Archie Lee

I agree. Spending more and bringing in an additional veteran player or two would not guarantee a better outcome. Committing to not spending that money is a self-inflicted handicap though. Here is an example of an alternate off-season - They still trade for McLeod - They sign Zucker for $1 million less on his AAV by giving him a two year deal - They sign Warren Foegele to the same $3.75 AAV that LA got him at, by giving him a 4th year - They trade Quinn and Kulich and a pick to Winnipeg for Ehlers, who was willing to come to Buffalo but not willing to extend in advance - They opt against qualifying Jokiharju and trade for Cody Ceci - They pass on the Malenstyn trade but still sign Lafferty, Aube-Kubel, Gilbert and Reimer These deals would have made them a more-veteran, experienced, and talented team. And it comes in under the cap. Perhaps they aren't all realistic. Some might object to Foegele or Ceci because they don't think they are all that good. Some might hate trading Quinn and Kulich for a player who we might lose after a year. All points are good, but these are just examples. Would such moves have put us in the playoffs? I don't know. But they would have signaled that we were serious about the playoffs. Opting against such bold moves has not worked.

I just don't think the word rebuild applies. I'm not suggesting that we should be happy with our 91 and 84 point seasons that preceded this year, but teams that are amongst the youngest in the league and that post seasons with those point totals, are in need of enhancements, leadership, next-level coaching, etc.; they don't need a tear-down. The Sabres had an opportunity this past off-season to make meaningful change. There were multiple coaches available with multiple seasons of recent success. They had cap-space and prospect/draft capital that made making additions easier than it would ever be for an organization that is not currently a desired destination for players. They squandered this opportunity on middling bottom-six players and a nostalgia coaching hire. The good news is that Adams's general roster timidness has left them without any truly disastrous contracts (some will disagree), and he didn't extend Peterka, Quinn or Byram to big-deals prematurely. There will be lots of cap space and capital available this coming off-season, if anyone is given the authority to utilize it. These are all good points and I largely agree. I'm not making an excuse for Adams with this, but there is next to zero chance that the Sabres make a meaningful deal before mid-February. Right now there are 16 teams holding down playoff spots and another 11 who are within a 3-game winning streak (or less) of changing places with one or two of those playoff teams. All of these teams have a need or needs that could be addressed through trade...and yet, there are no trades. The time to have made meaningful roster moves was in the draft/free agency window. Adams missed the opportunity. The next opportunity comes at the trade-deadline window. Right now, we are trending to that being too late.

I understand this sentiment, but think it would be a disaster. Gutting the youngest roster in the league would make the Sabres the laughing stock of pro-sports (ok...maybe they already are...but, I think it would make them an even bigger laughing-stock). I think the current roster and overall talent pool is very salvageable. Additions/subtractions/changes are needed, but there does not need to be a sell-off. I remember the last days of the Tim Murray era. I was definitely in a group of fans who wanted a new GM. I thought that Murray had done reasonably well to remake the roster, but someone more subtle in their approach was needed to fine-tune what was missing. Botterill, as it turned out, was a disaster. The extent to which Pegula impacted his decisions will likely never be known, but his coaching hires and roster decisions set the franchise back years. The core of O'Reilly, Eichel, Reinhart, Foligno, Rodrigues, Mittelstadt, Risto, McCabe, Ullmark, that Botterill had at the onset of his tenure, with some obvious needed adjustments (including a worthy head coach), would not have reached contender status until maybe 21-22 or 22-23. The playoffs were attainable earlier, but methodically bold moves and top-level leadership were needed to take the team to the next levels. That's what we need now. We don't need someone who is going to tear it down. We need someone who will identify what is missing and go about intelligently and aggressively fixing what is wrong.

RE: #1. I think this would be a disaster. Pegula just doesn't have ability to speak extemporaneously. The outcome of him taking questions would not be comforting. It does speak though to the need to have someone in a public-facing role who can do just that. At this point it isn't Adams. No reasonable person could take Adams seriously at this point. The hierarchy doesn't have anyone who could credibly take on that responsibility.

Epic.

