Archie Lee

Agreed. I’m not close to writing off Quinn, but he is not playing like someone who can help us win hockey games. I believe that we should have moved one of Quinn/Benson and one of Kulich/Rosen in the off-season for veteran talent. We still should, though I think Quinn and Kulich likely have diminished value (certainly Quinn does). There is no reason to believe this group will be good enough to collectively play roles on a playoff team as soon as next year. In fairness to Quinn, he is playing in about the worst possible environment for a young player who is struggling with his game and his confidence. We have put all of these young players in a position that no other team does. The other teams that are down where we are (in the standings and in average age), are just looking for progression. We have put our kids in a position where they are expected to carry the weight of a 13 year playoff drought and rescue the fortunes of a failing (failed?) franchise. It has proven to be a little much.

I'm not giving up on any of them either. Dahlin, when healthy, is elite. I know there are still moments and stretches that leave us scratching our heads, but at his best his play is sublime. Good management teams (starting with ownership), build championships around players like Dahlin. It can still be done. Power is an elite offensive defenseman. He is on pace for a 54 point season. Do you want to know something shocking? Owen Power is tied for 2nd in the NHL for even strength points for D-men. He is tied with Quinn Hughes at 22 points, 1 point behind Cale Makar. That's not the shocking part. The shocking part is 33 games into this season, Owen Power does not have a single power-play point. Not one. His lack of production on the PP in part comes from being behind Dahlin and splitting remaining time with Byram. The other factor is that the Sabre PP is awful. It is not on the players and it is certainly not on Power. Yes, he needs to find a way to better utilize his size in the D-zone, along the boards, and in front of the net, and he simply needs to become more aware on that side of the puck. But, I doubt that the rest of the NHL looks at Power and sees a defensively weak player who can't be coached to be better. They see a kid who is an NHL top 5-10 offensive talent from the blue-line, whose ceiling has not come close to having been tapped. Byram? See Power, but not quite the same level. Byram is 9th in the league for even strength points for a D-man and has 1 PP point. His potential likewise remains largely untapped. The issue, and this goes back to mismanagement by Adams, may simply be that having 3 left-shot D-men with similar primary skill sets is not how you build a blue-line for the NHL. Moving one (Byram would be the obvious choice), should be an option when it comes to remaking the roster.

The Sabres had enough talent to finish with 91 and 84 points the last two years. That's not anything to celebrate, but in aggregate those totals were neither a gross over or under achievement, in my opinion. I believe strongly that what we are seeing today (12 straight losses, on pace for 64 points) is the accumulated sum of GM/ownership complacency, malpractice, and neglect. Only 2 off-seasons ago (2023) the word was that the Sabres were starting to come off of some player's no-trade-clauses. By not being aggressively proactive the past two off-seasons, Adams has set this franchise back yet again. The young players on this team are not ready and the veterans have now lost hope. For the players, it isn't a lack of effort it is a lack of oxygen. On the positive side, I think we are still in the window where it is very fixable (not for this season, obviously). A fire-sale is not needed and nor is a massive overhaul. Adams made an enormous strategic error going into this season with the youngest roster in the league. We had 6 forwards 23 and under on the ice last night (Krebs, Cozens, Peterka, Quinn, Benson, Kulich). Plus Power and Byram on defence. Plus Rosen, Kozak, Johnson, and Levi as first call-ups at their positions. This is as talented of a 23 and under group as there is in the league. But, it is simply not the roster of an NHL playoff team. It wasn't in July 2024 and there is zero reason to think it will be in July 2025. The path is still there. I'm not advocating for the trade of any particular aged 23 and under player. But we simply have too many to be a successful NHL team. Right now, Adams is failing both his veterans and his youngsters by somehow creating an environment where neither can reasonably be expected to thrive. He is the man who created this. He is not the man to fix it.

It's incredible the negative impact that complacency has had on this team. I legitimately feel sorry for the players. I was bitter, at the time, when O'Reilly and Eichel wanted out. Today, I would not begrudge any of our players for publicly stating they don't want to be a part of this any longer.

I don't know. It could it be that our kids are struggling in large part because they are surrounded by too many other kids? Pluck a random 23 and under kid from our roster and put him on Dallas or Florida or Vegas or Washington and I suspect they are not struggling to the same degree? Maybe some, but not all. I'm not about to argue that Granato should have been kept, but it hard for me to square the circle that he was so bad as a coach that over the last two years combined he got this team to within 1 win of DeLuca .500, while Ruff is so good but can't coach the bad habits out of them. In defense of Ruff. This year's team is actually constructed worse. Not directed at you at all, but somewhere between July and today, we went from Ruff's fingerprints being all over the roster changes to this being all on Adams. It is mostly on Adams (and Pegula) to be sure, but clearly Ruff is not the coach who is going to positively reshape our culture.

Yeah. That’s it. Nothing else to learn. Looks great out there

Utter nonsense.

He should sue Adams for not sending him back to junior last year and again this year. He could be captaining team Canada and a W team on its way to a championship run. He could be one of the best junior players in the world and a player we would all look forward to watching in the next couple of years and a coveted asset. But he is just another struggling young Sabre.

True. You generally don’t fault a goalie for goals on odd man rushes, but Luukkonen has and can make saves on those and they do impact games. This is not on him. I don’t blame any player for this. The players are lost and defeated. The owner and GM are guilty of malpractice and should be ashamed.

You could see tonight his confidence is gone. Slow reactions, not getting to his proper depths.

I guess you are right. We could be selling before Christmas.

I’m skeptical, but it would fit in with the mounting evidence of an internal cap. For the Sabres to bring in a player, money will have to go out.

