LGR4GM

I love the part about pissing off your scouts. Never heard anyone talk about Vegas doing that and they trade prospects and picks. No one said it after Holtz trade about NJD. Speaking of that Holtz trade, how come no one bashes that? Maybe they did and I missed it. He was a ppg player in the AHL at 20. Got 1 full year in the NHL, was traded for Paul Cotter another 24yr old C/W. Cuz his 1 NHL year was bad we know what he is? It is essentially the exact same trade Buffalo did. Former rw 7th overall pick for a 24yr old center, very little reaction and grumbling. Former rw 9th overall pick for a 25yr old center, entire internet melts down.

B4 the league folds?

Yes. Yes it would. Mainly because that's only 50 minutes of ice time Edit: just so it's clear, I'm joking

"At some point, the Yzerplan must result in the Red Wings' return to the playoffs." Lol, that's not how anything works.

And yet Cozens played better with Quinn, Benson, and Peterka than he did with Greenway or Tuch. Good news, this year the Cozens line will be 23, 23, and 19! So progress?

Cozens problem last year was playing 236mins with Greenway and their 41.05xGF% just woof. Also Cozens with Tuch is ugly. 83mins and a 40.93xGF% just woof woof.

I have never disagreed with something so much... today at least... than this post. Jack Quinn is already producing more than Peterka in terms of pts per game and in terms of pts/60. Suggesting that Cozens wasn't good because he had to drag Quinn around the ice is just hogwash and Quinn will be taking a big step because he already took it. Benson, you could put Benson next to a drunken Mikhail Grigorenko and Benson would be just fine. Your hinting at that Cozens has had to do the heavy lifting and isn't lucky enough to play with veteran Alex Tuch. Cozens is also getting the 2nd defense pairing most nights while Tage and Tuch take on teams #1. Also let us discuss this bolded part. Last year is what I will focus on. In 2023-24 Dylan Cozens played 67mins at 5v5 with Benson and Quinn. It is barely enough to even use the stats but their xGF% is 54.14 which is pretty solid. CF% was 48.89, less good for sure. Now Cozens with Benson comes out at 54.42cf% and 51.24xGF%, not awful but you can see there is drop when Quinn isn't that 3rd winger. Let's check on Quinn with Cozens and no Benson, we get 51.53cf% and a 53.76xGF% so again we see a bit of a dip in xgf but a slightly better corsi. My point being that Dylan Cozens hasn't been pulled down by his linemates. Quinn and Benson have been pretty good and reliable for him. Quinn and Peterka even more so because in 23-24 that line combined for 127minutes and a 52.08cf% and a 57.76xGF%. You are implying that Cozens has to prop these players up because they haven't reached their full potential but Jack Quinn is already better than Peterka and Cozens immediately looked better about Quinn's return (Adams should sign Quinn now, right now IMO). Benson didn't get a lot of counting stats, he got 0 PP time which is a main reason why, but he was perfectly able to be a middle 6 winger last year and at the end of the year when he did play with Cozens, he was pretty good. I don't understand your worry at all. Jack Quinn is a top 6 winger and barring injury (yea yea ik) is going to be a player taking that next step. Zach Benson eats nails and pees napalm while running carnival rides in the desolate wastelands of post-apocalyptic Canada. I would be absolutely floored if he didn't make a jump in points this season. Either way, Cozens is running with two wingers that play 200ft games, are very intelligent, have excellent tools, and importantly are very good checkers. I suppose I could be quibbling over "that next step" but Quinn took it, ppl just haven't realized it yet and Benson not taking it would be a bit surprising and he can be bumped out by Zucker or Kulich or Peterka as needed. In the end, I think Cozens has the wingers necessary to survive and take whatever his next step will be.

If the Sabres run the pp like this it will fail again. They need to learn to rotate, stop getting anchored into spots, and getting the puck below the goal line and playing it outwards from there. Rotation and movement are the key, everyone is a bumper, everyone is a trigger.

Good write-up. Wahlberg is already here just a note. He's slated to play in Rochester this season.

On June 14th before Skinner was bought out or the draft had happened, when we were all bemoaning the complete lack of vertebrae this team seemed to have, I asked a question about who on this team was actually a gritty player. Well, 1 month later it is time to revisit that because the times, they are a changin. The defense stayed the same for the most part so I won't rehash that but how have the forwards changed? Last month the grittiest guys were: Zach Benson Jordan Greenway Dylan Cozens But now that Buffalo has added a bunch of new faces, how do you feel now? Is Buffalo going to be able to play a more gritty playoff style of hockey?

Speaking of lineup stuff, around here Dylan Cozens gets roasted constantly for not being a #2 center. I also some say things about Detroit being ahead of Buffalo. Both of these might be true but I just want to toss out that Detroit's #2 center is JT Compher who had 19g, 29a, 48pts last year. Cozens 18g, 29a, 47pts. Compher is 29 and Cozens is 23. Maybe we aren't so poor at 2c as we think, especially when I think last years Cozens wasn't the real version.

