Archie Lee

The Sabres points % under Granato was .494. Over the same period, Jersey’s under Ruff was .501. That’s 8 points, or 4 extra wins, over 276 games. This isn’t Ruff’s fault, but there is nothing from his recent history that supported he was a dramatic upgrade from Granato. If given a choice between 1.) this roster with Ruff, or 2) Granato with an improved and more veteran roster (that our owner should have insisted on and that our GM should have delivered this off-season), I would take option 2.

Watching Colorado address their needs is more than a little frustrating. Last year at the trade deadline they needed a #2 centre and targeted Mittelstadt. They paid a heavy price in Byram. They then immediately filled the hole by trading for Sean Walker. This year, their goaltending is bad and they go out and make two moves to change their goaltending. Did the moves get them a Cup last year? No. Will they win this year? Probably not. But they are not just waiting. The great flaw here is the idea that we need to make a big move for a star. Two Tucker, McLeod, Greenway-level forwards and a D-man in that category, would, in my view, have given us the depth to get through this last stretch without near catastrophic results. Such players are available if willing to pay the price. But Adams has constructed a lineup where he has more youngsters than he has spaces for and where he has supported them so poorly that they are almost entirely underachieving, thus driving down their trade value. And the cycle continues.

Granato was on Krueger’s staff. As an assistant to Krueger his role was to help install Krueger’s system and assist in seeing through Krueger’s vision of how the team would play. When Granato took over, he changed the approach from a defence first approach to a much more aggressive offensive system. There is no contradiction in that. The same could apply to the GM and assistant GM roles. Again, I am not saying that it would certainly be different if Karmanos took over as GM. But I am near certain there are people in the Sabres’ front office who are looking at this mess and considering what they would do differently. That’s normal. I’m not advocating for Karmanos. I just don’t think it is correct to assume that the entire front office is wholly in lockstep on their views of how to dig out of this mess. Heck, Karmanos might look at things and think the first thing he needs to do is make a trade for a veteran player to give people confidence that the days of sitting on our hands are over. That in itself would be a change.

I think the quoted portion of your post is wrong and likely very wrong. An assistant GM is not unlike an assistant coach. You are there to help the GM or head coach fulfill their vision. You don’t have to be a yes-man with no opinion to fill such roles, but you are there to serve the person who hired you. I’m not saying Karmanos would fair better, but there is no reason to assume he would not make different moves and decisions than Adams.

Sure. If the Sabres announced today that they fired Adams and hired Kekalainen or Hextall or Bergevin or Chiarelli, I wouldn't have a panic attack. I would not say any of them have a "winning track record" (and they all have some monumental failures), but I will concede they have all won more than Adams has. I'm not convinced that the names I've referenced would be eager to be the next GM of the Sabres.

I’m not sure. If they establish the run in the first half they perhaps better control the clock and keep the Rams’ offence off the field a bit. I’m not going to criticize the offence in any way, but I see his point. The D wasn’t able to match the star players on the Rams yesterday, and a more clock conscious offence was likely the only way. By the 2nd half, we had no choice but to throw the ball.

Ok, I figured I would have a look. NHL.com actually has a sortable listing of all GM's in NHL history. The following is a list of men who were NHL GM's in the past decade (not on an interim basis) who are not currently employed as a GM or Team President. Also included is their age, career winning %, and the last year they worked as a GM. Pierre Dorian, 52, .467, 23-24 Jarmo Kekalainen, 58, .528, 23-24 Ken Holland, 69, .622, 23-24 (retired I think) Ron Hextall, 60, .579, 23-24 Chuck Fletcher, 57, .535, 22-23 Jim Benning, 61, .487, 21-22 Marc Bergevin, 59, .557, 21-22 (Senior Advisor in L.A.) Doug Wilson, 67, .605, 21-22 (retired I think) Bob Murray, 70, .553, 21-22 (retired I think) John Chayka, 35, .475, 19-20 Ray Shero, 62, .586, 19-20 Dale Tallon, 74, .515, 19-20 (retired, I'm sure) Peter Chiarelli, 60, .579, 18-19 (VP STL) Garth Snow, 55, .512, 17-18 Dean Lombardi, 66, .496, 16-17 (VP PHI) Dave Nonis, 58, .539, 14-15 (VP CAL) No good options in my opinion. Kekalainen, Hextall, Fletcher, Bergevin, Shero, Chiarelli, and Nonis, would likely get some consideration around the league for vacant positions. All have significant warts, which is pretty much expected for any unemployed former GM (they would not be former GM's if things had gone well in their last opportunity). Perhaps interesting, 24 of the league's current GM's are in their first GM role. Only 8 were a GM with a prior team; of those, only Lamoriello and Waddell were GM's on two prior teams.

