Archie Lee

On Rosen, it might be that he is not in the NHL because he is with an org that has a lot of young forwards on the NHL team and that has no need for his ELC. Had he been drafted closer to his consensus draft position, then maybe he is with an org that is closer to the cap, has fewer prospects, and needs his ELC. Perhaps then he is playing on a 3rd line with a couple of solid vets and generating acceptable stats. Rosen only got into one game so far this year. Last year he played 7. These are his most common linemates: Olofsson, Jost, Biro. That’s how we support our 1st rd, 20 year old call-up.

There were seasons (yr 2 with Eichel, yr 1 with Krueger, this year), where it seemed the outward intent was to win. They have never got to the place where they did the combination of the right things (planning, coaching, roster construction), where winning was realistic. Perhaps that’s the point. It shows just how bad our management (starting with the owner) has been. Had we just had average level competency in management, we likely at least fluke a spot, kind of like the Caps did last year. Heck, we almost grabbed a spot by fluke 2 years ago, with a GM who has since proven he does not know how to construct a playoff calibre roster.

I agree. It is entirely possible that it creeps up to where it has been the last two years. One thing though is that it is both WC1 and WC2 that are currently on pace for 86 points. In 23-24 on this date, WC 1 and 2 were on pace for 94 and 94 points respectively. In 22-23 on this date, the pace was 98 and 97. It could also slide back a bit. The more teams that stay in the race for a longer period, will suppress point totals I think.

There was an article, in the Atlantic I think, where Montreal GM Kent Hughes was sounding a lot like Botterill after the 10 game win streak in 2018 and like Adams in 2022-23. Rather than embracing his team's surge, he was cautioning against being too aggressive too soon. Though, he also referenced trying to learn from the mistakes made by Buffalo after 22-23 and Detroit after 23-24. He seemed resigned to accepting that it wasn't quite their year yet, but also wanting to make sure they don't slide backwards.

My mistake.

Leinonen is currently in D+3 and is having a solid year in SWE-1, which, unless I'm mistaken, would be similar to the ECHL. In Luukkonen's D+3 he was having a similar year in the ECHL. Cossa and Wallstedt are both late birthdays. By birth year, their D+2 is equal to Leinonen's D+3 (this can be hard to judge, they were drafted a year before Lainonen, but were born two years earlier; they are both 14 months older than Leinonen). Neither has come close to establishing themselves as NHL players yet. In his D+2 Cossa was having a similar ECHL season to Leinonen's current season in SWE-1. Wallstedt, now in D+4, appeared to be on a trajectory to the NHL by now, but has posted terrible #'s in the AHL (I'm not sure if he was injured for a period). The Sabres have been pretty steadfast under Adams in picking their BPA. Leinonen appears to be the one acknowledged exception where they felt they wanted a goalie, identified the kid who they thought was the best in class, and decided they were taking him at #41 as they did not think he would be there at #74. It is hard for me to conclude right now, that this was a draft-day mistake. There are only 2 players picked after Leinonen who have established themselves as NHL players, and pretty much every NHL team passed on them as well.

I think this shows that it takes a long time to find out how well a team drafted. Olofsson, Borgen, Hagel and UPL did not become full-time NHL players until D+5 or D+6. The oldest players you note on the Adams list are in D+4. I think that our current batch of prospects, in general, suffer more from our pool being over-crowded, than from individual lack of progress. Going back to 2020, I see 10-14 of our current prospects (not yet NHL players) who still have a legit chance to make it. And that doesn't count for an Olofsson-like prospect emerging as they really can't be predicted. Also, you missed Benson.

By points %, Montreal and Columbus are tied for WC1 and WC2. They are on pace for 85.936 points each. Those two things are incredible to consider. 1.) Half way through the season it is Montreal and Columbus who have, for now, emerged as the leaders in the WC race. Incredible. 2.) The pace for either WC spot is 86 points. Incredible. Both might also be referred to as embarrassing and shameful. The Sabres are almost certainly not making it. We are dead last. There is no indication we are prepared to do anything to make ourselves better, aside from continuing to horde draft picks, acquire more prospects, waste millions of $ in cap space, and generally continue on the dithering path of extreme patience driven by misguided frugality and the fear of making a mistake. But I digress. So...this comment is more about the race for the WC spots among all of the bottom 10 teams in the East, than it is about the Sabres specifically: If I was a GM, coach, or player, on one of the 8 Eastern teams currently below a WC position, I would find Montreal and Columbus being in WC 1 and WC2, and the 86 point pace that they are on, to be comforting. Neither Montreal or Columbus seems positioned to sustain their current hot streaks. Neither is likely to make a big splashy trade for a player who pushes them to greater heights this season. It is possible that both of them, or two other teams in the WC race, stay or get hot for a longer period and that the race is over by the trade deadline, but none of the teams in the race seem built to sustain, say, a .675, winning % over 25-30 games. 85-87 points just might do it this year.

