The summer has gone by peaceably for the Buffalo Sabres so far, but there’s still a little bit of business left to take care of contract-wise.

Right wing and occasional (perhaps future) center Sam Reinhart is a restricted free agent and will get a new contract in the very near future. Whether the Sabres decide to go with a two- or three-year bridge deal or a long-term contract and eat up some unrestricted free agency years is up for debate, but figuring out where the financial details fall is worth examining.

Digging into what it would ideally cost the Sabres means doing some comparisons. Over the course of Reinhart’s entry-level contract, he has 140 points (65 goals, 75 assists) in 249 games, good for a .562 points-per-game (PPG) clip.

Twice Reinhart has scored 20-plus goals and he’s coming off the best season in his career in which he scored a career-high 25 goals with 50 points (29 at even strength). Reinhart turned around what was an awful start to his season with a tremendous finish (37 points in the final 38 games) to pull that off. For a young player on a team that’s struggled to score, that’s promising.

Those are just the raw numbers. Looking at Reinhart’s possession numbers shows how important he is to the Sabres’ success. Last season, he led the Sabres among players with 20 or more games played with a 52.3 Corsi For percentage (CF%) at even strength.

Over his career, he’s been at 51.0 percent while the Sabres average CF% during his three full seasons was 47.5 percent. Being north of 50 percent on the Sabres, who have been abysmal at maintaining possession for the duration of Reinhart’s career, speaks to how effective he’s been.

But what do you pay a player who’s had a slow ascent, points-wise, and solid possession play with loads of expectations? Let’s look at what a few similar players did during their entry-level deals and how their second contract turned out.

Nikolaj Ehlers (WPG): 236 games — 162 pts — 0.686 PPG —53.0 CF% — 7 years/$42 million

Andre Burakovsky (WSH): 196 games — 95 pts — 0.484 PPG — 53.7 CF% — 2 years/$6 million

Vincent Trocheck (FLA): 146 games — 83 points — 0.568 PPG — 52.2 CF% — 6 years/$28.5 million

Jonathan Drouin (MTL): 164 games — 95 points — 0.579 PPG — 52.0 CF% — 6 years/$33 million

Anthony Mantha (DET): 150 games — 87 points — 0.58 PPG — 53.0 CF% — 2 years/$6.6 million

Two names that stand out here are Trocheck and Mantha. They provide strong examples for both long-term and bridge contracts when it comes to their skills and responsibilities with their teams.

Trocheck did the bulk of that work at center, unlike Reinhart who has played the majority of his games at right wing. Mantha, meanwhile, has played on the wing consistently during his three seasons in Detroit. Ideally, Reinhart’s next contract will fall somewhere in the range between Trocheck and Mantha.

CapFriendly.com shared with The Athletic an estimated bridge deal would be three years for an annual value of $3,871,650 (about $11.6 million overall). Matt Cane at pucksplusplus.com estimated a two-year deal for Reinhart would have an annual value of $4,129,312 (about $8.3 million overall).

If the Sabres go long-term with Reinhart, which they’d be wise to do if they believe the second-half of his 2017-2018 season is what he’ll do on a consistent basis, CapFriendly.com estimates his cap hit would fall between $5.5 and $6 million per season.

A five- or six-year deal would buy up a year or two of unrestricted free agency and would push the cost higher, but with the cap likely going up over time (even with a lockout on the horizon) locking in Reinhart now would be wise. Whether or not Jason Botterill sees it that way is another thing entirely.

There is always a peril with long-term deals and the Sabres don’t have to go back too far into their history to find a comparable player to Reinhart that didn’t pan out the way they hoped.

Yes, it’s Cody Hodgson.

During Hodgson’s entry-level seasons, he had 77 points in 139 games (0.55 PPG) with the Vancouver Canucks and Sabres. Hodgson’s final entry-level season saw him put up 34 points in 48 games (0.71 PPG) during the lockout-shortened 2012-2013 season. Hodgson turned that success into a hastily-announced six-year, $22.5 million extension.

To make things better, Hodgson appeared to find his niche under new coach Ron Rolston (34 points in 51 games, 0.67 PPG) at the time, but Rolston’s firing and Ted Nolan’s return to Buffalo changed things for the worse.

In Hodgson’s final 130 games with the Sabres under Nolan, he had 42 points (0.32 PPG) and saw his average ice time drop by more than five minutes from 2013-14 to 2014-15. Buffalo bought out of the final four years of his contract on June 30, 2015, and the Sabres will be paying him until the end of the 2022-2023 season. Not ideal.

Don’t get too spooked, though. Reinhart is a superior player to Hodgson, but another key difference between them is what they were able to do possession-wise. Hodgson had a 48.2 CF% during his entry-level seasons and both he and Reinhart received similar zone starts, leaning more toward the offensive zone, but Reinhart was a superior possession player, nearly 3 percent better on average.

Although the start of Reinhart’s 2017-18 season made it seem like he was headed down a bad road and a potentially ugly future, he straightened it out and had a strong season. That would make you tend to believe it’ll continue that way as he plays with Jack Eichel into the future.

Getting Reinhart’s contract correct will be a big test for Botterill because you have to assume there will be bigger contracts years from now for Casey Mittelstadt and Rasmus Dahlin. Time and future cap flexibility will benefit the front office, but if they believe Reinhart’s second-half of last season was not a fluke, going long-term is the way to go.

(Top photo by Timothy T. Ludwig-USA TODAY Sports)