I don’t have the heart or stomach for hoping or wanting anyone to be fired, cut, demoted, traded. I’m neither cynical nor naive. When pro sports teams fail, someone eventually pays the price. I don’t doubt that Pegula has some motivations beyond putting the best team on the ice, but I don’t for a minute think he wants to, or is even remotely ok with, subjecting fans to this. Adams has done things his way. He will likely not survive this with his job. I still think that the projected positive impact of Lindy Ruff was the greatest off-season canard. If I had to turn this over to anyone within the hierarchy it would be Karmanos, but I have no idea how that would turn out. I do believe that there are inflection points where a team can go in the right or wrong direction. After the 22-23 season Adams came to two roads diverged in the yellow-wood. In pro sports, there is lots of history and evidence to support what the best path to success is. For some reason Adams chose the road not taken and opted against providing veteran support to his youthful team that had missed the playoffs by a single point. That decision, in my opinion, set the team back both in performance and culture. He simultaneously passed on an opportunity to utilize a window of time to upgrade the talent and experience level of the team, while also sending the returning young players the message that winning was only a stretch-target; great if it happens, but not yet the organization’s top priority. That has made all the difference.

I can think of some home playoff losses in the 80’s that were pretty awful relative to fan expectation, but they were mostly pathetic efforts from the start and not monumental collapses. Worst seems like an unneeded distinction when it was about as bad as it could get. I guess we could have given up a 5 or 6 goal lead (and maybe we have somewhere in history), but the overlap of “the team desperately needs a win” and “team had epic meltdown”, makes this as bad as it can get. On a personal side note, I had a function to attend last night and couldn’t watch. Checked the score before I left home and was delighted if a little surprised to see us up 4-0. Not going to lie though, since it was Colorado and they have some studs, I had in my mind a game that we lost in Florida a few years back where we blew an early 3 goal lead. I checked the score before festivities began and saw we were up 4-1 late in the 2nd and felt pretty good. An hour or so later I saw we lost. Sadly, I was not shocked or even all that surprised. Also, my 17 year old son was with me. I showed him the final score on my phone. He just laughed. He knows nothing but this and thinks the Sabres are a joke.

I agree with this. I think our GM is now stuck in the rut of not wanting to rock the boat when things are going well and not wanting to over-react when things aren’t going well; not being willing to trade a youngster/prospect when they are playing well because their value is high and not trading them when they are struggling as their value is low.

Youth and inexperience are not advantages when it comes to winning in the NHL.

While Sabre fans are by no means monolithic in their view on paying the necessary acquisition cost to acquire such established forwards, I think it can be generally said that fans are not keen on giving up Quinn or Kulich (forget Benson or Peterka). All indications are that Adams feels the same way. Not that he wouldn’t trade them (in the right deal), but I doubt he is willing to deal them for what they would return. Neither would fetch a legit top 6 forward, under 30, with term. There were multiple rumours about the Jets’ demands for Ehlers in the off-season; one reported was a young NHL player and 1st rd pick. Had we made that trade in June, the cost was likely Quinn and Helenius. That’s steep for a pending UFA who would not commit to an extension. At what point though do you go all in on making the playoffs? Obviously there is no guarantee that Ehlers would have been the player who gets us over the playoff goal-line, but had we made such a trade we would still have Benson, Kulich, Rosen, Östlund, Neuchev, Wahlberg, our 1st in 2025, and a bevy of less-renowned forward prospects who shouldn’t be outright disregarded. The futures cupboard would still have been pretty well stocked.

On a near yearly basis there are teams that buck this trend. I certainly wouldn’t predict that the Sabres will, as the only time they have bucked the trend in the last 13 years was 18-19 (wrong direction). But there is a far greater than zero chance that there will be movement in the 6-10 or 7-11 spots through the rest of the season.

I’m sure Krieder’s partial NTC makes the Sabres a non-factor in any trade. That said, I don’t think anyone is suggesting JJP should be moved in such a deal. Quinn or Kulich are interesting. Kulich can still go down to the AHL, but at this point considering his role as a centre, he appears to be an NHLer (I would argue, as with Benson, that we didn’t draft him to be a middle-six plug-in and that he should be closer to producing at the NHL level before we promote him, but that ship has sailed with the Sabres’ current regime). At the moment, I don’t think we are getting a better player than Krieder in a trade for Quinn or Kulich (not without a ++ addition). So, if Quinn and Kulich (and Benson) are on the team, there really isn’t any space to add unless you are trading Cozens or JJP or Thompson, which is even less realistic. Krieder, in his decline, is on pace for a 38 goal season (82 games). Kulich and Quinn combined, are pacing for 7. I’m ok with patience and I’m ok with being aggressive. Adams has chosen to be patient while publicly promoting a willingness to be aggressive if a long-shot near perfect trade opportunity becomes available. He is, clearly in my view, hoping to shoot the gap and squeeze into the playoffs with the kids.

Just that using the same splits, they are 11-7-1, or 10-6, or 7-3 in their current stretch. Of course, that’s not how it works and you can’t just carve out the 0-3 start. But, we are trending positively in the win-loss column and a single, mostly well-contested loss after a 3 game win streak, isn’t something I’m going to worry too much over (and I’m not suggesting anyone is). If the Sabres get to 94 points and the playoffs (big ifs), they have somewhere around 28 more losses coming.