I agree. I would like to keep Zucker and Greenway and add another player that fits age and skill wise somewhere in the Greenway-McLeod-Zucker universe. But where do they play? Those are middle-6 players, maybe top-6 on occasion. We have Thompson, Tuck, Peterka, Cozens, Benson, Quinn, and now Kulich. None are, strictly speaking, 4th line suitable for a variety of reasons. I’m not demanding you play GM, but this is the dilemma. Getting more experienced and, presumably, better in the short-term, means one or two players need to go. Who goes and to whom and for what?

UPL was mostly good up to the streak. He has been mostly good since the streak. Like the entire team, we can’t just take the streak out of his season and pretend it didn’t happen. Yes, he could have played better during the streak and helped squeeze out a few points that kept us in the race. No, he was not the reason we sucked for 13 straight losses. My view is that he is a legit #1. I’m not worried about our starting goalie.

Working somewhat in the favor of all the teams scuffling along in the East, is that there are only 6 teams having a good season. With Boston collapsing, WC1 is currently on pace for 86 points and WC2, currently Ottawa, in on pace for 84. I’m by no means suggesting that will hold, but there is no single team, let alone two teams, obviously poised for a big surge in points. 24-14-2 would get the Sabres to 87 points. For me, it isn’t so much that it is in any way likely that the Sabres will or can get there. What’s frustrating is the lack of clear willingness to prioritize it. None of the scuffling teams in the East are better positioned by cap space and assets, to make a move than are the Sabres. And yet…

Maybe there is something to the Granato thing. I don’t see it though. As I pointed out earlier, in his combined stops in Dallas and NJ and now this year in Buffalo, Ruff’s teams have consistently been among the worst for goals against (averaging something like 5th or 6th from the bottom in GA over those years). There just isn’t a lot of evidence that Ruff coaches anything that resembles the sort of structured defensive system that people think. If he does, then there is certainly no evidence that he gets his teams to play it consistently well. I’m not carrying water for Granato here. I just think Ruff’s age, experience, and rougher around the edge exterior, give the impression that he is a hard-nosed defensive tactician, when evidence does not support this.

Good win. UPL was great. We got a couple bounces. Quinn can shoot. McLeod needs to stay off line 4. Kozak looks like a bottom 6 NHL player for us. Still no excuse for Adams to sit on his hands and watch 13 games go by without a win.

Indications are they want a centre. I think they would want Thompson or Cozens as piece #1 (Thompson obviously worth more than Cozens).

I thought Ken Holland had retired, but he apparently is working for the NHL now. Maybe he would be interested in a POHO role. Doesn’t fit with Pegula’s hiring history though.

I always think of who Pegula replaced Regier with. In the earliest days of Regier’s tenure, he moved on from two very popular Sabre figures. The first was Ted Nolan, an immensely popular coach with (most of) the players and the fanbase, who had just won coach of the year. New to the GM role and having no history with Nolan, Regier offered a one year extension. Nolan felt betrayed and left. Ruff was brought in. I think this turned out well for the franchise, but Regier was seen as the villain by some. A few months later, Regier traded legend and fan favourite Pat Lafontaine. Lafontaine had health issues. Whether the Sabre organization and Regier were worried about the bottom-line or Lafontaine’s health is a reasonable debate I suppose, but in the end Lafontaine wanted to keep playing and the Sabres didn’t want the risk and so he was dealt to the Rangers. Lafontaine would not play beyond that season. Again, Regier was the villain to some. That cold-hearted image stuck with Regier, to some degree, through his tenure as Sabre GM. Fast forward to Regier’s firing. Who does the newish owner and long-time Sabre fan who got weepy when meeting his Sabre heroes, replace Regier with? Pat Lafontaine. And who did Lafontaine bring in to coach? Ted Nolan. It wasn’t enough for Pegula to just replace Regier, he had to symbolically poke him in the eye. If Pegula realized this, and I think he clearly did, then consider that his priority in hiring a replacement was not the most qualified person but rather a past-Sabre-hero who also symbolically represented the opposite of Regier. If Pegula was oblivious to all of this, then it draws into question his real-world social intellect. When Pegula hired Adams, I thought the best we could hope for was a happy accident. Through late 22-23, it looked like we might have gotten lucky. Today, it is clear that we have not.

Agreed. My Eastern model is the Caps and my West model is the Stars. When I look at their rosters I am convinced that a good GM, supported by a committed owner, could remake our roster in one offseason (and not dramatically) to the point where it could be a playoff team. I do think a change in coaching would also be needed. I’m not saying it would be finger-snapping easy, but it would be very doable. I don’t think it is in the cards though. The plan here is to wait on our youngest roster players to catch up to Thompson, Tuch, and Dahlin, and then to support them further with the next wave from Rochester and/or the 18 year old who we draft 6th OA and who wows everyone in camp. It seems almost as though Adams is afraid to try to win as once he fails while actually trying, then there are no more excuses.

