If you want to pay a bunch of assets to become a playoff team now, I would
- trade Krebs for Copp from DET with some retention (pay assets to 3rd team to retain)
- Jokiharju plus to Washington for Jensen
- sign a cheap 4th line center that can either become a press box guy if more than one top 9 forward rookie makes the roster this year, or be a good 4th line C, or be upgraded at trade deadline if necessary. Kampf from Toronto can probably be had for future considerations if you're willing to take on term, which IDK if that's wise. Or try to do Clifton for Kampf, Clifton + late pick for Kampf, something like that
- sign a stop-gap goalie to play with Luukkonen on a 1 year deal. If goaltending needs upgrading at deadline and Levi as a callup also isn't cutting it, it's easy to trade a rental goalie dump plus picks/prospects for a better rental (or a 2026 UFA with 1.5 years)
I think Krebs is on the way out, and Clifton doesn't fit Buffalo's plans, so should be traded at some point in the next year.
Thought about this more...
If you really want to spend assets to make SURE you're a playoff team
- go for Connor Murphy from Chicago instead of Jensen from Washington. If they ask for a lot, simply give them what they want. The best thing possible would be to give Clifton and add pick(s)/prospect(s) but keep Jokiharju. If necessary to stay under cap, pay CHI to retain a little bit of salary
- instead of signing a UFA stopgap goalie, trade pick(s)/prospect(s) for Ullmark, Knight, Vejmelka, Georgiev (if COL pursues a better starter) or Gustavsson
- trade a 1st round pick (not 11th overall, something less valuable, maybe 2025 1st) to New Jersey for Mercer to play 3rd line C/RW, and ALSO trade Krebs for Copp and pay 3rd team to retain on Copp
Skinner - Thompson - Tuch
Peterka - Cozens - Quinn
Benson - (Kulich/Mercer) - (Mercer/Savoie)
Greenway - Copp
- UFA RW (1 year contract)
callup = Kulich / Savoie / Rosen / Ostlund
Samuelsson - Dahlin
Power - C Murphy
Byram - Jokiharju
callup = Johnson
( Ullmark / Knight / Georgiev / Vejmelka / Gustavsson )
Luukkonen
callup = Levi
This will cost a lot and put Buffalo right at the cap, but the premise of the OP seems to be that spending probably too many assets isn't a problem or concern.