Drag0nDan

There were some good players exposed. Domi, Namestnikov, Drouin, Duchene/Johansen, Voracek, Vanacek(who they traded back for a 2nd round pick), and Tarasenko. Honestly - they were like 1 season further along and teams were able to plan more effectively than the Vegas one. Teams also incented them heavily to take certian players which looking back was not wise. Anaheim - to keep vatanen gave them theodore to take stoner. Columbus - Gave up a ton to make them take Karlsson. Korpisalo and Anderson were who they protected. Florida - Marchessault and Smith for a 5th round pick. Minnesota - Tuch and Haula for a 3rd round pick. Protect Dumba. Islanders - Brannstrom a 2nd and others to take Berube. Brannstrom was the trade chip for Mark Stone. They wanted to protect nelson and Dehan. Winnipeg - Sent them the first they used on suzuki. That was the chip to get Pacioretty. Some serious mistakes were made there.

This is the way.

bush league move. And I've honestly seen enough to never see him play again.

The bills make money... I'm not really sure the Sabres have during this entire stretch. It's hard to justify millions of dollars in training staff, equipment, facilities - when it is hitting an already negative bottom line. The stadium itself is probably among the worst facilities in the league as well.

I mean... hes 4th on the team in scoring. 2nd in even strength assists. The majority of his ice time has been played with girgs, murray, and cozens - not the thompsons, skinners, and tuchs of the team. I'm not saying extend the guy but this season, he has NOT been the problem.

I'm sure there's a chart out there for it - but it felt like under RK all the shots were coming outside the slot... leading to lower shooting %s. Probably somewhat true - but we can still hope that levi turns into a stud. If that's the case then the trade was definitely worth it.

The problem to me this year: Goaltending obviously Injuries just causing constant lineup shuffling Power play - Olofssons regression has been brutal. Good to see they're trying some new combinations with all the lineup changes. Bottom 6 - they don't need to score a ton but they aren't controlling play at all Defense - Inconsistencies from Dahlin on down. Some of the guys have been flat out bad. Prow was terrible, Hagg has been pretty poor, butcher is brutal in his own end The Bills Tommy Sweeney missed all of the 2020 season with Covid as well.

Well Okposo is a sunk cost at this point. He was a poor signing and did not provide return on investment in relation to his contract. However he's played fine this year in the middle 6. He's spent time with a lot of players, but his most common linemates have been cozens and girgensons and he's 4th on the team in scoring. I suppose you could trade girgensons but I find him to be a fine bottom 6 winger. He can play center in a pinch, plays PK, can play PP in a pinch if you want a wall/net guy with the 2nd unit. He's chipped in 7 goals too.

I mean who knows - completely uncharted territory here. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-long-term-effects/art-20490351 Breathing issues Focus and dizziness issues Heart rate issues Fatigue issues Muscle and Joint pain All of which can be exacerbated with any level of physical exertion. They don't want him to pass out or worse on the ice, he needs to be back to 100%.

In any case - i agree a better training staff should be inbound. They cut bait on a lot of long time sabres staff in the last 2 years, and definitely tried to get leaner to actually get somewhere closer to profitable. They've added some guys around scouting and analytics. Stadium updates are definitely needed soon, the place is so depressing and old. Training staff/equipment would be also be a wise way to help lure free agents, and generally keep your team on the ice (it certainly worked for the bills).

Yeah. You never know what the injuries are - but 4 lower body injuries that could easily be things like hamstrings or something. These are usually fairly preventable. The goalie injuries are the weird one, why so many injuries in 2 years? I know tokarski is covid so... nothing you can do there. It sounded like andersons was a stray puck that missed the neck guard or something. Not sure on UPL and Subban's injuries though. Mitts was a wrist slash - no amount of training prevents that. Okposo was hit awkwardly in the boards - no amount of training can prevent that. Ton of lost games to covid. Just an absolute mess of a year... but no one expected this team to be playoff bound anyway.

Okposo... Girgs... maybe Bryson

Getting to that time where moving miller might make sense - but there is like no one capable in the system on the right at the moment. Should be a priority trade/free agent target.

Agreed - i still wanna go and boo him the whole time. It's a tradition!

Who do you think works best with Dahlin? Pysyk maybe? Or is this guy possibly (probably) not on the roster yet?

