Qualifying offers were given out to restricted free agents by the entire league. With all the talk around the Buffalo Sabres about potentially not qualifying Lawrence Pilut or Brandon Montour, they made another surprising choice. The club decided to not qualify forward Dominik Kahun, a player that was acquired at the trade deadline in February.

The league is different this year than the past with the financial landscape due to COVID-19. A handful of players around the league were not qualified that would have been given them without question in a normal offseason.

My point is that the Sabres are not the only team making these types of decisions. However, this team does not have the luxury of allowing a 24-year-old with a history of production in a middle-six role walk out the door for nothing. It’s another example of poor asset management.

It’s worth noting that in John Wawrow’s report for the Associated Press, Kahun’s agent expressed their desire to try to work something out with the Sabres. General manager Kevyn Adams echoed a similar sentiment in his post-draft media call. So, there’s still a chance that the German-born forward remains with the Sabres.

Valuation

This is an odd situation because on the surface this shouldn’t be a difficult deal to get done. Kahun isn’t going to break the bank as a free agent or even in salary arbitration. His qualifying offer would have been $874,125. Of course, Kahun wouldn’t take that because his value is between $2-3 million. Evolving Hockey projected a two-year contract with a $2.9 million cap hit. According to a source, the ask from the Kahun side is around $2.5 million. The Sabres would like a deal under $2 million.

One can assume that the Sabres fear here is a high arbitration award as Kahun is an arbitration-eligible restricted free agent.  Even that feels like an irrational fear to have in this situation. The absolute worst-case scenario is an arbitration award of $3 million. It would likely come in below that.

It’s possible the Sabres don’t feel the value is there and that they can do better with another player in free agency or via a trade. I don’t think that’s flawed logic by any means, but it does have its risks. Especially when you consider they may have to overpay for free agents in the open market.

Asset Management

Kahun is a solid middle-six winger with team control at 24. He’s heading into his prime years and is nearly half a point per game player (0.49) during his NHL career. He only played six games with the Sabres but recorded four points in that small stretch.

As you’ll see below in Micah McCurdy’s isolated impact chart, the Sabres could potentially be letting a young two-way winger with strong finishing impacts walk out the door for nothing.

He’s a good 5 on 5 scorer too, which is something the Sabres desperately need in their lineup. They don’t have a lot of capable scoring wingers at this point so willingly stepping away from one (if it happens) is head-scratching.

As I mentioned, a lot of other teams decided to not qualify some noteworthy players on their rosters. The Sabres, however, appear to have non-qualified the best player in the group.

You’ll see in the chart above that Kahun led all of the players that were not qualified in points per 60 minutes last season, and was third in Evolving Hockey’s expected standing points above replacement model. All that to say that the most valuable non-qualified player is coming off of the Sabres roster.

If the two sides can’t come to an agreement and he ends up signing with another team, it doesn’t mean the Sabres come out on the wrong end of things. As long as they can find a way to replace him. They miss the opportunity to use him as a trade piece to improve their roster. Which may be the most frustrating part of this if they knew a deal was unlikely.

We’ll see what happens over the next few days.