Archie Lee

A reminder that just 20 months ago an aged Capitals team finished 11 points behind the Sabres in the standings. They then went out and did an actual search for a head coach and selected the best young assistant they could identify. Then they went about revamping their line-up by adding veterans through trade and free agency (Dubois, Chychrun, Mangiapane, Vrana, Roy, Thompson). Today they sit on top the NHL East standings. In the same time we strengthened the blue line by adding Johnson and Clifton, made a lateral trade for a redundant piece (Mitts for Byram), did not do an actual search for a new head coach, and shuffled the deck chairs on our 4th line. Today we sit on the bottom of the NHL East standings. Tune in to see what an actual NHL team, run by people who care and are qualified, looks like.

You missed the part where I said I largely agree with you. I was just trying to provide some nuance to the discussion. I'm not arguing against a BPA strategy, but rather that the Sabres would be better to move some of these players before their value diminishes to nothing. The urgency for moving some of these players is made greater, in my opinion, by so many being of similar (not identical) skillsets. I'm also not arguing that any of the secondary prospects are going to hit, but rather that none of them will hit with us if there is no place for them to develop with us. Several of them are performing at a better-than-could-be-hoped-for level given their draft position. Also, Meidema is not an overage (defined as a 20 year old by the CHL). He is in his 19 year old season and has the same birth year of Benson and Wahlberg. Finally, I thought you agreed that it was time to move off of some prospects.

I largely agree. When you consider though that they already had Tuch, Thompson, Mittelstadt, and Cozens in the NHL and that they had already used high picks on Quinn, Peterka, Rosen, Poltapov, and Kisakov, the logic starts to breakdown. Obviously not all picks are going to hit, but if you are using that many top picks on skilled forwards, at some point you need to move some of them to fill roster holes. Adams would argue, I’m sure, that he has done this with the Byram and McLeod trades (I’m fine with the value in each case, but still don’t like the logic on the Mittelstadt deal). He has not begun to scratch the surface though of the deals he needs to make. In my opinion, 3-4 of the forwards we drafted in rounds 1-2 after 2019, need to be dealt to fill existing roster holes. We are 1-2 years late on this actually. Such trades would also create some oxygen for our later rd picks like Sardarian, Marjala, Neuchev, Richard, and Miedema, all who are thriving but are mere afterthoughts. Better to risk trading a kid who goes on to be a star, than to let 7-8 rot on the vine.

There may be a natural date in this season for a change. The Sabres play their last game before the Four Nations on Feb 8. The Super Bowl is the next day. If things don’t improve before then, perhaps that week is a natural point for a change. I think Pegula will be preoccupied with the Bills for a bit. Hopefully through Feb 9th.

At the start of the year, the Atlantic ranked the league's top 150 players. Pettersson was in tier-two, 23red overall, as a "Franchise" player. Defined as: "Someone who is the best player on a contending team or second best on a championship-caliber team. An unquestionably elite player." Power and Cozens were in tier 5, "Support" players. They were both top 150 in the league, defined as "Someone who would offer strong support to a contending or championship core, but who wouldn’t be an integral piece within it. A below average first-line forward or a strong No. 2 defenseman". Dahlin and Thompson were in tier 3. Byram was not in the top 150 I think that these rankings were the Athletic staff's view of these players as they currently are, and not projections of what they will be when they reach their true prime. Later, in November they published trade tiers where they ranked the league's top 100 players by trade value. Pettersson was 38th. Power, Cozens, Thompson were 57, 58 and 69 respectively. Dahlin was 17th. Byram was not listed. Sorry if this was a waste of time. I don't know what it means re: your question. I don't think there is a team that's going to swap a different top 30 player for Pettersson. If you are trading a player regarded that highly, you are getting pieces that you hope will equal or better the singular piece you are giving up.

I will add, if we have an internal cap and will continue to (and all indications are we do and will), then I'm not sure it makes sense to dedicate $11 million each in cap space to two players. It is possible to work with an internal cap and be successful. It might be difficult to do if we are spreading the available money even thinner.

Still shows the sway Ruff has over some, including Harrington. The Sabres are on pace to drop from 84 to 68 points. Yes the roster is not good enough (it is more too young and inexperienced than lacking talent, but that is another topic). The team has regressed across the board under Ruff. He will get a pass from many though and the players and Adams will get most of the blame (Pegula/Adams should get almost all of the blame).