I’m not doubting you. I honestly can’t think of who these GM’s would be.

I would still like to see Cozens get a 5-10 game stretch playing with two veterans instead of two players younger than him. I would take 5 games of him just playing wing with McLeod and Greenway. I’m not blaming Quinn, Benson, Kulich, and Peterka for Cozens’s struggles, but it is sad to me that we have not found a way to give Cozens at least one legit veteran line mate to play with. I don’t hate trying Krebs with Thompson. As a prospect, Krebs was a pass-first, assist per game, type player. Obviously that has not materialized in the NHL, but he also has not been given an extended period of playing time with players like Tuch and Thompson. The theme of this post is that we continue to expect too much from too many young players.

The year you are missing in the “next summer” category, is this year. We would have Skinner at $9 million this year. Of course, it’s turned out to be a disaster either way. But I’m not sweating the extra $444k over the next 4 years or the $2,444,000 in 29-30. The buyout this year was fine. Like many things Sabre-related, it’s the execution that is lacking.

Skinner was owed $10 million of the remaining $22 million, this year. Unless I am misunderstanding, from a financial (actual $$$) perspective, the most advantageous year was this year.

Where the buyout makes sense is in actual $$$. I was happy with the buyout because I was suckered into thinking they would utilize the cap space in their self-proclaimed "must win year". In the end it is looking like the buyout was to save the owner money. Skinner was owed $22,000,000 over the last 3 years. The buyout cost is 66.667% spread out over double the length, which is $14,666,664 / 6 or $2,444,444 per year. The buyout cap hit varies from year to year and the average is higher, based on factors I won't pretend to understand (bonus structure), but Pegula is saving $7,333,336 (on Skinner's contract) with the buyout. I'm near certain that had we kept Skinner we would not have signed Zucker and that the 4th line upgrades probably don't happen. In fairness, the Skinner buyout was coming this year or next. The only real damage that is caused by having done it in 2024, comes in year 6 which is 2029-30. It is frustrating that they are not making use of the cap space that the buyout made available this season, but given how they operate, there really is no scenario where the buyout is causing damage.

To your last paragraph, I agree…but think it will be near impossible to attract a veteran GM with a winning track record. The most likely best case scenario is we get lucky with a rookie GM and head coach combo similar to how the Bills did. For a brief while it looked like we might have that with Adams / Granato. But they failed to strike when the irons were hot. After 22-23 there were reports from hockey insiders, and even Adams had said, that the word from agents was that the Sabres were starting to come off some no trade lists. Rather than capitalize on this, he squandered that off-season on Connor Clifton (no disrespect to CC), Eric Johnson, and internal growth. The moment was staring Adams in the face and he blinked.

I really like Adams. I have empathy as I’m sure he was having that kinda day on Friday and that if he could do it over he would strike the exact opposite tone (lord knows McDermott has said at least one thing even more regrettable). It’s going to be hard for Adams to survive this though. Pegula’s support will need to be nearly unbreakable.

Agreed. The drop off in his play is mystifying though. He has a long way to go, just to return to being the player he was, never-mind the play-driving, 40 goal, 80 point player some were projecting him as. Some fans asked for patience for Krebs, thinking he could still be a useful middle-six two way player. I still think that is where he is headed, here or elsewhere. Nobody that I recall, has recently been projecting that Krebs was a near to untouchable piece who was going to be the driving force of any chance the Sabres had of a turnaround. I still think Quinn can be a useful, middle-six player and that patience is warranted. His ceiling may still be higher. We likely should have moved him in a package for a top six player in the off-season. I don’t think he would be a meaningful add to such a trade currently. It’s a lesson I think that you have to be willing to trade a piece that hurts.

When Thompson was out and we went out west, I thought McLeod and Tuch worked well together. I thought it was an opportunity to try Cozens in the wing with Thompson when Thompson returned. Instead Ruff bumped McLeod to line 4.

I'm well past holding any of this against individual players. Tuch is a legit top-6 player on every team in the NHL. We have him for one more year on a bargain deal.

