mjd1001

Agreed.... Its not about getting a better player than Marner. 1) is what you can get with that cap space better than Marner in the playoffs (Marner has been good in the playoffs, but not $10m+ good, let alone $13m good). 2) Its also how are you improving yourself and to what degree. Suppose the player who takes Marner's minutes gives you 30% less production....but the 2nd player you get by splitting his cap hit among 2 players is 50% better than the bottom 6 guy or the 3rd pair D-man? You aren't getting the 'better player', but you are getting a better fit for your team. Now...Marner has been really productive in the regular season so you may have a net drop off in the regular season...but it isn't inconceivable that you can get a better fit in the playoffs with 2 less paid guys fitting in with the team well than you can with a "single" Marner that has not performed well recently in the post season. For example...suppose instead of paying Marner $13m per year, they can get Sam Bennett for $9m. Is Bennett as good as Marner overall? No, but in the playoffs he has peformed and played a lot better. That alone may or may not be an improvement. But what do you do with those extra $4m you are saving? Its not just signing a $4m player. It can be more than that. Lets say right now Toronto plans on paying a 2nd pair D-man $3 per year if they keep Marner. Now, you can take that $3m and ADD to $4m to it and have up to $7 free to trade or sign someone. In this theoretical example, come playoff time Toronto may be a LOT better with Bennett and a $7m D-man than they would be in the playoffs with Marner and a $3m D-man. However they do it, they have more options without Marner than they would with him and tying up all that cap space.

Its not really "for nothing". What would it take to re-sign him? $13m per year? maybe a bit less or more. If you let him 'walk away', you aren't getting nothing, you are getting that $13m per year to work with that you didn't have before. As good as he has been in the regular season, they may think they don't need him in the regular season to get to the playoffs, and for that $13m, either via free agency or trade, they can get maybe 2 good-to-very-good pieces (think a $6m guy and a $7m guy)....that they think will be better suited to help the team than Marner has been.

Matthews is not a bad player dragging the team down, but I think he is their biggest issue. You simply cannot have one of the highest paid guys (Is he THE highest paid right now) in the league that doesn't do much in the playoffs. A guy who scored at close to (or over) a 50 goal rate/pace for most of his career, scores at barely a 30 goal rate in the playoffs, and just doesn't seem to have any 'extra gear' in the playoffs like other superstars do, or if he has it he doesn't care enough to use it. Great player, but not so in the playoffs. For what he is getting paid, he needs to be more than a regular season wonder-kid.

With most of the Star wars stuff, Marvel stuff too, I watch almost all the movies and I give every single series/show 2-3 episodes to decide whether I want to watch the whole thing or not. Andor just wasn't for me. I watched the very first episode, It really did nothing for me. We gave it 2 more, after 3 episodes I gave up. Nothing, just didn't draw me in at all. I guess it just shows why people have different tastes in entertainment.

With Byram.... I'm still in somewhat of a purgatory with him. He's young, he's skilled, he has the potential to be very good I think. But I don't think he's been all that special with the Sabres. He looks the part with his skating and raw talent, I just don't see them as being a better team when he's on the ice though yet.

The Defense has not been great, but all year I have been saying in terms of goals allowed, the 6 guys on the blueline are the 3rd problem. Problems #1 and #2 were the goaltending and the support the Forwards give the D-men. Cozens singlehandedly put the D-men in situations where they looked bad on the replays of goals allowed. He's gone, but Quinn wasn't that far behind Cozens and Peterka had his moments also. Watch replays of any game, good teams included. They all allow goals and guess what? Usually about half the goals they allow on the replay has a D-man that looks like he his lost or has no idea what he is doing. Thats the NHL, a lot goes on and it happens fast? So what is the difference between good teams and bad teams? What is under-rated is the support that the forwards give the D-men. To repeat myself, D-men look bad on goals allowed, for almost every team. Good teams have forwards that help out in the D-zone or Neutral zone so the D-men are simply put in that position less often than with Buffalo. Yeah, and goaltending. The good teams have their D-men get turned around by elite forwards all the time, or they might 'choose the wrong guy' and let a good scoring chance against happen. So why do we think the Sabres D are so much worse? When those things happen, our Goalie allowed a lot more of those chances to go in. We see the replay of the D-men "not doing anything" where on many other teams the D-men play the puck the same way but if the goalie makes the save more often we don't see the replay and dwell on it as much. This D-unit isn't great, probably not even good...but I think many on this forum put more blame on them when often it should be directed other places.