I would not lose any sleep over such a trade. I have crossed the Rubicon when it comes to Adams though. I no longer want to see him make any moves of consequence. Long-term, adding Pettersson for Cozens/Byram, might be a good trade. In the short-term it still leaves us with 5 players under 24 in the top 9 and with a very young back-end. I can't see Pettersson being happy about leaving a difficult personal situation only to be traded to the league's largest tire-fire. It is difficult to imagine a scenario where either the team or Pettersson, would view his arrival in Buffalo right now as a needed "breath of fresh air". Maybe that is a bit nihilistic, but Adams has had his chances to make smart and purposeful moves that would direct us towards being a playoff team. Rather than do this he has pushed the team towards disaster. I don't see the value of him getting an opportunity to make good.

Re: Ruff’s system, here is where his teams finished in goals against in the years since he left Buffalo: 16th, 26th, 20th, 29th, 28th, 29th, 10th, 27th. This year we are 28th thus far. Average is 24th out of 30-32 teams. There are some factors there out of his control, but it is fair to say that Ruff does not have a system that consistently produces better defensive results than the sum of the parts he is provided with. On balance, I would say his teams are significantly worse at playing defence than average. Pegula and Adams chose poorly.

Prior to the season, I thought the probability of Adams being fired was very low. See, I had a failure of imagination. Credit our old pal @dudacek who predicted there would be no middle ground and that things would go well or turn into a dumpster fire. I thought at worst we would see something like a repeat of last year. Well, was I wrong. I now think there is a strong possibility there will be a new GM and head coach next season. You simply can’t sell Adams and Ruff returning. Pegula is not a typical owner and the Sabres don’t operate like a normal NHL team, so it is possible that we could bring back the GM/HC hierarchy that misjudged us as a playoff team (😆). But it would be pretty much unprecedented for a GM/HC to survive this level of failure. The best we can hope for is that the blind squirrel finds a capable and qualified nut to manage the assets we have.

I would fix it and say: The owner and GM don’t care, don’t fight for the team, don’t prioritize winning, and don’t hate to lose. The young core has taken on the loser mentality and personalities of their owner and GM.

Prior to his demotion to line 4, McLeod was playing in the top 9, with better linemates. I don’t know why he was demoted to line 4. His demotion occurred when Tage came back, right at the start of the losing streak. I’m not linking the events, but the demotion seemed odd to me. Regardless, I’m completely done with critiquing players. What a player is for the Sabres and what he is elsewhere are not the same thing. We are a poverty franchise and there are few players who thrive here at a level greater than they would elsewhere. The exception appears to be Zucker, who will be first out the door likely. I saw an article in the Atlantic by the Oilers writer suggesting that the Oilers trade for Jokiharju and that such a deal would be a potential fleecing. The logic was that Jokiharju has likely been misused in Buffalo and would come very cheap. I’m not sure they are right on Jokiharju, but would it shock anyone if he went to a contender and thrived in an appropriate role? That’s the perception that exists of the Sabres. In less than 2 years, Adams has taken us from the league’s most exciting-young-up-and-coming-team, to Ralph Krueger level ineptitude. No player on this team is an issue.

This is what happens when nobody trusts that their teammate is going to do his job. It is usually the result of not being good enough (talent or experience) and/or bad coaching. We aren’t experienced enough and the coaching is poor.

No, I partially agreed with you and qualified my comment with the proviso that the pick would be top 2 or 3 protected. Regardless, we are not trading our 1st if it is a top 5. Such trades just don’t happen. The teams with the pick are worried they are trading a future star and the teams with the player are afraid they are trading a current good NHL player for a future bust.

4th lines are 4th lines. The off-season narrative was that we were bringing in 2/3’s of Washington's 4th line, which had been given one of the toughest deployment’s in the league. The story went that Ruff wanted these players and that they would be a 4th line getting 3rd line minutes; used against top lines and to protect leads late. They are basically just another 4th line; fine, but rarely game changing. I’m not sure where the disconnect is. Were the talents of these players misjudged? Or are they being poorly utilized? A little of both I suspect. They were never going to be the difference makers that would warrant the hype that surrounded changes to the 4th line. And our coaching isn’t getting the most out of them.

