Thorny

I’ve never seen it at quite this level

The sabres thinking they can address the roster in “typical” fashion remains a massive problem. I’ve said this countless times The sabres have needed a defibrillator for over 5 years. You can’t put yourself in a 14 year hole, disenfranchise your entire roster and fanbase over the last 5 years specifically, and pretend “a couple small “savvy” moves” are all the team needs. I admire the fact of how much of an incredible outlier you are in how much you expect of them, but you almost professionally remove context from your thinking as a choice; I just happen to do the opposite. No right or wrong there just stylistic. the team that’s been a drastic failure needs a drastic effort. You fall more along the lines of “well, just do what some of the other teams have done”. it doesn’t work like that imo: the solution needs to be sabres relative not relative to teams we’ve already showed we have failed to replicate “Well we more less did what Ottawa did and it doesn’t always fail when that happens” is just so woefully short to the point of insulting raise your expectations. We should be expecting nothing less than a roster that RIGHT now looks like a SAFE, SAFE bet to make the playoffs you were posting 2 years ago about how “come on people, don’t be afraid to expect something now!” The moves we’ve made this offseason are insultingly laughable through the prism of last offseason, if I had told you this is what they’d do after finishing with 70 something points you know that

Ya your take is fine, I just disagreed with the bit where you said you expect Benson to be a “very good” top 6 player with 40 points minimum etc. To me a “very good” top 6er is a borderline first liner and I don’t feel comfortable labeling Benson as that yes, even if he has the skills to one day be it Maybe I’m crazy but if the goal is a playoff team, not even the standard, not even the expectation given missing 14 years, just the goal: all 3 of my first liners are bonafide first liners, not 2 guys who are and 1 who may be because of them I’m sure there will be an excellent follow up post from someone explaining to me why benson is actually better than the 2nd LWer on every team to make the playoffs in the last decade, and how no one on the team is actually out of place besides the goalie or something. But ya to me there never seem to be enough purported holes and disadvantages to add up to the record, with the amount that get discarded over the course of your average summer probably the result of a multitude of coin-flips spread throughout the roster, where they can conceivably all individually go right, but the combination of them all doing so mathematically very unlikely

Not really in love with the poll options. Probably closest to 1, but it’s not something I necessarily expect to unfold this season that the sabres are counting on it necessarily, for success, on that sort of time frame, when he’s 19 or whatever isn’t a commentary on being a beaten down fan if one finds difficulty in predicting it: it’s a commentary on the fact it’s an objective gamble

I was just thinking today, after taking a bit of a break.. I can’t believe we didn’t do anything this offseason with management, or with coaching, or really even with the roster (you know what I mean, seriously. I get it, Doan. Ya.) No other point here. Just wanted to say it again. I just feel it’s important- cause it’s not just something we say: they truly are absurd.

Jays.

A lot of it stems from the fact ownership and management have different aims in priority than the fan base. It’s a little less, “I’m a hockey wizard!” - Terry Pegula, than people think and a little more “Come in on budget, and don’t build a roster so bad that playoffs look like an impossibility.” their whole thing is plausible deniability.

Yup. I’m sorry, do the sabres think they’ve earned the right to approach their offseason like the teams that *haven’t* been a dumpster fire for half my life? are you kidding me? Their specific situation needs addressing: they are an anomaly and need an anomalific approach to rise from the ashes I have now maintained this viewpoint for…6 seasons the solution to saving the team needs to be proportionally extreme to the tact that put us in the hole. Otherwise they essentially cannibalize any progress they make by timing their own players out. They have to get off the treadmill

I think we did ok relative to the teams around us, but absolutely putrid relative to what should be expected of a team that’s missed 14 straight

Tage isn’t bad defensively tho. A superstar is great offence and merely ok D. I think people forget that sometimes Great offence and great D is prime Crosby

Next up on the tee: Lafferty Daniel…and Gilmore, Happy

I do think Kesselring is going to be really good. I’d predict it to follow a predictable pattern like almost eveything Adams does. His list of (positive) impact moves is sorely lacking, and he tends to be so one-track-minded he can only do one thing. But the “one thing”, see: McLeod, Zucker, etc, usually does seem to turn out pretty well

Link?

Bump up in role could indeed work.

Hey where the heck is @Marvin

I rest my case i’ll let your fantastic posts re: what Benson contributed last year as my evidence for why this is unlikely and a poor way to contract a team with an eye on securing winning

For the sake of argument let’s say Benson’s offence drops off precisely zero when compared to JJ’s. Goals, assists, all of it. Benson steps in and *is* JJ at F, with the same old good D he provided last year who did we add that is the new Benson? Or rather, provides what Benson did last year? We can’t use him twice in the calc: remember, Benson is Peterka’s offence now. We didn’t lose Benson’s D, either. But we need to replace Bensons O now

Which new player that we added at F is as good of a rush creator, and which F that we added is as good as he is at playmaking, whatever level you’ve determined that to be? Is Peterka’s playmaking regimen replacement level? Is his playmaking “not as good as the numbers might suggest”, or is it “replacement level and thus negligible to the success of the team”. this is the discrepancy I see

No I am saying it outright - I don’t think anyone in line to replace him will be as good of a playmaker. Certainly the forward additions we made won’t be I’m not interested in delving into our “we can expect improvement” stock when considering the loss of Peterka. When we are a 79 point team - we need all of that we can get allotted to simply the improvement we *already needed* That’s *had we kept* Peterka It’s not only frivolous because it’s counting on a maybe, it’s frivolous because we are assigning “internal improvement” to so many places we’ve forgotten we are only about to win fraud bingo

These are great numbers But I was referring to front runners though in the sense that we tended to win by a lot, and lose by less. Ie a lot of the goals came in games we didn’t technically need them whether struggling in tighter games is a negative stat has always been an interesting point of discussion. The way we’ve seen the offense move around year over year combined with the overall result lands my bias firmly at “area of concern”.

Yes, Tage will still score some. But I would wager my house that Peterka’s assists being completely removed knocks down at least a few of the goal columns of other players It is only Peterka’s goals being removed in our calculations. None of his teammates are having his goals taken away. You don’t need to remove one for every assist, but we are removing zero Equally erroneous It goes both ways - Peterka’s goals were indeed aided by the assists he was the benefactor of, too: but I don’t see a reason to suspect Peterka’s offence was any more empty-calorie than than the majority of our forwards

I’ll always leave the nitty gritty to the smarter folk like you all I am presenting to the board is the idea that I believe what JJ contributed on the playmaking front deserves some consideration rather than nothing at all: and I do not see it being considered when it’s routinely oversimplified to “goals.” There is certainly also a playmaking and offence facilitating production gap between Peterka and Doan that also needs to be accounted for i do not believe the apt consideration would be “replacement level” re: JJ’s playmaking.

Tom is right that the fans uphold the true nature of the crest far more substantially than any executive. I always say it: we were here long before them, and we will be here long after they’ve gone on to their next money making opportunity. The frustration with the sabres is that they’re no more striking juxtaposition in sports between how throughly a franchise and its fans need and deserve winning relative to the lack of effort on the part of ownership and management

Can’t help but think it looks much better with Tage at C

Absolutely. We are always trying to attach meaning to the moves Adams makes because we are full of more intelligent people who care more about the team and actual success it’s all a contruct. We know for a fact there was no plan to trade JJ until he asked for it and they were happy to oblige. The plan so far as it exists doesn’t prioritize the same aims we do I can’t believe this still needs to be said. The vision of how the deal could work is ours, not the team