GASabresIUFAN

Let’s say for arguments sake that Adams manages to acquire Petterson and Cozens is part of the package. What is the spine next year? The following “centers” will be under contract or control: TnT, Pettersson, Kulich, McLeod, Krebs, Lafferty and Kozak. Does Kulich’s ascension make McLeod expendable or do we shift one of TNT or Kulich to wing to keep all the centers?

The sad part was they believed the lie they were peddling.

On this terrible team.

Indiana won the NCAA basketball championship my junior year (1987) and UGA just won 2 Natty’s in football. The Braves won the WS a few years ago as well. Only my Buffalo teams seem to be lagging, although my Hoosiers need to fix the basketball team.

Just in time to be traded for a 2nd rd pick in 2027.

No question he hasn't made enough or even the right deals, but he has made some piss poor deals as well.

I assume you mean the Van article suggested trade. I agree it is a workable framework. The money is close (about 2 mill more heading to Van). Soucy does have a full NTC which makes the deal harder.

Correct.

That's this whole situation. There is nothing concrete and it's all speculation. What would you place the odds of Adams getting a deal done for Pettersson or any high end player?

That’s entirely possible. Depends on how much he wants out of Van and what teams are interested in him. For Van management both players are probably not available. It’s likely an either or situation unless they are truly going to clean house. If they are cleaning house, then who knows. My proposal to take both stems from getting the money to work. The 2 centers have a 19 mill liability. If we can get them to take Cozens plus Power, that’s a $15 mill liability, allowing Van to get younger and cheaper. Then we flip Miller. This then drops our liability from 19 back down to 11. The key is how quickly can we flip Miller. I fully admit that this scenario is unlikely, but not impossible. Given the size of the contracts involved cap $ coming and going are going to be a huge factor in getting a deal done. https://thecanuckway.com/what-the-canucks-should-get-from-sabres-in-potential-elias-pettersson-trade Here is a trade proposal from a Canuck point of view. Cozens, Power & Benson for Pettersson, Soucey and a prospect Lekkerimaki. This isn’t awful, but Benson is too much. I also don't have much interest in Lekkerimaki. He is a talented forward, but very similar to everyone else in our pipeline. I do like adding Soucey to our defense.

I take both and then trade Miller. Isn’t that clear from my post?

Yes, as we can afford to retain some salary, but it also doesn’t matter. We need to re-imagine this roster and this is a place to start.

How about Cozens, Power, McLeod & Rosen for Petterson and JT Miller with a promise to Miller to flip him again by the deadline?

Do I want Adams to make roster decisions? Of course not. A real organization would have fired him before the new year. However, TP isn't firing his lapdog and odds are he is going to be the GM next year as well. Sadly, he is going to be making the decisions this deadline and again this off-season. The best we can hope for is that he has learned something the last few years and makes at least a deal or two that make some sense. Here are Adams' last 4 trades of note 1) McLeod and Tullio for Savoie - Savoie, a former top 10 pick, turned into a cost control middle six center. While I'm not a McLeod fan, this is not a terrible trade. Savoie was past on the organizational depth chart by Benson and others. 2) Malenstyn for a 2nd rd pick (43rd) - Wash drafts Cole Hutson with the pick (ouch). Stupid waste of a good asset for a easily replaced player, but at least Malenstyn has played his role well. 3) Draft pick swap - Our 11th for SJS's 14th and 42nd. SJ takes Dickinson and the Sabres draft Helenius and Kleber (Cole Hutson went next to Wash with our pick). This is a reasonable trade down and Helenius is probably our top prospect. 4) Mitts for Byram - From an asset to asset trade, the deal is "fine," except the deal was done to save $ rather than improve the roster. Byram is a redundant asset who we basically saved money on for one season and then have to re-sign (for more than Colo paid Mitts) or trade and we gave up our best playmaking center with no viable replacement on the roster.

Because these are the questions good organizations ask when they evaluate their team.

Given the EP rumors and discussions, I thought I’d bump this topic and ask again, who do we feel are part of the solution and who are the problem on the ice? Who are you willing to part with and who is a definite no. I’d divide our current organization as follows: Top players - TNT, Tuch, Dahlin Young roster players with more upside - Benson, Quinn, JJP, Kulich, Power and Byram (and maybe Krebs) Young vets - Cozens, McLeod, Samuelsson, UPL Good Vets on expiring contracts -Zucker and Greenway Roster filler - Lafferty, Kubel, Joki, Malenstyn, Bryson, Reimer and Gilbert Top prospects - Top 5 pick, Helenius, Good prospects nearing ready - Rosen, Wahlberg, Levi, Östlund, Novikov, maybe Neuchev. Other close prospects - Kozak and Johnson and Komarov. Johnson and Kozak are here because of limited NHL upside. So that’s what we got to trade. They aren’t burning it down again, so who are willing to keep?

Miller is a much more likely deadline trade move for Van than EP imho. Cozens, Byram and Quinn all are on their trade list.

Would you rather keep Benson or get Misa or Martone in the draft? They are going to want a young cost controlled talented forward who is NHL ready. The options on the high end are our top 5 pick, then Benson or JJP, then Quinn and Kulich, followed by Helenius, and Rosen. I love Benson’s game but we need to keep the top 5 pick.

There are clearly some kind of spending limitations. There is no way the team trades Mitts and buys out Skinner to save real $ and then doesn't replace them except with cheaper and historically less productive players. Last season we were paying Skinner, Mitts, VO, KO, Z, Jost and Robinson $24.85 million. Their replacements, Zucker, McLeod, Lafferty, Kubel, Malenstyn and Kulich are earning 12.83 (plus 1.44 in dead cap for Skinner).

https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/sabres-showing-interest-in-canucks-elias-pettersson/ Take this for what it's worth. Friedman "knows" the teams have talked and thinks Van may have an interest in Cozens and/or Byram and the Sabres may have an interest in Pettersson, but he he has no idea whether any of those 3 players are actually in discussions between the two teams. For all we know the Sabres may have an interest in the other Elias Pettersson, a 6'3 209 lbs LHD drafted by Van in 2022, who was just called up by Van from the AHL.

Come on folks, what are the odds of Adams completing a deal like this for any price? Honestly, I doubt even Adams would be stupid enough to trade a top 5 pick, but given how well managed this team is, I wouldn’t put anything past him which is why I put forth the Power and pick idea. I also think Cozens and Byram won’t be enough to get the deal done. Van is trying to save money. They won’t want the 14-15 million liability that comes with those two players. I could see Power and Benson for Pettersson. If Van is moving on from Miller and Pettersson, they are going to want some real forward talent back. They may not think anyone in the Sabres system brings that except our top 5 pick. Van’s pick is 12th currently. Maybe the deal includes a swap of 1sts. Friedman can report what he wants, but I don’t see Adams pulling off the deal.

Sure, why not. Power and our top 5 pick.

Love Misa's offense, but Martone is the only Tkachuk kind of guy in the early draft and brings the O as well. We need to size and power upfront

Aube-Kubel. He hasn't played since 12/17. Send him down on a conditioning assignment or waive him out-right. If he gets claimed TP gets to save some $. Works for everyone.

That's not exactly a high bar to climb over. Kulich outplayed Cozens. Kozak outplays Cozens when in town. Even Krebs has outplayed Cozens of late.