Archie Lee

Looking back at some dates, in 2017 the season ended April 9th. Murray had an end of season presser. Then he and Bylsma were fired on April 20th. I guess there is faint hope that evaluations can still happen. There has to be somebody in Pegula’s sphere who will tell him the situation is a disaster. Guelli? One of his kids? Bettman? Or is there no one who dares tell him what he doesn’t want to hear?

The point here, in my view, is that Adams structured his off-season around remaking the fourth line. Think of all the energy that went in to scouting Malenstyn, Lafferty, and Aube-Kubel. The energy that went into determining their value, negotiating the trade, dealing with the agents on July 1 to get contracts worked out. And, he literally could have just re-signed Girgensens, Jost, and Robinson, and it would have made no material difference. It's not that Girgs, Jost, Robinson, were difference makers and we just didn't realize it. It's that our predicament has nothing to do with out 4th line, or our 3rd pairing D, or who the back-up goalie is. Of course those things are relevant, but THE issues are that we are managed by a man who has clearly displayed he is not up to the task, and we we are coached by yesterday's man. And they will both be back. Seeing Girgs, Robinson, Jost, Cozens, Comrie, etc., playing roles on playoff teams while we finish at the bottom of the Conference standings, doesn't mean Adams dropped any balls specific to any player. It just confirms that he really has no plan. To the extend that he had a plan, it has failed.

Yeah. Seeing Adams, Ruff, and UPL, in the same sentence when it came to coming back next year just took me back to being a kid and watching Sesame Street: one of these things does not belong. I get it though.

My prediction: This year's narrative will be that the players were not in shape, that many of them were not mature enough to have good off-seasons when it came to training, and it will be up to the players to take things more seriously in order for the team to get to the next level.

For those who think Pegula is cheap, keeping Adams and Ruff in lame-duck roles for the final year of their contracts will only cement the opinion. Not to mention that it also could negatively impact the prospects for upgrading assistants. The coaching profession being as transient as it is, there will be no shortage of candidates if they do make a change in assistants. But the Sabres won’t be the first choice for the best candidates to begin with. Add in that Adams and Ruff will be lame-ducks, and the Sabres won’t have elite assistants knocking on their door. Of course, maybe Adams and Ruff have earned extensions.

I would not take big issue with the Sabres trading or moving on from UPL. But, in the big picture, how is he catching shrapnel here? 😀

There needs to be the sort of culture change that only occurs with a change at the top. Adams has not made the playoffs in 5 seasons. Ruff has made the playoffs, as a HC, 3 times in 9 seasons since he left Buffalo and never twice in a row; he’s the oldest coach in the league. No other team would hire either man for their current roles. Even if they were to somehow ice a team that grabs a wildcard spot next season, these two men are not the future. Failing to fire them on Friday morning is just to delay the inevitable.

At least we will beat the Flyers. Get Lindy #900. Reimer can end his career with a win. Good vibes headed into the off-season. Adams can build on the momentum.

According to PuckPedia, Saros's NMC does not kick in until July 1st this year. He currently has no trade protection. Starting July 1 he has an 8 year $7.74 per year deal. The first 6 years he has a full NMC. The last two he has a NMC and partial no trade. He will be 38 when the contract expires after the 32-33 season. He is having the worst year of his career with a .896 save %. I think Nashville would listen. I would prefer we look for a Head Coach who actually has a recent history of installing a sound defensive system that stresses structure and helps goalies, instead of a coach whose system lacks structure and puts stress on goalies.

I realize that with the bolded you are making a practical statement. I agree with what you have written. But man, is this what it has come to? Our GM is on the verge of joining a very dubious group of only 6-7 GM's in the modern history of the league who have been given a 6th season with a team after missing the playoffs in their first 5 seasons, and his big trade acquisition, who has 5 years left at $7.95 million per season, can't be counted on and we should just consider it a bonus if he remains healthy. The absurdity of Adams (and Ruff) even being considered for 25-26, cannot be overstated.

Thanks. Agreed...so long as by defense you mean "Team Defense". That means better coaching (starting with the head coach), a better system, better structure, better support from the forwards, a couple of d-men who defend better, and better goaltending.

Honest question, what does it mean that we are -159 in scoring chances and -100 in high danger scoring chances?

In Adams’s tenure they have typically ended their seasons with a win or multiple wins at home. I will never cheer for a Sabre loss. But there could be a silver lining to losing the last two at home this year. Maybe ending the season on a 4 game losing streak, having Montreal and Ottawa pass us in their rebuilds, knowing the discourse that exists league wide about how directionless the team is, will drive Pegula to make the rationale decision to move on. If you are going into year 6 with a GM, and that GM is going into the final year of his contract, and you are not sure if the GM should be extended, then the GM should be fired and replaced. It’s not complicated.