The team has played well enough since the 0-3 start (or 1-4-1 start, or 4-7-1 start; draw the line where you prefer), that I am no longer fretting over individual games. Last night was a combo of being goalied, bad puck luck, and, for portions of the game, not being prepared to get to the greasy areas. When you only give up one goal, it is perhaps unfair to point the finger at a particular defensive miscue, but the 4 on 1 that led to the Wild's only goal was a rather spectacular example of bad situational awareness on the part of either Thompson or Peterka (or both). Tuch and Dahlin were already deep and had gained possession when both Thompson and Peterka drove the net. When the centering pass failed and a turnover resulted, an odd-man rush was automatic. On top of that, Kaprizov was on the ice. I thought it was an example of how we are sometimes inpatient offensively. It seemed a little early to try and force an o-zone possession into a scoring opportunity and Thompson and Peterka ended up like two receivers whose patterns have taken them to the same spot on the field leaving them coverable by one d-man. One of them should have stayed high. Two things you don't want to do against the Wild is give them an odd-man rush with Kaprizov on the ice, and fall behind.

Krieder and Trouba are not likely to be realistic options. Both have partial NTCs with a 15-16 team list. It is near certain we are on the no trade side of their splits. So, it is likely a pointless discussion, except for considering both players as stand-ins for what might become available and what the acquisition cost would be. On Krieder specifically, I will defer to those who have seen him play this year more than me. Yesterday, Biron and Shayna Goldman were of the view that he is still an attractive player to add and that the 5v5 defensive system Laviolette runs is not well suited to many of the Ranger veterans. Interestingly, Biron and Goldman said this independently during different segments. My take from their comments, was that Krieder’s centre, Zibanejad, is struggling offensively because he has to focus so much on the defensive requirements of the system and this is impacting the even strength production of his line and Krieder. I have not seen Krieder play a minute this year though. Also, I understand the sentiment about not wanting to move players like Quinn or Kulich without getting a return that is a closer to a guaranteed good fit. The problem here is that, looking ahead to next year, Thompson, Tuch, Peterka, Cozens, Benson, Quinn, Kulich, McLeod = 8. Add in that Krebs is emerging as a possible middle-6 option and that’s 9. This assumes we just let Zucker and Greenway walk in free agency, which would be odd considering they have been very good in their roles this year. There is no room here to promote a prospect like Rosen. And how much better are we if we let Zucker go and replace him with the sort of vet you would get in return for Rosen? I don’t think we are getting a legit top 6 forward, under 30 with term and a reasonable AAV, for Kulich or Quinn (or both combined). If that is the required return, it is likely better to just say you are ok with what we have.

I haven’t watched any Ranger games this year (I even missed their game against us). So, I haven’t seen Kreider play this year. His fancy stats aren’t good. He is on pace to score 38 goals, which is basically what he scored the last two years. Not sure if the “0” assists portends something ominous or is just an early season statistical fluke. I’m not sure if it would be good value to move Kulich for him. I think that right now in this moment, Kreider likely makes us a better team. We run into some trouble though if every prospect who gets to the NHL and shows some signs of being a legit NHL player, then becomes untouchable (not suggesting @JohnC, that you are saying Kulich is untouchable; I recognize you are just saying you wouldn’t trade him for Kreider or Jiricek). This was the board’s general position on Quinn 5 months ago. If we can’t move Quinn or Kulich or Benson for a veteran top-6 upgrade, then we are left with no room, not only for the prospects not yet in the NHL, but for any forward that we might acquire for those prospects.

I generally agree. A GM in Adams’s position, with the # of high end prospects he has, needs to balance his own organizational intel on which of the prospects is most likely to emerge, with the demand that exists in the market. If you are only going to trade the prospects that your own intel suggests are longer shots to hit as good NHL players, you will limit the level of impact player that you can get in return. If you trade a prospect that your internal scouting is very high on, then there is increased risk that down the road people will question the decision. This is further complicated in Adams’s case, by the weight of 13 seasons out of the playoffs. Teams who are on rebuild #1 have the luxury of patiently projecting out what their contending roster and timeline looks like. When you are on rebuild two or three (like Ottawa, Detroit, Buffalo), the pressure to make the playoffs now is a real factor. On balance, the Sabres are well positioned to take some risk. If they trade the wrong kid, they still have enough young talent to soften the blow. I don’t think they should be reckless, but they should not be afraid of the long-term consequences of trading a player like Quinn or any of their players still with a prospect label.