Quinn would be claimed by the Chicago Blackhawks, the league's worst team who have 1st waiver priority I think. There is zero risk to claiming a player like Quinn. HE won't, and definitely should not be waived. It should be noted, in some fairness to Adams, Ruff, etc., that Quinn's drop-off has been monumental. I was very skeptical of the view that some held that Quinn was on the verge of establishing himself as one of the best wingers in the league. I never imagined though, that a healthy Quinn would be less than a 15-20 goal, 40-45 point, middle-six winger, who would give us solid play at both ends of the ice. There was no predicting the level of drop off in his game that has occurred. I think he will bounce back, but the situation is concerning. For what it is worth, the same can also be said to a lesser degree about Cozens and to an even lesser degree about Benson (who was expected to take a step forward and at best is treading water with where he was a year ago, and has perhaps regressed a bit). Their performances have been worse than what reasonable people would have predicted. Granato paid the price for similar performance regressions in Cozens, Thompson, Tuch and Dahlin a year ago.

I think the 4th line has been fine, with the exception of Lafferty who been a pretty big disappointment. In hindsight, it was a pretty large red flag that Lafferty only produced 4 points in his last 41 games last year, including 0 points in 11 playoff games. Our 4th line wasn't the issue last year though. We would be more than fine with a 4th line of Krebs, Girgs and Robinson (arguably better). It is perhaps worth noting that Washington did just fine in replacing Malenstyn and Aube-Kubel with Brandon Duhaime and Taylor Radysh. This isn't a knock on Malynstyn and Aube-Kubel, who you could probably interchange with the other players I mention in this post, it's just that the 4th line upgrade was one of the off-season's three big canards (the other two being: 1.) The impact Ruff will have on the team; and 2.) The notion that Quinn and Benson were ready for top-6 duty).

In my view, Granato was done dirty. He coached a less talented and less experienced team to within a point of the playoffs. Last year they reverted to closer to their talent level. That wasn’t on Granato, that was on the GM for not having g the courage to step up and bring in players who could help us take the next step. Not saying Granato was perfect, but he squeezed a lot more out of less than Ruff currently is.

It’s something when Utah is half-heartedly celebrating goal 5 because they don’t want to embarrass us any more than they already have. Sheesh.

I think it was the opposite with Ehlers. My recollection on the reporting (which was in itself, unverified insider stuff), was that Ehlers accepted a trade to Buffalo but was in no hurry to extend. This scared the Sabres off as the acquisition cost was high and they did not think they could risk losing Ehlers to free agency after only one year. All of these are rumours though.

At 50% retention, I would take him. I would not claim him on waivers if I were Adams. I'm no expert on the Rangers, how they play, or on defensive systems in general. I understand that they play a man to man D-zone system and that Trouba and Lindgren are struggling with it. Either might be fine in a more conventional structure.

The best question from my perspective, largely because it directly addressed my pre-season belief that the Sabres are ultimately too young and inexperienced to be saddled with playoff expectations, came from Fairburn (I think). He stated that the Sabres are the league's youngest team, that it is hard to find examples of teams that make the playoffs with a roster as young as the Sabres, and asked Adams how he squares the young roster make-up that Adams chose with his own stated expectation of the playoffs. Sadly, Adams chose a snarky response and stated that he should have signed Craig Anderson again and then we wouldn't be the youngest team and the question wouldn't be asked. Sigh. Individual people have their own individual personalities. We see all kinds who are successful. There are GMs and coaches who would never scream and pound a table who win and there are those who scream constantly and pound every table who also win. I do not expect Adams to try to be someone he is not. In the end, you are judged by results. When he was not being defensive today, his answers would have been fine if he were the GM of the Chicago Blackhawks or San Jose Sharks. The Sabres are not in year two of a rebuild though. They are, generously, in year 4. And that is overlayed on a 13 year playoff drought and on the fact that the current rebuild was initiated not with the sell-off of a group of aging vets but with the trading of a group of players still in their prime who would be a reasonable starting core for a team with Stanley Cup expectations. Like all GMs, Adams will fail or succeed with the course he has charted. I'm not expecting a change in approach or direction.

This is pretty much where I'm at, though I don't think the overhaul need be as extensive. To the bolded, I genuinely believe that when a person who is relatively inexperienced has immediate success they can trick themselves into thinking it wasn't just smart decisions that lead to the success, but rather that the decisions were smart because they made them. This can lead to ignoring evidence and history and advice and assuming your next set of decisions will be just as successful. I think this (and, possibly, an internal cap) lead to the wasted summer of 2023 when nothing was done to advance the quality of the NHL roster. We are still catching up from that mistake.