I don't mind Rob Ray all that much, but if he is retiring, I'd look forward to someone new. Just something new, ANYTHING new to keep my interest for a few games.

Agreed. Someone decided a decade or two ago that a PP HAD to have 4 forwards on it, and now its just standard thinking.

I'm good with most of those...maybe not on the Quinn and Byram numbers though.

Why is Kevin Adams still GM...to answer the original question? Terry Pegula likes him. Adams lets Pegula 'feel involved and heard' when Pegula wants to be. Adams likely never tells Terry he's wrong. When things go wrong Terry can go hide in Florida and Adams is there to take all questions and defend Terry and tell the media how great Terry is as an owner. Adams is still GM for no other reason than Pegula wants it that way.

If everyone is so sure Byram is better than Power (he might be), then the league should know that and they should get a better return, especially considering he's not locked into a big deal like power.

When using the advanced analytics, you can look at it other ways also....that he performs BEST with middle-of-the Roster players or below (he 'brings their game up), and with Top of the roster players, those guys defensive production/goals allowed get worse (sometimes considerably) with Benson. -Tage with Benson on his line was a +1 goal differential (goal allowed every 18.38 minutes). Tage without Benson was a +9. (goal allowed every 20.58 minutes) -Tuch (in only a bit over 100 minutes with Benson) was a -1 differential (goal allowed every 14.79). Tuch without Benson was a +13. (goal allowed every 27.36 minutes, HUGE difference) -Peterka was a -4 in only 63 minutes with Benson (goal allowed every 7.35 minutes). Without Benson he was a +15 (goal allowed every 19.42 minutes) On the other hand: -Krebs with Benson was a +4 (goal allowed every 31.33 minutes, those numbers are great), without Benson was a +1 in more minutes. (goal allowed every 25.89 minutes) -Jack Quinn was a +3 with Benson (goal allowed every 43.4 minutes, great numbers again), without Benson he was a -10 without him (goal allowed every 16.87 minutes) When digging into that part of the analytics....Benson defensively works best with middle-to-bottom forwards, not the top line guys. Why? I don't know, it could be a statistical garbage...but that numbers are the numbers. https://www.naturalstattrick.com/linestats.php?fromseason=20242025&thruseason=20242025&stype=2&sit=5v5&score=all&rate=n&team=BUF&vteam=ALL&view=wowy&loc=B&gpfilt=none&fd=2024-10-04&td=2025-04-17&tgp=2000&strict=incl&p1=8484145&p2=8482097&p3=0&p4=0&p5=0

I'm still going Marner (although I'd droppint out of the cost is $15m per year). At this point in his career, I don't think Knies is a 'game changer' unless he is slotted perfectly with other players. I don't want to pay someone that much money unless they can carry a line (even if its a 2nd line, I don't think he 'carries' it)

I don't like Knies as much. I really think his production is a result of being on a top line...he doesn't make a top line. Meaning I think Marner can elevate other lesser players you put with him, I think Knies is the one elevated by those around him.

Ok, let me start out by saying I do not think Saumelsson is currently worth his contract. But going forward, its under 5% of the cap, he may not be worth it but that is not al albatross of a contract. Its going to be under 5% of the cap, probably by the midway point of it 4% of the cap. Can his play/career be saved? I know he can't stay healthy, but I thought as the year went on he played better, and in fact had a few pretty good games in the last month. If you can get 60 games out of him on average, he IS a pretty decent penalty killer because of his size/reach and how much area he can cover while playing his spot....and if his play can maintain the level it did toward the end of the season, or even improve slightly...well, I just don't think it should be a priority to get rid of him just because of his contract.

