Archie Lee

I actually think there are multiple Ranger options that are pretty good. They are not my preferred trade partner for many reasons, but they have some great pieces that make sense if there is no team that is offering what we have identified as that single elite prospect that should be the starting point for a deal. I don't agree at all on the St. Louis / O'Reilly comparison. To begin with, the Rangers simply don't have any players in the Berglund/Sobotka category that could be included in the deal. Strome is the one bigger contract that might have to come our way for salary reasons. He has 108 points in 126 games over the past two seasons and has one year at $4.5 million left on his deal. There is no comparison between him and the Blues' cap dumps. If the Sabres were willing to retain 50% on Strome's contract, there would be at least a dozen NHL teams interested in him I would think. After Strome, even if you take out the big three of Laf, Kaako and Miller, it leaves a large pool of good young players in Chytil, Kravtsov, Lundkvist, Schneider and Georgiev; just to name the most prominent. A trade of Eichel, the rights to Ryan Johnson and a depth goalie (Tokarski) for: Strome, Chytil, Schneider, Georgiev and a 1st, would be a fine return in my opinion. While there is risk to be sure in any trade that focuses on multiple pieces; it is also the case that there are no guarantees around prospects like Zegras, Rossi or Krebs. I really think, at this point, that the Eichel trade will be about asset accumulation. If the Sabres were to make this trade with the Rangers, they would have the following 1st round picks since 2016 in their system: Dahlin #1, 2018 Power #1, 2021 Cozens #7, 2019 Mittelstadt #8, 2017 Quinn #8, 2020 Rosen #14, 2021 Schneider #19, 2020 Chytil #21, 2017 Thompson #26, 2016 Jokiharju #29, 2017 That's 10 first round picks from the past 6 drafts with three additional 1st round picks coming in 2022 to go along with additional higher-end prospects like Ruotsalainen, Luukkonen, Samuelsson and Peterka. That would provide us with a combination of young NHL talent, prospect talent and draft capital at a level that we frankly never had before or after the tank years.

There are many things that go into good leadership. Not being a good leader does not make one a bad person. Unfortunately, when people rise to leadership positions and they are either not yet ready or not "made" for the role, their leadership shortcomings are sometimes mistaken for issues of character. This is on the Sabres (not the current leadership; Adams and Granato did not make Eichel the captain and anoint him to a leadership role). Eichel was thrust into a role he was ill-suited for.

Honestly, if we are signing these guys we should give Houser a shot. He can be waived as easy as Dell.

Nick Bonino for a year would be ok. He has played on winners most of his career. Can play wing if we go young at centre and can move to centre in times where it is getting overwhelming for the kids.

I think we only had around a 20% chance of winning the lottery. The tank was for a 1/5 chance at McDavid, with Eichel (a potentially generational player) being the worst case scenario.

Maybe DeSmith too. The thing that is being overlooked on this, I think, is that a team like Washington might either: 1.) Prefer to lose Vanicek over other exposed players. So, if they trade Vanicek they are increasing the likelihood they then lose a player they value more; or 2.) Feel certain that Seattle is not going to take Vanicek; so, trading him would mean giving up goalie depth for no good reason.

The Avalanche did the same thing. Protected Grubauer. Like the Sabres they are going into the expansion draft without an NHL calibre starting goalie under contract.

It's really an unusual year. We have Sabres fans, credibly I think, stating with conviction that Eklund should be our pick at #1. Yet the mock draft that the two NHL writers (Kimelman and Morreale) published yesterday has Eklund going 5th or 9th. As a fan who loves the draft but acknowledges he gets little opportunity to see any of these players outside of a view highlight videos, it is hard to process. In a way it would be more fun (not better, but more enjoyable) if we picked 6th or 7th this year as we could watch and see who falls to us. Of course, that 1st pick of round 2 may prove valuable as a lot of teams, including us, should have a player still available after round 1 who they would have picked in the high teens or low 20's.

If he is here this year, it would be nice if he had a year where he was used as a 4th d-man, 2nd pairing defender. His price tag is high for that deployment, obviously. Whether he would help the team in that role, I'm not sure. Hard to know when he has not been used that way. I won't be shocked if the Sabres don't move him. I think he will be protected. I think the Sabres will either: 1.) Give something to Seattle to take Miller; or 2.) Be perfectly fine with Seattle just taking whichever exposed player they take.

There aren't many teams that have: 1.) An expansion draft eligible goalie they are protecting; 2.) A 2nd expansion draft eligible goalie they wouldn't want to lose for nothing; and 3.) A 3rd expansion draft eligible goalie that they can expose to Seattle, as is required, if they trade goalie #2. The other factor is that those few teams who meet the above criteria, may well just prefer to lose the goalie to Seattle than to lose the skater that Seattle would take if goalie #2 is traded. This is not as simple as some are making it out to be. The few teams that are in a situation where they may want to move a goalie, may be taking it down to the wire, similar to the regular trade deadline.