I am going to lock this. Maybe we need a new thread with all the new adds? I have to run but if anyone is board... The 3 grittiest forwards ended up as: Zach benson Jordan Greenway Dylan Cozens The 2 grittiest defenders ended up as: Connor Clifton Rasmus Dahlin Wonder how much those forward rankings would change right?

The Capitals actually draft decently well. Not great but they don't do dumb things with their first round picks, or their 2nd round picks. If Buffalo had managed even that since 2014 we would not be where we are. It all comes back to drafting poorly, something Buffalo needed to fix as early or even before 2005. From 2005 to 2011, the Buffalo Sabres drafted 52 players of which 12 managed to play 200 NHL games and only 2 managed to be impact players (.25pts for def and .5pts for forwards). That means only 23% of the players we drafted made it to 200 games and only 4% Were what we could call top 6/7 or top 4 players (before you yell at me, I know that defenders can be below .25ppg and still be impactful but I needed a cutoff and that was a reasonable one. It does not exclude any defender that we would otherwise consider amazing based on non-pts related play). For those wondering why I picked 2011 it is not simply because that was the last time Buffalo made the playoffs, it is to demonstrate the underlying rot that was in place before any decisions to rebuild had occurred. By the time Buffalo lost in 2011, the pipeline was a depleted and barren mess with almost no quality to speak of and since the lead time for most NHL guys is 5 years, we were already terminal by the time we reach the 2012 draft. There was nothing outside of aggressive trading that would have salvaged the team. Darcy Regier was not capable of doing that and the lack of pipeline only hindered that effort anyway. Darcy also had the 2012 and 2013 drafts. I separated them out because I think they require a little context. In 2012 the Sabres managed to get 200 games from 4 of the 8 players they picked, which is pretty good. The issue? 1 of them is an impact player the rest are not. Linus Ullmark is the only player in the 2012 draft that is a true impact player, although I could see an argument for Jake McCabe who sits at that .25ppg threshold so let's include him. Buffalo getting 2 impact players was good! The issue is that both their first rounders are replacement level types of guys and both of them were forwards, Grigs and Girgs. But we still got 2 impact players which brings us to 2013 where Buffalo drafted 11 times and managed to get 3 players with 2 impact players in JT Compher and Ristolainen. Zadorov we could argue also should count but he's more of a useful 4/5 defender and falls below the threshold. That's great! Except that JT Compher the only forward here doesn't matter, because he gets traded by Tim Murray before ever playing for Buffalo. In the 2 years prior to GMTM Buffalo has actually managed to suck less at drafting. They go from an abysmal 4% impact rate to a nice 16%. They go from a 23% hit rate to a nice 37%. Issue being we have 3 defenders, 1 goalie, and a forward who wont be on the team. We roll into 2014 with just crap developing at forward. The Murray years. First, the decision to draft Nylander over Sergachev, to this day is one of the worst drafting decisions not only in Sabres history but in NHL history. True stupidity. Anyways, Murray comes away for his 3 drafts with a record of 24% 200 games and 16% impact players. He made 25 total picks and 4 of them matter but guess what? There's a catch. 2 of Murray's hits are Reinhart and Eichel so.. duh. The other 2 are also forwards which is good. Victor Olofsson is a great 7th round draft pick. The other one? Hagel, a guy that Murray's predecessor would castoff like trash. So he drafted 4 but only 3 ended up playing for Buffalo. He also traded Compher which would have been fine if ROR wasn't traded after 3 years. See the issue we have here is not that he traded for things, it is that he traded a lot for things that didn't stay very long. Murray's time as GM hurt the Sabres. Jason Botterill did something stupid when he didn't sign Hagel but outside of that we get another bump in drafting. 33% of his picks end up with 200 games and 28% of them are impact guys which is kinda good. Mittelstadt and UPL we can say are impact players. Cozens, impact player, Dahlin and Muel, impact players. Here, finally after over a decade of subpar drafting with only 1 or 2 outlier years, we get 3 decent years on top of eachother. If Ryan Johnson ever becomes something, then it is truly a nice era of drafting. Remember the 5 years lead time? Well these are the guys who have crossed that line and many make up the core (Cozens, Dahlin, Muel, and maybe UPL). We can say the Dahlin pick was easy but there are no 1st round misses in here and the 2nd round guys are starting to look better too. Botterill would probably have kept his job without the "lifestyle maintenance" the Pegula's needed. Finally, the only draft we can truly judge yet of the Adams era is the 2020 draft. 5 picks and he hit and hit well on 2 of them. Here we are fudging the numbers a touch because neither Quinn nor Peterka have 200 games but both are over our point threshold and barring injury should get really close to our game mark this year. These are 2 impact players and they make the 2020 draft well worth it. Again Buffalo has managed to hit on the 1st rounder and the 2nd. Good stuff. The point of all this writing is to show you the history of the Sabres drafting problem that starts basically from the 2005 season and continued well into 2016. In 52 picks from 2005-2011, Buffalo had an abysmal impact player drafting rate of 4% and that cost them most of the support Eichel could have had in 2015 or 2016. The 3 players they get in 2012 and 2013 are all defenders or goalies so again, the forwards are just not what we need. Trades help that a bit but there was simply no pipeline of young impactful talent developing until you really get all the way to 2017 and then 2019 and 2020. We are talking Ennis, Foligno, and that's it for 2005 to 2017. I am excluding Reinhart and Eichel because any gm could have made those picks and frankly they needed more support coming up with them. We simply couldn't trade from our bad pool to fill all the holes that the bad pool had created. 2020 might be a turning point in the long run. Not because of Adams specifically, I think we have enough evidence against him to give him too much credit, but specifically because they got 2 impact forwards in the same draft. I think 2021 might end up as a very meh draft for the Sabres, there isn't a lot there that is exciting or showing signs of being impactful. 2022 gives me more hope and 2023 and 2024 do as well. There's a chance we get 2 impact players from each of the 2023 and 2024 drafts (Benson, Helenius, ???) and maybe a few 200 gamers in there too (looking at all the RHD defenders and Novikov). If Buffalo can dial it in (23 and 24 look like they finally got there) then instead of looking at 2020-2025 and saying "oh man, Buffalo missed on so many picks and it basically poisoned the well" I hope we can say that Buffalo hit on enough impact players that the pool stayed healthy enough for us to plug holes via trade or via promotion. Certainly from 2005-2011, we couldn't say that and I would argue from 2005-2016 we can't. To retool you need tools; Buffalo spent a decade with a pair of rusty pliers and some paper clips trying to fix up their car and couldn't understand why they could trade those things to get the parts they needed.