I could be wrong, but I think that’s the point. We are wasting these talents by not surrounding them with better and more experienced players. I don’t think there is a mystery here. The team in general is far too young and inexperienced to have playoff expectations placed on them. When things got tougher and there was some adversity, we crumbled. If you are expecting to make the playoffs, your roster can’t be half made up of players who have not reached their prime. Also, I don’t think there are too many NHL teams that have more than 2 players that other teams “fear”. I think two is plenty (a little tough guy fear would be a good addition though). It looks to me like we have transitioned back to “trust the process”, “stick with the long-range plan”, “don’t over react and make a rash trade” mode. I do think that in time that philosophy may work. There is a combination of players on the team and coming up that can get into the playoffs. The two issues with this ultra-patient philosophy are: 1.) There is no need to wait. The resources existed to get there this year. There have been no better years to be a team trying to end a long playoff drought, than the last two seasons and this one in the NHL East; and 2.) We have turned losing into our trademark and culture, and we are openly accepting this. It is obvious the negative impact this has on our players. Somebody needs to break the cycle. It is highly doubtful that the GM who has overseen the longest stretch of this drought and who has miscalculated so greatly on this year’s roster, is going to be the person who leads us out of it

I agree that Power will be very good. He is already good at many things and is, in my view, already a net positive. If we trade Power (or any of our young players) for picks and prospects, as we did O’Reilly, Eichel, Reinhart, then we will again be kicking the can down the road and likely watching him go on to thrive with another team. Any trade needs to be for players who can help now. Vegas has traded multiple 1st rd picks and top prospects, including Nick Suzuki, in their short existence. It’s understood if you trade a pick or prospect, that they may go on to be very good elsewhere.

To make the playoffs would require the Sabres to be one of the league’s best teams from here out. If they do that (and to be clear, they won’t), they would go into the playoffs playing the sort of hockey that allows for a deep playoff run. You are right, good teams don’t lose 13 in a row. But bad teams don’t have 58 points in 42 games, either. If they make the playoffs (and they are not going to), it would only be because they stopped being bad and started being very good.

To put it in further perspective, they would basically need to have a 2nd half equivalent to the 1st half that Washington, currently in 1st place, had (56 points). And that probably wouldn’t do it.

Great post. My preferred parings since the off-season have been: Dahlin/Power Byram/Clifton Sammuelsson/Jokiharju For the life of me I don't see how this is worse that what Dallas puts on the ice: Heiskanen/Lyubushkin Harley/Dumba Lindell/Lundkvist Goaltending, forward experience, coaching are the factors I guess. Our D-corps is still too young, but they should be better than they have performed.

They are out of the picture. It's not happening. I'm not falling for it in any way. But (heaven help me), they don't need to win 10 in a row. Montreal is currently in WC2; they are 2 games below DeLuca .500. Pittsburgh is in WC3; they are 7 games below DeLuca .500. Ottawa sits at DeLuca .500. We are 11 games below DeLuca .500. It is possible that DeLuca .500 gets you in this year. The Sabres need to win 26 of their last 41 to get to DeLuca .500. With 3-4 OTL's, that's a 110 point pace. At the end of 22-23, I could have bought that the Sabres were on verge of being a team that could do that. Right now, I say that there is a near zero chance. Anyway, my point is you don't need to get there by winning 10 in a row over 3 weeks. You can get there by picking up 9-10 points every 7 games. Again though, there is no reason to think they will do this. It perhaps highlights though, how very shameful it is that Adams has done nothing to try to improve the team since July.

I thought the Sabres played an excellent game against a good veteran team. Giving up the lead late, was a bit of a “seen this act before” moment, but in the context of a more normal season, I don’t think it was a big deal; it didn’t feel anything like the Avalanche blown leads. The Sabres were feisty and went hard to the net. The Caps, in my view, do not have top-end talent. What they are though is a well constructed veteran team that plays a solid system and doesn’t panic.

We disagree on this. Thanks for the good discussion though. Regardless of what McLeod is or isn’t, our GM needed to do more. Starting the year with a top 6 forward group, a six-man D corps, and a goalie tandem, with an average age under 24, in a must make the playoffs season, has had disastrous results. If we assume Adams was sincere in believing this group, with Ruff as HC, was a playoff calibre team, then it is fair to say that he could not have more significantly misjudged the winning potential of the group that he assembled. In the real world of major league sports, GMs simply do not keep their jobs under such circumstances. Adams isn’t Barry Trotz, who is trying to squeeze another year or two out of an aging Predator roster backed by an all-world goalie. Adams is in year 5 as GM and year 4 of a rebuild and the team that he has assembled has backslid in devastating fashion.