Mango

I honestly don't know what to think about anything anymore. Like, we clearly lack some bottom end depth/physical play. Guys who play big and tough. Girgs and Okie are part of that problem. But if a team like Boston, winning the east right now, wants these guys.... That said, I think there would be a lot less criticism of these guys if we had a Deslauriers and/or Reaves around. I do think this team is a couple of clones away from being a lot better. At least the foreword group. Benson- Thompson - Tuch Peterka - Mitts - Quinn Greenway - Mitts - Tuch Deslauriers - Girgs - Okie/Reaves

That isn't what I am saying at all. I am all for making any trade you know you are going to win. Everybody fan of every sports team is. Like if I were an Edmonton fan I would be against trading McDavid. But if the return on McDavid was Mackinnon, Rantanen, and Makar from the Av's I would have a listen. So in general I would be against trading McDavid. But if that is the return then yes in that specific scenario I am for it. The inverse is I Skinner. I like Skinner. He is a nice piece. Funny dude. But he is over paid and we need more guys with a 200 foot game and some grit. My operating window for moving Skinner is a lot bigger. I am pro moving him to free up some cash. But if the return was 37 year old Tim Kennedy I would be pretty upset. You have to understand that nuance right? I don't really care where Casey and Dylan started. Just like I hate when a rookie QB throws a million INT's and we have to hear about Peyton Manning. Developing takes time. I get that. The Sabres have a lot of developing players. Some of them are costing us a lot of money and some of them have arrived and need extensions (Peterka/Mitts) I am in a spot where I am ready to move on from guys taking up space who have not arrived in order to keep guys that are producing a real life NHL level. Mitts was a clunky boneheaded young player. Cozens looks like he has no idea where he is supposed to be sometimes. He could certainly turn out to be a better NHL player than Mitts, but I am fairly confident that it will not be next year and likely not the year after that. If it happens I think it will be 3 years away. For me, it needs to definitively be next year. We aren't talking about a 32 year old center vs. a 20 year old. These are two pretty young centers. At $7M per year I don't have the patience for the "But he, they, we are young" for some of these guys anymore. We cannot continue to be 2, 3, 4 years away. That cannot be the plan.

Funny you mention that. This article came out today. https://buffalonews.com/sports/professional/nhl/sabres/buffalo-sabres-nhl-doug-maclean-kevyn-adams-columbus-blue-jackets/article_6b6eff34-c76c-11ee-97a9-eb4884dd06d4.html A few interesting quotes that I fail to link together as anything other than "I won't bad mouth anybody. There are good players, but not the players they think they have. Organizationally they have no interest in doing anything different or hearing from anybody else."

Honestly, I think we are putting too much pressure on the market to keep the team in Buffalo and not enough on Terry. He bought this team from an owner who mandated that the next buyer keep the team in Buffalo. Pegula can and should do the same. He destroyed this fanbase/franchise, ran this thing into the ground, then took $1B from the locals to fund another sports venture. Terry Pegula owes it to Sabres fans, the city, and the state to make sure that any sale of this team includes the same or stronger no-movement language that he signed himself. The only reason this team leaves Buffalo is because Terry allows it to. The weight of that falls squarely on his shoulders, not the NHL's, not market conditions, nothing.

If I am not mistaken, Cozens only notable injuries are getting punched in the face in November and then a UBI a couple weeks ago. The Cozens injury stuff is way over played. His ice time is low because he skates around aimlessly in his own end and is directly responsible for a number of goals against. If this behavior is because of getting beat up he should take the year off and protect his brain. (Seriously) At what cost and when? Next year? 3 years? 5 years? Like heading into this offseason we hoped an UPL extension would be bottom of the barrel, and based on his play it may be a little bit more than that. What if we can get Mitts for $6M and UPL's deal cost us an extra $1M per year. Going into next year I would rather have both of Mitts/UPL than 1 Dylan Cozens. 99.99% of the league has a price. If the Sabres can outright win a trade for any player on the roster they should move them. That is true for almost every player on every franchise. Release and trade away lesser players for better players that make the team better. This is the general description of every GM in every sport. It drives me bonkers. Every fan of every team would be OK with trading any player on their roster for an upgraded player. We aren't having a legitimate discussion on who should and shouldn't be on this team if the fall back is "if trading him makes us better we should do it". It was rumored McDavid was on the block this year. I specifically said "just about" anything. I think once Mitts get to the $7M mark you have to start to ask some questions. But I don't think he signs anywhere for above that asking price. I also did not mention anything about the "wants to be here". That isn't a reason to keep Mitts. The reason to keep Mitts is because he is easily the best or tied for the best center on the roster. And the only center who has any semblance of a 200 foot game. Casey is a legimitely talented C in the league right now. I agree with the the take on Adams continuing to parrot it. But it is a pretty small part of why I value Casey on this team.