I usually look at it like in the NHL its faster, and space is harder to come by. Skating and shooting needs to happen faster - and you need to create space. You can't stickhandle through NHL defenses as easily, and while shooting/stickhandling/skating are the big traits you want in a 1st round pick he never seemed to develop an overall game. Those traits are the raw skills, but how you use your stickhandling as an NHL player is a lot different sometimes than what you did in Juniors. A lot of this is learning what to do when you don't have the puck on your stick. I always noticed this with pominville in his second year, he found a way to put himself into better areas. You also need to improve along the walls, as a ton of NHL hockey occurs there. If you can't forecheck, or keep the puck in the zone you won't see a ton of ice time - coaches want to tilt the ice to the offensive end. You also need to backcheck effectively to get put on lines with quality players, as getting out in transition is another way to tilt the ice in your favor. So without having watched him in some time, my guess is along the lines of these things. A couple of injuries hurt him too.

I have to assume Brysons back if they're making this move.

Yeah - free agency isn't where you build a team anyway. Too much term on overpaid players. Better off doing a better job with the players you have.

Thompson - Mitts - cozens - Skinner - Olof - Okposo - Asplund - Tuch - Girgensons is 9. I only count 3 guys who kill penalties in the group, so its tough to bring up 3 rookies who don't. They may need to make a move or two within that group - but it wouldn't be for picks.

I'd like to see Krebs brought up sooner rather than later. Mitts is hurt for likely long term, Eakin stinks, girgensons has moved back and forth on center and wing, and hayden is playing nightly... there's room. Quinn has mono so he's going to be out for a bit. I vote krebs since we need C's anyway.

While i see what you're saying - the losing of the fan base didn't just happen because we hired Adams. It is more to do with the last 15 years of failures. As for finishing bottom 5 in the league 2 years in a row - yes thats bad. However this team also has the lowest payroll in the NHL. JB and GMTM managed to finish dead last with one of the highest payrolls in the league. Hell - Housley/JB finished dead last with Eichel, O'reilly, Kane, Okposo, lehner, and reinhart. As for hitting pegula in the wallet - the team has insanely low season ticket numbers. They also aren't giving away tickets to brokers to then flip for 10 bucks. While it inflated the attendance numbers it didn't really line the pockets of the organization. Adams has turned the team over to more of an analytics approach rather than a bunch of road scouts who were terrible at their job (a lot of draft mistakes in the last 10 or so years, and those guys were still getting paychecks). The team has been losing money since Pegula bought them, Adams helped lean it out a bit over the last 2 years. I'm not sure they should totally buy the vision - but you can't expect the team to be better when you trade the #1C #1W and #1D out.

He's certainly earned that right. and once anderson is back you can send tokarski down if UPL has become the starter.

He played over this year and it was probably his worst stretch of hockey under Granato. Aside from maybe the 1st period of the seattle game Time to make some trades and sign some free agents

I think UPL is playing pretty well at the moment. Tokarski has had his moments but occasionally he puts up a stinker as well. Dell is worthless and should be waived. Subban might be a capable backup or AHL starter. Anderson's availability is a big question mark. It's so in flux with injuries/covid, and buffalo spends such a pathetically little amount of money on it that I wouldn't really hate it if they brought him in tbh.

2 starts where he played fine - 2 not so fine but not inherently bad, 1 bad, and 1 where apparently he pissed off the coach since he was in there for 7 goals (which uhhh really screws up ur sv% in a 7 game stretch). The 7th game he made 6 saves on 6 shots in 13 minutes. He hasn't played in a month, and the last time he did he gave up 7 goals. He was also dealing with an illness going into that game fwiw, and you usually don't give up 7 goals on goaltending alone. 2 starts before that he gave up 5. The other 4 starts were... what most would consider adequate replacement level goaltending. It's not a crazy paycheck but a lot for a guy whos basically always been a backup and hasn't really been a starter for a full stretch. Considering buffalo has like 0 goalies for next year its not a terrible idea to have someone... anyone... under contract beyond this season. I'd just hate to whiff again and be left in this position again. On the other hand there is Dell... who has 3 games with save percentages above his average. None were starts, all were essentially garbage time after another goalie was pulled. When he's actually started his sv% is .850, and the GAA of 5.82. Subbans played one game and uhh it didn't go well either. Tokarski has been pulled twice in his last 5 starts.