Great post. I largely agree, except for on McLeod and Malenstyn, and to a lesser degree on Aube-Kubel. McLeod has been fine and has given us what we were looking for I think. At some point during the losing streak the organization committed to moving Kulich and Krebs into the middle-six. This has pushed McLeod to line 4. He is a 40 point, 3rd line centre, who can kill penalties. He was better when playing with Zucker and Greenway (no shock, most players perform better with better linemates). He is in the age group of our core. There is no reason he can't be a useful middle-six player for us for years to come. The 2nd rd pick was a high cost for Malenstyn. $1.5 million is too much for what we are getting out of Aube-Kubel. The Lafferty signing looks awful. We would be no worse off with Girgensens, Krebs, Robinson* as our 4th line. But, I don't think Malenstyn and Aube-Kubel have been bad. If Malenstyn stays with us long-term and becomes a 4th line staple (energy player, shot-blocker, penalty killer), I don't think the price was crazy. The bigger question to me is: How does this all reflect on the jobs that our pro-scouting and analytics department are doing and how does it reflect on how our coach is utilizing the available assets. The rebuild 4th line and bottom six, was the BIG-DEAL, of the off-season. And here we not even half-way through the year and McLeod and Aube-Kubel are demoted, Lafferty is a bit of a joke, and Malenstyn looks mostly like an easily replaceable 4th line player. Where is the disconnect. Many fans thought that these acquisitions had "Ruff's fingerprints all over them". These were not Adams moves, they were Ruff moves. If this is the case, why has Ruff not effectively utilized these players. * How did we miss so wide on Robinson?

I'm ok with moving one of them prior to next season. I think moving one of them along with one or two of our young forwards for more experienced players makes sense, if it is our goal to make the playoffs (which it obviously should be). I don't think we need to add a high-profile d-man to replace whoever is moved out. I think it is generally a myth that top teams have deep bluelines. Some do, but the Leafs currently have Phillipe Myers on their 1st pair. That's only one example, but depth charts are available for anyone to look up if they are interested. There are lots of teams with d-men getting regular shifts who, if they were on the Sabres, we would say need to be replaced. If we were to move Power, as an example, and we went into the off-season with Dahlin, Byram, Samuelsson, Clifton, Johnson, as 5 d-mean to start with, we would be further ahead of many teams. The Stars are getting it done with a defense that includes Lyubushkin, Dumba, Nils Lundkvist, and Brendan Smith. If Heiskanen, Harley, and Lindell are so much better than Dahlin, Byram, and Samuelsson that we can't put together a group of 2nd and 3rd pairing D-men to play as well defensively on the back-end as Dallas does, then we have failed in some combination of our projections, development, and coaching. Also, on extending Byram, there is no reason why we need to get hung-up on a long-term (6-8 year) deal. If it's determined that Byram and Power are both needed for how we want to play, then it is ok to give Byram a 3-4 year deal with a lower AAV that walks him to UFA status at 27-28 years of age. Is it the best asset management? It depends how you look at it. LA gave Byfield a 5 year deal at $6.25 that takes him to UFA status at age 27. They could have signed him to a 7-8 year deal and gave him $8 million per. But the Kings are up against the Cap. If they gave Byfield an $8 million AAV now, they would not have a Warren Foegele or a Tanner Jeannot and they would not be as good as they are.

Ruff’s use of McLeod is mystifying. We traded a substantial piece for him. He started the year on line 3 with two quality vets and was thriving. When Thompson was injured, McLeod filled in on line 1 during the west coast 3 game win streak. Last year he was often on line 2 in Edm, playing with Draisatl. At the start of our 13 game losing streak, Ruff moved him to the 4th line, where he has largely stayed. Late in last night’s game he seemed the natural choice to be on the ice.

I agree with this. But the rub is, how do more Zuckers and a maturing core co-exist? There are only so many roster spots. I’m all for adding two Zuckers. Here’s three that we probably could have had for reasonable prices through trade or free agency 6 months ago: 1) Warren Foegele. 11/12/23 in 37 games for the Kings 2) Jack Roslovic. 17/8/25 in 38 games for the Hurricanes 3) Cody Ceci. 2/8/10 in 41 games for the Sharks (could have been a stabilizing force for Power). Where would Foegele and Roslovic play though? They aren’t fourth liners. Kulich, Benson, Quinn, aren’t fourth liners. Replacing Greenway or Zucker or McLeod with Foegele or Roslovic just defeats the purpose. The answer is that there are kids who just shouldn’t be here…YET. It’s not a knock against them (for the record, I LOVE Zach Benson and Juri Kulich). But it’s too late now. The kids are part of the team. They aren’t going anywhere. So, there is no space for more Zuckers. We are the Ducks with Rasmus Dahlin. Hold tight, we are a long way from the playoffs.

No, sorry, it's not. When you are defending in that situation, you have a set-play off the draw: the face-off will be won here, the winger or d-man will move it here, etc. You also have assignments for when the face-off is lost and it isn't a bad thing to take 20 seconds to go over these (in my view, Cozens blew his assignment on goal 4). I'm not saying we lost because Ruff or an assistant didn't come to the boards and go over the assignments with the 5 players on the ice. It was odd to not see one of them do so, in my view...and it does happen all of the time in that scenario when teams are losing and winning.