You left out the Ryan Reynolds/Marcus McElhenney group. I am half joking. But also not. If the Sabres were for sale looking at regional interests make sense. The Remington Group who joined them is a developer in Ontario with HQ in Toronto. Not to mention that Reynolds and Co. only pulled out because they wanted a 30 day exclusivity window. If Terry sells the team I think it is behind closed doors. With the way both of these guys have treated Wrexham and the way Rob feels about Philly sports, I have to believe these two would be one of the best shots at keeping the team here.

Hate Boston everything, but really like Okie the person. I could get behind him in Boston for a playoff run at the cup.

This is over complicating the depth chart. I think we all know what Kevyn Adams wants Mitts to be and how he would like the depth chart to fall based on contracts. But the fact of the matter is Casey leads all centers in average ice time and leads the team in points. And on top of that, more often than not whatever line he is centering tends to be the best Sabres line on the ice on any given night. If you want to call Tage the 1C because he is Tage or whatever, go ahead. I won't argue. But based on actual hockey Casey is not that 3rd center on this team. And frankly the continued insinuated that Mitts is the 3C and Cozens is the 2C is part of the problem with this team. Guys aren't in roles based on merit. They are in roles based on contracts and expectations. Adams needs to do (just about) whatever it takes to extend Mitts.

That makes a lot of sense. But Adams was extended first then Granato 3 weeks later. Sept 21 - Oct 12/2022. It is still a possibility but would have to be 6D tiddlywinks.

I posted this in another thread. One big thing that is becoming deeply concerning in year 4 is the Rochester Americans. This whole concept is based on drafting well, having depth in the system, retaining our own, and next man up from the minors when costs get high. Right now the Amerks are 4th in a division where 5 teams make the playoffs. 2 points out of missing the playoffs all together. They are 21st in a league where 23 teams make the playoffs. Granted they have some games in hand and I would be surprised if they miss. But it is not a good look. My tinfoil hat says that sending Levi down with some permanence has more to do with needing to secure a playoff birth for the minor team than it is about where they would rather develop the kid. I think If Rochester was winning their division Levi would be backing up UPL right now. This whole thing is a mess on a million levels and reeks of a GM who has no idea what he is doing. None. Zero.

I will take this one further, Adams should listen to anybody's offer for anybody. And that goes for every single GM in the league. Wasn't it rumored that McDavid could be had with the right offer? And he is the best player in the world. Every player has a trade value. Every.One. The disconnect and problem I have with that tweet is that we are not that far removed from Mitts telling the world the Sabres had yet to reach out to his team about an extension. Both these things can't be true at the same time. I believe Mitts on this one. You aren't just casually answering the phone about trading a guy you refuse to offer a new contract to.

The PP was sad today. This teams inability to crash the net or clear anybody from in front of theirs is embarrassing. It looks like an outright refusal to do anything but cycle the outside for some BS wrister that we inevitably lose the rebound for.

At this point I don't even need a Stanley Cup contender at this point. I would take 93 point season every year for the next 20 years, where we miss the playoffs every season and always come in at the 8 seed. As long as they played a watchable game. The entire Pegula/Sabres lifecycle has been the Dick Jauron 6-10 season on repeat. Just a bad, boring, unwatchable product with no end in sight. Where as a 6-10 Chan Gailey team or 8-8 Wade Philips team was way more entertaining to watch, cheer for, and talk about.

Here is a crazy truth that is coming true. Sorting by every teams starting goaltender/25+ games played this year, UPL is 14th in S% and 6th in shutouts on a team that literally refuses to play defense. Plus he has thrown down a crazy .937 in his lasy 10. UPL's numbers would be much higher on Boston or Colorado. The Sabres may be on the market for a goaltender, but it isn't a starter with UPL playing at a top half level. His contract won't be as cheap as we thought it would be. We are starting to run into a problem where not getting value out of Cozens, Power, Skinner could cost us UPL, Mitts, and one of Peterka/Quinn. The crazy part is that everybody's current game in the latter group is better than the formers.

It sucks for him. But also a huge part of the Adams cricism should be how absolutely mediocre the Americans are this year. I would be a little more upset if the team was a major favorite for the Calder and Kulich was the heart and sole of it all. Ultimately it sounds like he will be back in pretty short order. He adds zero value to the big club as of today and the Americans are meh right now. Hopefully he figures out the adult game soon.

