opportunities he could get in Buffalo do allow for an upswing in scoring, if all pans out well.

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Ryan O'Reilly	7.500	Rasmus Ristolainen	5.400	Robin Lehner	4.000
Kyle Okposo	6.000	Zach Bogosian	5.143	Chad Johnson	2.500
Jason Pominville	5.600	Marco Scandella	4.000
Evander Kane	5.250	Josh Gorges	3.900
Matt Moulson	5.000	Nathan Beaulieu	2.400
Johan Larsson	1.475	Jake McCabe	1.600
Benoit Pouliot	1.150	Justin Falk	0.650
Jack Eichel	0.925
Hudson Fasching	0.925
Alexander Nylander	0.894
Sam Reinhart	0.894
Nicolas Deslauriers	0.775
Jacob Josefson	0.700
Seth Griffith	0.650

The Sabres still have one more key piece of the puzzle to re-sign in this off-season and that's forward Zemgus Girgensons, who is still early on in his career and likely shouldn't be commanding too much, especially with his scoring numbers.  Nevertheless, with the Beaulieu deal done, the Sabres have $7.6 million in leftover space, when using the projected roster above.  There's still a few bubble players to possibly move up and/or down, so they should be more than okay with their cap situation today.