Just speculating. Maybe the Sabres don't want to lose two right shot D-men in the next few days. If they trade Risto and protect Borgen, it funnels Seattle towards Miller (unless Seattle takes Girgensens). That would leave us with Joker and Borgen as our only two NHL-level right shot D-men (and that's making the assumption we are correct and Borgen is NHL-level). The Sabres could still acquire one or two right shot D-men in other trades or in free agency, but maybe they would prefer to just protect Risto or Borgen and let Seattle pick the right shot D-man they want between Miller or Risto/Borgen. It would still be my preference that we trade something to Seattle to have them take Miller. The wildcard in all of this, in my view, is that we really don't know what the Sabres' plans are for this year. Are they: 1.) Planning a longer term rebuild where they come in well below the cap with a very young team and leverage that cap space to take on bad contracts and good assets from other teams? Or 2.) Planning to spend closer to the cap by taking back useful veterans as part of Eichel/Reinhart trades and by adding more useful vets in free agency in an attempt to be competitive during a shorter-term rebuild. If they are doing #1, then trading Risto and protecting Borgen makes sense. If they are doing #2, then, regardless of our opinions on Risto and Miller, I don't think it makes sense for us to lose both of them in the span of a few days.

Dumba, Fiala, Rask, Rossi, a 1st and a 2nd for Eichel and Ryan Johnson.

Just curious as to what analytics you would be referencing? I don't have access (that I know of) to anything other then corsi/fenwick type stuff, and they are pretty close in those categories. Not surprisingly, Bjork's corsi/fenwick #s were better in Boston (as were Hall's and Lazar's). I would protect Asplund over Bjork, because he is 16 months younger and can also play centre.

I went with Power at #1 and Beniers if he is available in the "if we have another top 5 pick" spot. I'm not a prospect expert by any means, though I love the draft and am very interested. My knowledge comes from what I read and video clips, so I would not pretend to have anything above the minimal level of knowledge about any of these players. If we end up with two top 8 picks and get Power, Beniers or Eklund at #1 and then any one of Beniers, Eklund, McTavish, Guenther, Johnson, Hughes or Clarke with the 2nd pick (assuming Power isn't available for our 2nd pick and that we don't take two D-men), then I am happy.

That seems high to me. Maybe there’s a team that rolls the dice for 1-2 years on him at that. Longer term would be high risk though. I do think he will have playoff teams kicking the tires on him. Edm, Tor, Col, Pitt and others could all have interest. Unless you mean 5.5 is what it will take for us to keep him over teams that will offer less but give him a better chance to win? If so, that could be true.

Agree on Ullmark. The 4 teams still playing either needed two goalies to get here (Mtl, Veg, NYI) or one that is all world (TB). Mtl doesn’t make the playoffs without Allen. I want Ullmark back and am prepared to give him 4-5 years at 4-5 million. This is not because I think he should be our clear #1 for the full term of the contract. It’s because in today’s NHL most teams need a 1A and a 1B. We have half of that for 4-5 years if we keep Ullmark.

I agree with this. I don't fault Eichel, Reinhart and Risto for wanting to move on. It is not their fault that the organization failed to build a team around them that had both sufficient talent to help them succeed and the sort of veteran leadership needed to assist them with their short-comings. My view is that the Sabres have more than sufficient assets (veteran players, including the 3 likely to be traded, young players and prospects, draft capital, likely cap space) to be successful on the ice. I think this is regardless of the path they chose. A good hockey-man could get the Sabres pointed in the right direction whether he chooses to keep the big 3 or trade them for futures and start a new re-build or trade them while making hockey moves intended to get the team to competitive hockey more quickly. I don't know that Adams is that hockey-man. If I have hope it comes from seeing that Adams has done some things right, in my view. He didn't sign anyone to a bad long-term contract last off-season. He did a decent job getting the team some draft capital back. He recognized how bad Krueger was and had the stones to go to the Pegulas and sell them on his vision (I'm speculating on that one a bit). We are going to get new data on Adams soon.

A few thoughts on this: Trading Eichel and/or Reinhart is no reason to draft a centre 1st OA. Best player available is always the right call in that draft spot (all draft spots?). That aside, if we trade Eichel we are, almost certainly, getting back a top prospect centre. Heck, maybe Beniers falls to Anaheim and that allows them to include the pick or Zegras in an Eichel trade. Power will create a bit of a left side log jam with Dahlin, Samuelson, Bryson, Johnson and potentially re-signing McCabe. Maybe Johnson becomes a trade option. It’s early to draw conclusions about what next year’s team will look like. But, if they draft Power and he is signed and in Buffalo, it is hard to imagine it being anything but a rebuilding year. I’m excited about Dahlin and Joker and about our other young D-men, but that is a lot of inexperienced D on one team with there not currently being any guys I would really put in the “solid-vet” category (maybe McCabe?).

