Possible missed opportunity for Kent Hughes: a trade is about to happen between Dallas and Buffalo

The Buffalo Sabres are already preparing for this summer. It appears, according to Kevin Weekes' report, that the organization is close to acquiring Ben Bishop in a trade with the Dallas Stars. Bishop announced his retirement from professional hockey last season due to injury, so this move is entirely for salary cap purposes.

Bishop's contract has a cap hit of nearly $4.9M while the team that signs him only has to pay him $3.5M in actual salary. This is a much more attractive contract for Buffalo to acquire than, say, Shea Weber, who takes $7,857,143 on the payroll for the next four seasons. The only advantage with Weber is that the organization will have to pay him $3M next season and $1M in the last three years of his contract in real salary.

It will be interesting to see what it cost the Stars to get rid of Bishop's contract. It will be a good indicator of what Kent Hughes will have to give to get rid of his captain.


Is this a missed opportunity for Hughes? Could he have traded Shea Weber to the Sabres?