Archie Lee

According to Puckpedia, Rosen and Ryan Johnson are both still waivers exempt.

I’m not sure. Could be real. Montreal has taken similar steps to what the Sabres did in Adams’s 1st two full seasons post-Krueger (I acknowledge that the Habs made the playoffs last year, while the Sabres missed by a point in 22-23). I think Montreal has another step or two to take before it can be said that their GM is all that.

I also want to add, in all my decades following major league sports in North America, I can’t recall another example where a coach who got more wins out of a team than his successor, was blamed for the failures of his successor. It is, frankly, a bizarro theory.

New Jersey was worse that the Sabres in 23-24, had a new coach last year and had the same short camp and travel issues.

To the bolded. It might be true, to a degree. But I largely reject the notion. I mean, is anybody seriously arguing that Benson would have dominated junior hockey as an 18 year old more than McDavid dominated the NHL as a 24-25 year old? And, is anybody seriously arguing that McDavid stopped learning once he started dominating the NHL? The list of players who dominated lesser competition for a year or two in junior, post-draft, and who then went on to have great NHL careers is very long. Very long. Benson, in my view, is the sort of player who would have found many things in his game to improve on whether he was in junior, college, the AHL, or the NHL. He's not the sort of kid who would have pouted, or got lazy, or forgot about the defensive side of the game.

Some GMs don’t spend much time worrying about how happy a player is.

As a qualifier, every player gets one path to the NHL (some more winding than others, but a single path nonetheless). The reality is that if a player fails to reach their potential, there is no way to know with certainty whether that failure relates to a poor development process or to the player simply not being good enough. So, I really don't think it is possible to say that Benson's offensive game has been, will be, or won't be stunted by being in the NHL; that is, unless he develops into an offensive star, in which case it can be said that being in the NHL from day-one, didn't hurt his offensive game. Benson never went back to junior and we will never know how going back to junior might have impacted his game. That said, I don't think there is any way to say that Benson being in the NHL for D1 and D2 means there is a better chance, let alone a "far better chance", of a breakout this year. There is, relatively speaking, a long list of forwards drafted between 11th and 15th overall (Benson was 13th), who did not fully make it to the NHL until D3, and who had rookie seasons that would qualify as a "breakout year" for Benson. Respectfully to my fellow Benson admirers, there is a tendency to see Benson as a different sort of Cat who was/is uniquely able to adapt to the pro-game as an 18 year old right out of junior, while also thinking that he somehow doesn't have traits that would have allowed him to develop in junior ("He's too good for junior and going back would have stunted his development"). Benson is a unique Cat. He would have developed fine either way and would, in my view, be a legit rookie of the year candidate if he was coming into the NHL this season.

I think it remains that the Sabres are collectively (not individually) too young and inexperienced. Their three best players, are not though. Dahlin, Thompson, and Tuch, are keys. I don't think they all need to have career years, but they need to be the elite players that they are. I think it is possible those three are talented enough to drag a team into the playoffs.

And the great thing about Benson is that even if these underlying offensive numbers never translate to him being a big point producer, he has so many other positive traits that he is going to be an effective player for a long-time. Someday, it will be a lot of fun to watch him in the playoffs.

I agree with this. I suppose there is an argument for not firing an assistant until you are certain you can hire a better replacement. But, the proper way to do it (my view) is to start by firing the assistant you want to replace. This accomplishes a couple of things: 1). It creates an urgency or necessity to find someone better; and 2). It serves to cast a wider net than you would by merely calling a few coaches you hope might be interested. In other words, interested coaches will contact you. I’m ambivalent on Wilford. Better is better. I imagine though that we would all swap Ruff for Brind’Amour before we would swap Wilford for Tim Gleason.

Let’s assume the following: - a team’s goal is to win now; and - salaries aren’t an issue . Given those parameters, if you polled every NHL GM and HC in the NHL and told them they could have only one of Quinn, Kulich, or Mittelstadt, I believe the vast majority would take Mittelstadt.

I don't disagree with this in theory. As you say though, it is reasonable to have a "show me" approach. Olofsson, Skinner, and Mittlelstadt, weren't Sabres last year. Malenstyn, Lafferty, and Aube-Kubel were. I'm not convinced that Doan and Danforth get 12-14 minutes per game. Our 4th line upgrades last year, came to us having received 12-14 minutes of ice time per game on their prior teams, only to have that cut to 9.5-10.5 minutes per game here.

I’m no expert on NHL coaching. My understanding though, is that generally the system or structure that a team uses is the preferred structure of the head coach and that the implementation is a shared responsibility with the assistants. Last year when Ruff spoke out about Cozens and Thompson struggling, he didn’t say that they are struggling with Wilford’s system, he said they are struggling with what he asks centres to do in his system.

I’m not sure about “60 game starter”, but I think it is abundantly clear that Adams was certain Levi would be his starting goalie by now. When asked prior to 23-24 about whether Levi needed AHL time he was rather dismissive and referred to Levi as “special”. They then gave Levi four straight, mostly ineffective, starts to begin that season; there is no question in my mind that he believed Levi was his starting goalie two years ago. I think this ties in to my point. Adams hasn’t been able to address multiple loose ends at one time. He, largely, focuses on one element and seems caught off guard when another issue inevitably rises.

I think it is clearly intentional. I think it does matter, but it can be hard to follow the logic. Adams seems to become focused on a certain area or trait related to asset acquisition, rather than focus on acquiring a collection of traits that will equate to a successful team. He started with acquiring picks, then the focus was on skilled forwards, an insistence on building out the pipeline, then it became tall defensemen, then upgrading the 4th line, then being tougher to play against, and now tall AND right-handed defensemen. Perhaps this is the year where he has finally put together the needed combination of skill, toughness, and experience that equates to a playoff level team. It seems there are more conventional ways to do this.