I agree on the value of a top 5 pick. But let's take the top-5 pick and say we make it a protected top 2-3. Pettersson was a 4th OA. Two picks ahead of him was Nolan Patrick. The two picks that followed him were Cody Glass and Lias Andersson. The year prior saw Puljujarvi and Joulevi going top 5. The year after you had Kotkaniemi, Hayton and Zadina going top 6. Pettersson himself was at best D+2 before he was helping a team make the playoffs. Vancouver would love a top 5 pick as part of the deal, I'm sure. It won't be the most important part of the deal to them though, as they are in win-now, playoff mode. If we are in playoff mode also (I though that was the point of this), a top 5 pick is not likely going to contribute to the goal for 2-3 years (if at all).

I agree. It was a little odd though to not see the white-board come out. Typically you would see one of the coaches use the time-out as an opportunity to gather the 5 players who are going to be on the ice and quickly go over the plans for a won or lost draw (assignments, positioning, etc.).

What? A tear-down or rebuild, by all definitions, means getting younger. Nobody refers to the act of trading young players for veterans as a tear-down or a rebuild. Vegas does this year after year and it is typically referred to as "reloading"; it is the opposite of a tear-down or rebuild. I am arguing the same thing as you. That it is ok to trade young players and veterans from our core, so long as it is for older, veteran players who can help us win now. My position has not changed from June, when I argued that if we are serious about winning this year we should consider trading one or two of our younger forwards for veterans.

Good post. I agree that Pettersson might thrive in a quieter environment with less pressure. Also agree that Adams needs to do something. As a fan I have moved firmly into the category of believing Adams should be fired, but I don't think it will happen. Thus, we are left hoping that Adams somehow figures this out. To the bolded, the trade you propose does not, in my opinion, come close to an overpay. Certainly an unprotected first is a heavy cost. I don't think if would be attractive to Vancouver as the centre-piece of a trade for Pettersson. They are in win-now mode and a top 10 pick is not likely to help with winning for at least 2-3 years. I think the cost is likely Cozens (to replace Petersson) and Byram. We can play around the edges with prospects/picks and secondary players. Some of you will puke over this, but I would rather keep Cozens/Byram and send Power/Peterka/Kulich. If we are making a trade for Pettersson then the goal needs to be to be a playoff contender for years to come, but also next year. Adding Pettersson and subtracting Cozens/Byram does not move the needle enough for me. It would be better to sacrifice some of our youngest players. Losing Power would hurt (A LOT), to be sure. I am not on the trade-Power bandwagon. But I think Cozens/Byram, surrounded by better players, are closer to helping us win now and long-term, than are Power/Peterka/Kulich. I don't think Vancouver would go for my preferred option though, for the same reasoning. It would take them further from the playoffs in the short-term.

A tear-down or rebuild, even partial, means moving vets for younger players. This would be the 4th attempt at a tear-down or rebuild in the Pegula era. I'm not sure why we would think the next one would go better than the last 3. I'm not opposed to moving out some of the core 12 players. For clarity, the core 12 are from two categories: 1.) The players who Adams has extended long-term; and 2.) The players he has clearly referenced, if not by name, as those who will need to be re-signed in the next two off-seasons and thus are preventing him (in his misguided opinion) from adding veterans with term. These core players are, from the net out: 1.) UPL, Dahlin, Power, Samuelsson, Thompson, Cozens; and 2.) Levi, Byram, Tuch, Peterka, Quinn, and Benson. Based on how committed we have been to keeping Kulich in the line-up this year, he may be core-player #13. So, yes, I think we should most definitely entertain moving 2-4 of these core players. But the return needs to be players who are older than the average age of this group, which is 23(!!). What team and what GM, other than the Sabres and Adams, would state they are in a "must make the playoffs" year, and then trot out a large core of 12-13 players with an average age of 23(!!)? No other team or GM would do that. Tearing this down or doing another partial rebuild, would almost certainly put us into years 15-16-17 of missing the playoffs. It's a path that would only make things worse. The most logical path is to fire Adams/Ruff and bring in a new GM/HC with the goal of modifying/fixing the roster, not tearing it down and starting over. I think, at this moment, we have a team that could be made into a playoff team next year with the combination of committed ownership, smart/targeted decisions by a qualified GM, and upgraded coaching. The most likely outcome though, is that Pegula/Adams/Ruff stay the course, we pick top 5 this year, go into next season with one of the 2-3 youngest teams in the league, and miss the playoffs for the 15th straight season. Unfortunately, I think we are closer to being a franchise that has a 17-18 year-old top-5 pick tell us: "Pick someone else. I'm not putting on your jersey", than we are to being a playoff team.