I get what you’re saying. And I agree with like 95% of it. The difference is there is a difference between players and coaches. Granatos extension came after a .457 P% season. That is the 5th worst season of the Pegula era. The only worse seasons were Covid, the tank years, and Phil Housley. We extended a guy 2 years early who had coached 1 full season. ONE. And that season barely clearly the lowest bar in the league. Donnie didn’t even have a great year by Pegula standards. It didn’t make any sense. Had the extension come after last season, just a year early, I wouldn’t question it.

I just posted in this in the GDT. There is one guy in the Pegula universe who can tell him to sit down and shut up and that’s Brandon Beane. Rumor has it both him and McD have no meddling clauses in their contacts. I think if this team sells it leaves Buffalo, which I don’t want at all. So what is the next best option? Get Terry out of the building. If Beane has a guy in the Bills FO he thinks can man the ship I’d be open to him taking over as President of the now defunct Pegula Sports. My guess is that his first order of business is identifying a Head of Hockey Ops and staying out of the way to devote most of his time to the Bills. It will never happen. But it’s an idea. Just maybe a not a likely or good one. As much as I want Terry out I also want the Sabres here. And I’m not confident we can have both.

I have some complaints about the Bills staff. But honestly if Beane felt he had a guy in the wings on the football side that was lights out, I wouldn’t mind making him President of Pegula Sports. Terry trusts him. He already has the no meddling clause in his current contract, and is maybe the only guy who can pry personnel decisions from Terrys old man fingers. I am fairly confident his first move would be to find a real life hockey man and then GTFO out of the way.

This is as much in Adams as it is on Terry. It’s maybe the most accurate microcosm of Adams as a GM. Here is the timeline. 20-21: Interim HC- 9-16-3 (21 pts .375 P%) Named HC. Extended to 23-24 21-22: 32-39-11 (75 pts .453 P%) Extended 2 years to 25-26. 22-23: 42-33-7 (91 pts .555 P%). 23-24: 22-24-4 (48 pts .480P%) He extended a coach with 2 years left on his contract who not yet gotten this team to the playoffs for absolutely no reason. Just…why? There is no good reason to extend Granato when we did. None.

NFL : Saints - 20 years NBA: Kings - 16 MLB: It’s insane some of these go back to 1900. 40 years. NHL: Sabres 13 years. Whats significant about hockey is that for a portion of that over half the league makes it. Even now it is 50%. It’s tough to defend historically.

I also think the Sabres were written off last year and faced a lot of back up goaltenders. They surprised a few teams taking the night off. There was some league wide hype around Buffalo this year and they got a few teams best shots early because of it.

It’s weird we keep wearing the black/red against other black/red teams. It actually drives me crazy when it happens vs Carolina, Ottawa, etc. Should have worn the goat heads today vs STL and the home sweaters vs. Dallas. It is either complain about this or complain about our PP or inability to crash the net today.

This is the exact reason I have been stating I don't want Adams to do a gourd darn thing. A GM who is making roster decisions because of fan frustration and/or job security almost always sets franchises back 2,3,4 years. Doesn't matter if it is the NHL, NFL, or NBA. More often than not they are absolute Hail Mary's that don't work. If this is what they are thinking you need to move on from your GM yesterday. Bring somebody in who can accurately identify talent and properly construct an NHL team.

Great post. I totally agree with everything from roster management, player management, to coaching. I posted earlier in the year that I think Adams is trying to solve a tomorrow problem today with the the cap. We have enough space to go into next season with "the core". This isn't a 24-25 problem. To take what you said a step further, it will be tough to put together a full NHL roster if we hand out $6-7M deals out of the gate. That is just too many contracts even if they are good value. What I think we can do is extend Mitts, play out next season and see how these guys continue to develop. At that point we will likely have to move at least one of Cozens, Power, Mitts and walk away from one of Levi, JJP, or Quinn. The more you want to keep from one group the more you need to eliminate from the other. It would be great to get tippy-top grade-A return for every trade but I think there is actually more value in holding out here because there are 6 pieces in play in that scenario. Skinner's contract needs to go this offseason.

When we struggled at points last year (but still played entertaining hockey) and missed the playoffs by a point the feedback loop from a lot of people/posters was "that is OK. We weren't even supposed to be good this year. This is all icing, just wait!" Now this year I read stuff like "man, I wish Adams hadn't set the bar so high this year, and he told us it was another building year". If the playoffs started today, Detroit would make it and Kevyn Adams would have the second longest active playoff drought among NHL GM's.