Like most players in the NHL, Skinner never single-handedly tanked a team’s chances of making the playoffs. Dylan Cozens is another such player. That doesn’t mean they are necessarily players you want on your team, but they aren’t playoff boogie men.

With this shootout loss, the Sabres maximum point total on the year is now 83. So they will have fewer points than a year ago. Meaning Don Granato coached the Sabres to back to back seasons with higher point totals than what Ruff will get out of the team this year. Ruff is the oldest head coach in the league and in his last 11 season starts as a head coach he has two winning seasons.

It would require the Sabres to be willing to do things they have showed no willingness to do. Toronto has 3 players on their current roster, McCabe, Carlo, Laughton, who they overpaid for in trade in order to get salary retention. They got Tanev at a lower AAV by giving him a 6 year deal, when nobody thinks he can squeeze more than 3 years out of his body; the last 2-3 years of his contract he will be on LTIR and being paid to stay home. And the Leafs always have a Max Domi willing to play for less or a Giordano or Pacioretty willing to extend their career a year or two at league minimum.

Adding Marner would be incredible. Not to poo-poo any ideas, but to do so would require a level of off-season maneuvering that Adams is simply incapable of. To sign Marner at say $14,000,000 per season, the minimum it would take I think, would require the Sabres to move out 3-4 existing or projected contracts that add up to the same. Doing this exercise, I dumped UPL, Samuelsson, Greenway and Quinn for nothing (we either get a pick back or we need to attach a pick). I extended Peterka, Byram, and McLeod on conservative shorter-term deals. If you do these two things, you can add Marner and stay just under the cap. But you need to go with a 22 man roster. And your D from 4-7 is Bernard-Docker, Clifton, Bryson and Ryan Johnson (or similar types). And your goalies are Levi and Reimer (or similarly paid goalies). To add Marner and make other significant upgrades, would mean trading Peterka or Norris or Byram or Power. All possible to do, but hard to imagine a GM who two off-seasons ago thought adding E. Johnson, Clifton, and Comrie, was all that was needed to get to the next level, could master-mind anything close to what would need to be done to pull-off an acquisition at the Marner-level.

1.) Determine what the likely cause of UPL’s regression was and if it can be fixed. If it can’t be fixed, find a way to move him. If that means attaching an asset to make a trade, so be it. No more keeping players on larger contracts (Olofsson, Jokiharju) who the coach has no confidence in. 2.) Assuming no team is trading us their perennial top-10 goalie, ensure you start the season with two veterans who we at least feel comfortable are physically capable of playing 45 games. No more 37-38 year olds who we can’t lean on to physically manage the role. One of the two vets could be UPL, but it doesn’t have to be. The reason we need two is that we need to increase our chances of finding at least one who can give us 45 games of “make the playoffs” level goaltending. 3.) Levi needs to be viewed as the “ace in the hole”. The plan should be for him to go to Rochester. We are actually fortunate that we have a goalie in Levi who might be ready to be a NHL starter and who we can send to the AHL without having to clear waivers. We need to take advantage of that by starting the year with two goalies who are ahead of Levi on the depth chart. If one or both of those goalies falters, then we break the glass and call up Levi. 4.) This should really be #1 on the list. We need a head coach who installs a structured system that is repeatable, regardless of who is injured, and that helps our goalies. In his 9 seasons as a HC since Ruff left Buffalo, his teams have averaged 11th in Goals for and 23rd in Goals against. Ruff once missed the playoffs in Dallas with the league’s 2nd highest scoring team. Replacing Granato with Ruff in order to instil structure is maybe the biggest sham of the Pegula Reign of Error. If Ruff is back next season, then we will most likely only make the playoffs if we out-score our defensive deficiencies.

Ruff not being allowed to bring in his own assistants has been a pretty big issue for a lot of people. To me, it is as much on Ruff as Adams/Pegula. Ruff agreed to this arrangement and it is as much an indictment of him and his willingness to accept an environment not conducive to success as it is of the GM and owner who created the environment. So, I am a bit surprised by the number of people who would see firing Adams as a priority, but who would then saddle a new GM with Lindy Ruff. We’re going to do the same thing to the new GM that we did to Ruff and not let him pick his guy? And aren’t we limiting our GM options if they can’t bring in their own choice for coach?

UPL has not been consistently good in his pro-career. I think it is fair to say that we can't simply rely on him bouncing back to a 23-24 level performance. In another thread you summed up my view on Ruff and goalies. I'm not going to get the precise wording, but to paraphrase you said: While it isn't clear if the goalies Ruff has had post-Miller are actually any good, what is clear is that Ruff's system does not help goalies. It is highly unlikely that we are going to trade for one of the 7-8 goalies in the league who are good year after year after year. Whether UPL is back or not, we almost certainly will be rolling into next year with two goalies on the roster whose careers have been, at best, somewhat up and down. Ruff's post-Miller history as a head coach would support that it is unlikely to go well.