I think the Eakin/Larsson issue highlights how out of his league Krueger was as an NHL head coach and as a pseudo - flat mgmt - GM. I assumed the intent was to let Lazar take over for Larsson as a 4th line C and let Eakin play 3C with offensively skilled players. Lazar has clearly shown he was up for the role. Say a bottom 6 of: Skinner/Eakin/Cozens Girgs/Lazar/Okposo Setting aside that Eakin is just not very good right now, if one believed that Eakin had more offensive upside than Larsson and wanted to strengthen the offensive prowess of the top 9, then adding Staal and Eakin down the middle could have been considered logical. I was, therefore, quite dismayed when I saw the lines for camp and Eakin was inserted between Girgs and Okposo. That was just bizarre and put Eakin in a spot that he just is not suited for. I'm hoping we give Seattle something to take Eakin.

When big ticket players become available, teams line up for a shot. Typically this is in free agency. Stamkos, Tavares, Pietrangelo (I have no idea if I spelled that correctly) all did tours I think. The difference in Eichel’s case is that teams would not be competing against a destination. They would not need to convince a player to leave the Gulf of Mexico or pass on signing with the team he dreamed of playing for as a boy. They just need to be the highest bidder. That will scare some teams away I think. Others it might encourage.

Players like Eichel just don’t become available very often. I think there are multiple contending teams who will be interested if he is available. If Vegas loses out in their division then I think they will consider if the missing element is a true #1 centre. Vegas would need to make room. Although it is hard to know if we are on the no trade list of players, we need to assume we are. Tuch, Stephenson, McNabb would balance the cap. Krebs and a first would address the need for futures. It’s a weird trade as it seems to be simultaneously too much and too little. Maybe from that perspective it actually works. If Reinhart returns, him Stephenson, Mitts would be a decent top 3 and we would be adding Tuch, Cozens and maybe Krebs to the wing. This opens up options to deal a winger or two for a different type of player. Olofsson for Wood +\- picks, as an example. Re-sign McCabe and Ullmark, acquire a solid b/u goalie and properly address the head coach position (whether Granato or someone else) and it looks like a roster that could compete and would be tough to play against. For discussion let’s just say we lose Asplund in the expansion draft, R2 ends up back in Rochester and we trade Risto for a pick (just for discussion): Skinner/Reinhart/Tuch Wood/Stephenson/Cozens Krebs/Mittelstadt/Thompson Bjork/Girgensens/Okposo/Eakin Dahlin/Joker McCabe/Miller McNabb/Borgen Bryson/Fitzgerald Ullmark Rittich Rochester has R2,Quinn, Samuelsson, 6K and we have Peterka, this year’s first, Johnson and multiple other picks/prospects in the system

Nice work. I agree that we are breaking new ground. Eichel at his best is better than any of those players. The injury might be the thing that either messes this up completely (if he does not recover) or takes his value to another level (if he comes back as good as he was in 2019-20). Patience is going to be key here, unless some team decides to blow our socks off in order to beat the rush.

I know that Johansson had not shown much in his NHL time prior to him being traded to the Avalanche. Also, I understand he is possibly a UFA at season end due to games played (?). He did struggle in games played behind a bad Sabres team. Still, he was a 3rd round pick, is only 25, had progressed through our system while having success in the minors. To trade him in a pandemic year when teams like Colorado were desperate for warm-bodied goalies, for only a 6th round pick was not a strong move. I don't think this is the case, but there is something about the Johansson deal that feels like it was a "favour". Colorado is a team that will need to expose multiple legitimate NHL players in the expansion draft. I'm not saying that Johansson is worth a Donskoi or a Graves, but maybe it gives us 1st shot at picking up an asset for a reasonable price.

If Eichel is traded in a Lafontaine / Turgeon style trade, then Eichel is likely the Lafontaine in the trade and the Sabres are the team getting Turgeon, Hogue, Krupp and McLlwain. It is a near universal opinion among Sabre fans, maybe all hockey fans and people, that the Sabres won the Turgeon/Lafontaine trade. I recognize that Lafontaine's career was cut-short due to injury and that he was the best player in the deal. But, it is worth noting that Lafontaine (385), Randy Wood (117) and Randy Hiller (1) combined for 503 points as Sabres. Lafontaine and Wood then added 118 points between the two of them after they left Buffalo. In total these players had 621 NHL points after they were traded to the Sabres. On the other side, Turgeon, Benoit Hogue, Uwe Krupp and Dave McLlwain combined for 1697 points after they were traded from the Sabres. Turgeon had over 1000 NHL points AFTER he left Buffalo. Krupp won the Stanley Cup with Colorado. Eichel has had some injury issues...

Really speaks to the difference in the two sports when it comes to the draft and prospects. Doyle and Mitts were born the same year. Mitts was drafted in round 1 in 2017 and was considered by many to be worthy of the trash-heap because he wasn't a fully formed star by age 20-21. Doyle is drafted 4 years later and will still, likely, get some time to develop his game.