27.06g and 30.34a would be Jack Quinn's per 82 game pace if he maintained his scoring rates from last year.

First, no need to be personal like that. Second, I never said he'd be a star, just that Adams addressed the top 4. We'll see like all moves if it works.

Oooo, that tracks. I didn't follow. Idk if I Agree. Depends on Samuelsson

What? You claim he needed a top 4 addition. He already made it though. You don't get to ding him because he did it in March not July. Idk what the bold means.

Adams addressed top 4 defensive help, Byram.

This assumes they will make playoffs and be competitive based on these moves. We'll see.

My guess, he plays the right side which isn't a top 6 need. His possession metrics are questionable. He isn't particularly hard on the forecheck, and without knowing, probably isn't part of that Fast/Physical/Ferocity package that all the rest of their recent signings hint at. I think they probably like Greenway at 3 RW over a guy like Sprong.

I think Washington has had a good offseason, but I don't see or understand why Buffalo should look at it for anything. Washington made moves they had to, you could argue Adams had to make moves last year and refused. I would agree there, that he is far too slow on the uptake. That all said, Washington sucked last year, they just were able to get loser points. Recognizing they wanted to get better and making trades to do so is almost exactly what Adams did this offseason as well. PLD is the only significant move that Adams could have paralleled, and I think everyone wants him to add a top 6 forward.

While I agree that Adams is too static, I don't understand the reference to Washington. Buffalo didn't need a Logan Thompson, or either of the defenders listed, I suppose Roy would be nice but he wasn't signing in Buffalo and I don't want a soon to be 30yr old defender for 6 years. The team is 14mil over the cap and even with LTRI of Backstrom, they have a bit of work to do. I wouldn't trade a pack of peanuts for constantly disgruntled PLD. A guy who is on his 4th team after forcing his way off 3 others. Chychrum they will need to re-sign but Buffalo has Byram now so that is moot. I guess I just don't see anything that Washington did that is super amazing and masterful. They traded for a guy I don't want anywhere near my team in PLD. Roy they most likely overpaid by a couple of years but still that is nice. Chyrchum, we don't need because we already traded for Byrum. Logan Thompson we don't need because we already have UPL and added Reimer. I guess Mangipane is their best move and I do wish Buffalo was in on that. Meanwhile Adams analyzed his roster and decided the entire bottom half of it needed to be changed and then went and added Malestyn, Rafferty, Kubel, McLeod, and Zucker. The only thing that Adams has yet to do is add a true top 6 option. Personally, I think Buffalo's offseason and Washington's are comparable but I like ours slightly more because we traded less and aren't stuck with someone like PLD for another 7 years.

Well he would not be on Jukerit but would be on Tappara this year anyways. Tappara, I think, were league champions last year so they are fairly good. Could do that, I am not opposed to it at all. I want Helenius in Rochester so I can watch him more and because I want him adapting to NA ice ASAP.

Oh god and then there is Östlund who is a center. Man, is this team prospect rich at forward.