Interestingly, Leone in Rochester has been clear in stating his view that the development of young players is best served by winning. It is too bad that the GM did not take that attitude 2-3 seasons ago.

Every young team that finishes at the bottom of the standings for a period of time and then becomes good, at some point starts to consistently win more than it loses (stating the obvious here). My guess is that it is sometimes the case that the pendulum permanently swings late in a last losing season. Maybe this is that last losing season. Adams and Ruff have combined for only 3 winning season in their last 15 seasons in their respective roles (5 seasons for Adams, the last 10 as a HC for Ruff). They are not a pair that I would advise betting on.

I posted this in the Bruins game thread, but it is probably more relevant here. As you point out, UPL had one strong NHL season prior to this year. The plan for this season was to go to camp with UPL, Levi, and Reimer. At some point, based on no clear rationale, they opted to waive Reimer and go with UPL and Levi. Then, once Levi faltered the plan became to lean almost exclusively on UPL. Prior to March 20th, when Reimer's current streak of play began, UPL had started 50 games and Levi/Reimer a combined 15. Levi/Reimer were 4 wins and 11 losses in those 15 games. On March 19th, UPL was on pace to start 63 games; this is despite him having, on balance, a very bad season to that point. There is one goalie in the NHL this year on pace to start more than 63 games: Vasilevskiy. Hellebucyk is on pace for 62 starts. As fans, we should consider the absurdity of this for a moment. With UPL having only one season of success, the plan that Adams (and Ruff) hatched was to go with UPL and Levi and if Levi failed, to run UPL for 60+ games. The most games Ullmark played as a Sabre was 37. You have to go back to Miller's 2010-2011 for a season where a Sabre goalie played 63+ games. UPL has been bad this year. The numbers and the eye-test align. But Adams went into the season without a second goalie the team could rely on and then asked UPL to carry a larger load than practically every goalie in the NHL. UPL was not set-up for success. Ruff clearly had no faith in Reimer or Levi. We had $7ish million in cap space. Cam Talbot, Logan Thompson, MacKenzie Blackwood, Casey DeSmith, Anthony Stolarz, were all available at various points and we had assets and cap space to outbid other teams on the acquisition or free agent cost. And Adams is going to get a 6th shot at this.

I’m of this opinion now. Not so much that I think there is no way that Norris will be a positive contributor, but he has to be much healthier and perform at a much higher level (than he has in his career) to warrant his $8 million salary. Cap space being as valuable as it is, there is an argument (strong in my view), that the Sabres would have been better to take futures. But this is what happens when the GM paints himself in a corner.

No, I'm saying that Adams and Ruff are so bad at their jobs that to go through the exercise of identifying underperforming players as the reason our season has tanked, without recognizing that those players were put in positions to fail by two men who are demonstrably bad at their jobs, only serves to let Adams and Ruff off the hook for the terrible work they have done. Adams is about to join some pretty dubious company as there have only been six NHL GM's over the past 60 years who went 0 for 5 in making the playoffs over their first 5 seasons on the job. Ruff, the winning, veteran, no-nonsense, accountability and structure, coach who was going to finally infuse this organization with the missing elements, has two seasons in his last 10 as head coach where he has a better than Deluca .500 record (on the somewhat positive side, in the two winning seasons his teams had over 50 wins, so there is perhaps a 20% chance we hit big next year). To give some context to this, let's look a little deeper at the goaltending situation. UPL had one strong, if somewhat modestly successful, NHL season prior to this year. The plan for this season was to go to camp with UPL, Levi, and Reimer. At some point, based on no clear rationale, they opted to waive Reimer and go with UPL and Levi. Then, once Levi faltered the plan became to lean almost exclusively on UPL. Prior to March 20th, when Reimer's current streak of play began, UPL had started 50 games and Levi/Reimer a combined 15. Levi/Reimer were 4 and 11 in those 15 games. UPL, at March 19th, was on pace to start 63 games. This is despite UPL having, on balance, a very bad season to that point. Here is how many goalies are on pace to start more games this year than 63: one. That goalie is Vasilevskiy. Hellebucyk is on pace for 62. Consider that for a moment. With UPL having only one season of somewhat modest success under his belt, the plan that Adams and Ruff hatched was to go with UPL and Levi and then if Levi failed to run UPL into the ground regardless of how well or how poorly he performed. So, to summarize, no it is not the case that UPL, Cozens, and Quinn are what happened to this team. Adams and Ruff are what happened. And, odds are, it will happen again.