I don’t think giving up Cozens in a deal for either Ranger makes us better. I do think that if you replaced Quinn and Jokiharju in our line-up with Krieder and Trouba, that we are just better. Cap-wise, the Rangers would need to eat 1/2 of Trouba’s salary for it to work and we would need to add. I understand why some fans would not want to part with Quinn, and there would be real risk that he becomes the very good winger some were thinking he would be as soon as this year. But we would still have Peterka, Benson, Kulich, Rosen, Neuchev, Wahlberg, Östlund, Helenius… No need to fret on this one though. It doesn’t work from multiple angles. Conceptually though: Quinn, Joker, ++, for Krieder and Trouba equivalents would be a positive move in my view.

A few things have occurred that have me upgrading my opinion from a pretty hard no to a cautious yes. While it was always the case that for the Sabres to make the playoffs there would be a number of things that had to happen that either had never happened before or that had never consistently happened, it was not the case that all of these things had to happen. And, some of them are happening. Thompson, Tuch, and Dahlin are having bounce back offensive seasons. Peterka, Power and Byram are, so far, having breakthrough offensive seasons. Tucker, McLeod, Krebs, and Clifton are, in their respective ways, outplaying expectations. UPL is, on balance, the same goalie as he was last year. The special teams, after a rough start, are performing better. They are standing up for each other in a way that they didn't always do before. Also, there are 8 teams in the East who, to this point in the season, have not only been worse than us, but who we seem to have a bit of the inside track on. We have more room for improvement, both from an age and experience standpoint, and from a cap-space and trade-capital standpoint. It's precarious. But I'm trending towards optimism.

As an aside, I’ve been watching hockey for decades and I have pretty much no idea what gets a player kicked out of the face off circle. I mean, I generally understand that it relates to cheating, not being set properly, etc., but I never pick-up on the specifics that result in a player being tossed.

Up until last night, I would describe Kulich as having “held his own” at the NHL level. Sometimes he was better than that, sometimes he was exposed, but in general he showed that he could get by as an NHL player. Of course, that’s not what we need or what we want from Kulich (eventually). Last night was the first time he was consistently impactful over a full game (in my view). That is great and hopefully he continues to have an impact. If he does, there is no barrier to him staying in the NHL. If everyone suddenly gets healthy at once, you just waive Gilbert and sit your two worst forwards. My best guess though is that Kulich will struggle to be consistently good and that the best thing for him and the team long-term is that he go back to the AHL and work on having this sort of positive impact game-in and game-out there. Which brings me around to another point. Kulich is now appearing to be on the “too good and important to trade” list. This is a problem. Assuming, perhaps misguidedly, that Adams is actually trying to make a deal for a legit top-6 forward, it should be noted that giving up the sort of asset that hurts a bit, is more likely to return the player we need. Some combo of a struggling Quinn, Rosen, Östlund and Jokiharju is less likely to get you a difference-making player, than trading someone you don’t want to give up (recalling that until recently, Quinn was, and likely still is to some, an untouchable asset who was going to be the catalyst to any leap we were about to take in the standings). You trade someone when their value is high.

I’m not going to have a link, but my recollection is that Ehlers was willing to accept a trade to Buffalo (he has some, but not full, trade protection), but the stumbling blocks were the cost (Jets wanted the moon) and an extension. Ehlers was not interested in signing an extension. There was no clarity on why? It could have just been that he preferred getting to Buffalo first and seeing how he liked it and how he fit in. I don’t think it necessarily meant he was outright opposed to re-signing with the Sabres. With the start that the Jets and Ehlers have had, I don’t think such a trade has become more likely.

Of course it is a thing. It’s a thing in the sense that at the 1/4 mark of a season, the best teams will have already established themselves as such and will have, mostly cemented their spot in the playoffs. Likewise there will be teams at the bottom of the standings who will be clearly out of it. These teams - the very best and very worst - are highly unlikely to switch spots. Of course, in most cases the performance and position of these teams was predicted in the off-season. What is not a thing is the notion you are up against some nearly insurmountable and rarely accomplished task, if you are one of the teams in the murky middle on American Thanksgiving and are a few points out of a wildcard spot. Those teams will typically trade places for the last spot, or spots, in the playoffs throughout the year. I haven’t researched this, but it would surprise me if this was limited to hockey. Indeed, check out the AFC standings after week 5 this year. The really good and really bad teams don’t take long to establish themselves in those roles.

The game is on sportsnet in Canada…but not yet as they are first going to show us all of the Leaf post-game interviews.

That is good context. Thanks.