I'm somewhat there with you, at least for how good he is right now, I'm not as high on his game currently as some are on this board, but I think he has time to develop into a top 6 guy, but I think he needs more 'finish'. I'll feel better about his development if next season he plays a full season, gets at least 160-180 shots, and shoots 10% or over. I think those are reasonable goals for him to have to show he will eventually be a legit 2-way top 6 guy.

I can't vote, none of the choices are close to how I think. To me, it would be something like "he is a solid 3rd liner now that can fill in temporarily on a higher line, but needs to show more offensive 'finish' to make that permanent leap."

The "plus' in that would have to be something even more valuable than Pettersson. Jack Hughes also has injury issues, but when he is healthy I think he is a better player than Pettersson, certainly one that is more of a 'game changer'. And asking for his brother also? That is a heavy lift.

He looks like he plays hard. His metrics/analytics are mostly really good. Just needs to be a lot more actual production to back up that potential. He's played 2 seasons now, and is shooting under 10%, a sniper he isn't. Does he have to be? No, but if he is going to be an eventual fixture on the top 6, I want/need him taking closer to 200 shots per year instead of 100, and he has to convert on at least a BIT over 10% of them. In terms of scoring chances, the numbers are 'kinda close', but with Tage on the ice vs not on the ice with Benson: Tage's number of scoring chances per minute are higher without Benson than they are with him. Their OVERALL numbers (including defensive metrics) are better with Benson, but he still needs to develop a bit more of his offensive game to get more ice time to me. He is still very young so those issues above can easily change. But until they do, he's more of a 13-14.5 minutes per game guy (which is 3rd line minutes) than anything more than that.

I think there is an above average chance there is 'below average' movement in the franchise...the front office..the roster...everything...over the time until next season starts. If that happens, without much 'new' to talk about, and with most of us posters with our own beliefs well established, this may become a pretty quiet place over the next few months.

Of course, unless one of the 'out of shape' guys was UPL and he was really, REALLY bad with it. And who were the players who came in 'out of shape' and it hurt the team early on? -Tage had 10 goals in his first 15 games and was a +6. Doesn't seem like he was dragging out there. -Dahlin was playing through an injury in the first few games, but once he worked through that, he had 13 points in 14 games in November and was a positive player also. -Peterka had 7 goals in his first 15 games. -Tuch had 4 goals and 12 points in his first 15. A SLIGHTLY slow start from him, but I don't think he looked slow out there or lacking effort. -Zucker or Greenway? Aren't those the 2 veteran guys that know better? -Mcleod had 4 goals in his first 15 games. He wasn't getting much ice time early in the year, was the because he was one of the guys 'out of shape'? He just came from the team that was in the cup finals. Through Thanksgiving the first month and a half of the season, this team had a winning record, they were in a playoff spot, They had 23 points in 21 games, a 90 point pace. If they were out of shape, why did they start the season 'relatively' good and then fall part NOT at the beginning of the season, but 2 months into it? I mean, you lost 5 of your first 6, but that was only 6 games and you recovered from that, things got bad much later. I'm not saying for sure they weren't out of shape, but I'm not 100% buying it...I think its more of an excuse to throw out there. And another thing, why the heck am I up at 4:30 in the morning posting this?

I'm not sure why that would get Pegula or Adams upset?

I still think the "palm trees and taxes" thing is code for "We don't want to spend that much money to attract guys". If you are already good, or if you pay up, players will play where there is high taxes and no palm trees (See the Rangers the last few years before this year, or Winnipeg now, or the Bills for that matter"

I do. Sports for some of us is not always rooting for the playoffs. Some of us can have fun watching an individual game, rooting for an individual player we like to reach a milestone or to have some kind of achievement. So to answer the question you asked, not everyone, but a lot of us do.

Some people just watch sports for different reasons, and don't take it as seriously as others. It has nothing to do with the Stockholm syndrome. As a matter of fact, I would say that those who use that term as you have above are doing so to try not to be victims of it themselves. To those of us who view each game as entertainment, there isn't much more to it than that. There are no REAL victims here...we all have the option to not go to games, to not buy the merchandise, to not watch the games on TV. But there are some people that actually do enjoy it because they don't take it too seriously.