Cage

I'm honestly not sure what to advocate. Though I have to say I don't see any solutions in this thread other than to rage-fire the whole front office.... after that, what will fix this?

I actually didn't advocate in my post that Adams should be retained. I stated that I was at a loss for how to proceed. I also acknowledged that his moves clearly haven't worked out and the whole team seems to be painted into a corner. I guess we can fire him and others, I'm not sure it's clear to me what that would achieve?? Will existing players play harder? Will trade targets drop Sabres from their no-trade lists? Will free agents come here? Will prospects develop faster? Do we want to fire-sale players to restart another rebuild? Surely, this is a bad situation as we see where the various moves have left the team....

....sooooooo, what should they do??

Much of that reaction is 20:20 hindsight. When Adams took over the team, they were a last place Kreuger-mess up against the salary cap. There was a lot to fix. he wanted to start with the culture of having players who "want to be Buffalo Sabres". If Reinhart was not on-board with a rebuild and wanted to leave, what should he have done? Violated is first credo right out of the chute? Credibility with the team instantly goes to 0, if he backtracks on that statement and forces Reinhart to stay. Who also wasn't far from UFA status.. He got Kulich and Levi for him. It's not far-fetched to see Kulich as a 30+ goal scorer and Levi as a starting G. They have to continue to develop. Samuelsson reaction is also 20:20. He was a leader on Amerks, to D pair and had played well in NHL leading up to that point. He's expecting continued growth from a young guy, who can still attain that and make that contract look cheap. "0 gas in the entire league" is just a wild reaction

In these threads people keep using the word "accountable".... I'm not sure what that really means?? For fans, we can turn off the team and ice them out of our attention span. Don't attend games, don't buy merch.... The local media hasn't exactly been love-festing over the team. Suppose they could be harsher, but not sure what that would change? For the team, they can fire Ruff, fire Adams or get rid of players. This is where it where, to me, it gets very perplexing. When looked at individually, Adams has made a lot of moves that we would probably agree with in isolation. I'll keep it at a high-level, but we can go into details as well. First he wanted to build the team around players who wanted to be Buffalo Sabres. I think we can all agree with that concept. The Bills would do the same thing. Beane just took a huge cap hit to get rid of Diggs. So he traded frustrated players (Eichel, Reinhart, Risto) and got reasonable trade compensation for them. He got a lot of first round draft capital, Tuch (who clearly was happy to come here) and Levi (we needed a top G prospect) He's drafted well. We're still the youngest team in the league. Sabres prospect pipeline is routinely ranked in the top 5. Not just the first round picks, but taking chances on good Russian players who are developing and he got at multi-round discounts. He knew to trade up for Peterka. Most every GM would hav picked Owen Power #1 overall (and he's still young). They've forced most players to be successful on Amerks before progressing. Amerks are stocked with developing draft picks who are growing as we should expect. He's been careful, but taking reasonable risks on handing out long-term contracts. While we might 20:20 hindsight some of those, the long-term signings for Thompson (nearly 50 goal scorer), Cozens (30 goal scorer at the time), Samuelsson (strong young D for $4m/), Dahlin are moves most GMs would have done as well. He's being careful with cap space as he had been expecting that Quinn, Byrum, Peterka, maybe Krebs would continue to grow and he would need the space to resign them. He also was creative in solving long-standing G issue. He didn't give up on UPL, got top prospect in Levi and took a shot at an emerging possibility in Comrie. While Comrie didn't work out, he was thinking about the issue the same way as Beane may have when he signed as yet unknowns like Poyer and Hyde some years ago. As much as people liked Granato, the players needed "accountability" (there's that word again), so he brings back Ruff, which seems like a sound move at the time. Obviously all of this hasn't progressed as planned, but I don't see large-scale defect in the thinking that we would expect from a GM. I honestly am stuck with where the problem is with this team?? They should be like last year's Houston Texans or two years ago's Detroit Lions and be on the rise with the rest of the league nervous about playing them. If that was the case, the stands would be full.... the Bills notwithstanding.

That's a really surprising take from someone with Bob Sauve as his handle??? In the 70s/80s/90s the Sabres did own this town. When I was growing up everyone had a Sabre Jak. People were far more likely to be dressed in Sabres colors than Bills. It wasn't until the 90's SB years that the Bills started to take over. But even then, Hasek, Barnaby, Ray and company were the toast of the city. Obviously now the Bills are riding quite a wave, but I have no doubt the Sabres would be selling out if they were as competitive as the teams that I'm pointing to above

I doubt he'll be going to the Sharks....

We're gong to have to take this one right between the eyes..... Skinner by a mile. Didn't even have to look at the other choices

Two come to mind: 1. Skinner for prospect Cliff Pu and a pick. If not for Kreuger's mismanagement of Skinner (and others), this would be an all-time trade. Outside of the RK issue, Skinner has been a top line star for the Sabres. His last two years have erased him from "worst contract" discussions. It was a resounding win for Sabres 2. Alex Tuch / Peyton Krebs / Östlund + trade. At the time Adams had was trying to earn his credibility with the fans, Buff media and across the league as a GM that people thought was just given the job to be the owners guy. Articles and discussion on this board at the time were certain he would get fleeced and end up with limited value from trading Eichel. Up until Eichel's success in this year's playoff run, the consensus around the league would be that the Sabres won that trade. Notwithstanding Adams set up as a foundation of the new team culture focusing on players that "want to be Sabres". Despite LV winning the cup, I don't think anyone would want a do-over on one of the toughest trades (and the ramp-up to it) in team history

Keith Ballard.... he ended up playing 604 NHL games. He was an our #1 pick, 11th overall in 2002. He's the only first round draft pick of the Sabres that I have absolutely no recollection of.

Will add 30 lbs?? I thought he was already pretty big. Is he a rail?

I just don't have a feel for hockey trades in the draft the way I do for football.... not sure who's interested in him, but maybe using him to trade one of our 2nd's up into the first??

Isn't this a forum to talk about the Sabres, their players and prospects?

I'm surprised it wasn't reported here, but Kamarov and the Quebec Ramparts won the CHL's Memorial Cup last weekend. He was not only on the championship team, but opened the scoring with a huge goal! Congratulations to Russian #4 who will be joining the Amerks the season after next. I believe he has one more year in Juniors... https://thehockeynews.com/news/quebec-remparts-capture-the-memorial-cup-in-patrick-roys-final-game

Who is he again???