I'm not saying Granato did the most amazing job or anything. But he definitely got the team to over-achieve slightly in 21-22 and by quite a bit in 22-23. Last year, the Sabres finished about where the models projected them to finish (83-56 points) based on talent and experience. This year we are grossly underachieving. We don't have a playoff roster, but we should not be a sub-70 point team and a legit contender for the 1st O/A pick, either. There is more to this than Ruff to be sure. I really do think that it has now fully sunk in for the core players on this team that they are not good enough on their own and they are not getting any help from ownership or management. Ruff isn't a great coach though, in my view. There are reasons for why he has never been high on the list as an option for contending teams. We would not have been worse off with Granato, in hindsight. I would prefer Todd Nelson; there is recent precedent for poaching another organization's AHL coach mid-season.

I think you are right. This is why when O’Reilly lost his love for the game and when Eichel asked for a trade, Pegula didn’t look in the mirror, but rather thought “get these ungrateful punks out of here”.

The Fenway group being interested in the Bruins makes lots of sense. Delaware North having interest in the Sabres makes some sense to me. Pegula getting the Penguins in the deal is the tough part for me to wrap my head around. The NHL will remember how awful things were in Pittsburgh pre-Lemieux and again pre-Crosby. Letting one of the league’s current worst owners take over that market doesn’t seem like a great idea.

By being cheap Pegula is ensuring that his biggest potential revenue stream is significantly under-maximized. I did the math on what Pegula spending $8 million more on Sabres salaries would be relative to his net worth, and it would be like a family buying a couch. Not a really nice couch either. This would be like a couch from the Brick (perfectly fine…no disrespect to the Brick, where I have bought some things over the years). And all the couch gets a family is a place to sit, it doesn’t open up potential revenue streams.

I’m ready to try Cozens on wing. I stand by my view though that he would be a better centre with better wingers. I would like to see him get 6-10 games with Tuch and Zucker as his wingers. It’s not a crazy expectation for a “playoff” team to give its young 7 million $ centre, a couple of capable and experienced wingers. Of course, it would leave Thompson playing with the kids, so not likely to be a net positive for anyone but Cozens.

Great article. Thanks for posting. If Adams is limited in spending, and all signs are he is, that is still not an outright excuse. He has spent the cap money he does have poorly. Cozens and Power and Samuelsson could have been bridged (like Dahlin was). That would have saved $5 million plus in space under any internal cap. There are successful teams who bridge quality youngsters (Dallas bridged Oettinger and Harley).

I think it has a lot to do with the culture in the room and the personality of the GM and / or head coach. Vegas seems to get away with it. Tampa did a similar thing to Ryan McDonagh. They ended up trading him to his team of choice, Nashville, but the only reason he waived his NTC for Nashville was under threat of being placed on waivers and the knowledge that he would be claimed by a team that he didn’t want to go to. So other teams do rather cut-throat things and the locker room doesn’t revolt. The Ranger saga may be a bit different. The Goodrow situation seems to have been orchestrated specifically to get him to San Jose. I don’t think there was a long list of teams that wanted him so it wasn’t like Drury could say, pick your trade destination or we will waive you and you’ll end up with the Sharks. San Jose WAS the trade destination I think. And Drury and Laviolette might just be poorer communicators than the GMs and coaches in Vegas and Tampa. Or the player leadership group in NY is less committed to winning (not uncommitted to winning, but culturally less committed) than the comparable groups in Tampa and Vegas.

I will never find the quote, but I remember when our hands were forced on the big Vanek extension, Regier saying (and I’m definitely paraphrasing) that with the contract comes the pressure of being the face and leader of the franchise, whether the player is ready for it or not.

$3 million in LTIR space! Was it Elliott Friedman who summarized the situation as: "Pegula and Adams don't think they have built a good enough team, so why spend more money"? Here is a list of veteran forwards, playing for teams that are out of the playoff hunt, none of whom have any trade protection, and who are pending UFAs (so they wouldn't prevent us from giving extensions to anyone else): Frank Vatrano, Brock McGinn, Joel Armia, Jake Evans, Michael Granlund, Luke Kunin, Nico Sturm, Ryan Donato, Gustav Nyquist. I didn't say it was an exciting list. Of course, we are firmly in the territory of 168 days late and 8 million dollars in unused cap space short, but there are players out who could help and who we should be able to beat any offers for. Then again, maybe at this point any player that we trade for would be so negative about coming to Buffalo that it would do more harm than good.

This is more a reflection of overall roster construction than it is of the shortcomings of individual players. No team has 14 forwards and 8 d-man who eagerly go to the opposition crease or enthusiastically clear their own. We have too few such players.

I agree. But getting better means having better players. If we are comfortable waiting on Quinn and Peterka and Benson and Kulich to become players who collectively (not individually) are good enough to help us win, then we are in the same boat as Anaheim or San Jose or Chicago, and our expectations should be adjusted accordingly. You can’t have 4 developing or struggling forwards 23 and under in your top 9 and expect to win in the NHL. Well, you can I guess, but you would be unrealistic in your expectations.

Agreed. It’s starting to feel hopeless. On the one hand, what went wrong with the current iteration of the team is not that hard to diagnose. Since April 2023, management has failed to support their young core with a commitment to winning, solid veterans, superior coaching, and bold decision making (also known as the mainstream approach to winning in the NHL). The core is still young. With the right person in charge and the right coach, this should still be salvageable. On the other hand you have 14 years of Ville Leino, “there will be some suffering”, Pat Lafontaine, Ted Nolan, pee-pee slaps, “I’ve lost my love for the game”, Ralph Krueger, EEE, flat management, artificial disc replacement, “sustainable success”, palm trees, and “the solution is in the room”, and it’s enough to make you wonder why you invest any $$$, time, or emotion, in this vain and doomed project.

I would bet on Drury fixing the Rangers or on him getting another job and getting his new team high in the standings and deep in the playoffs, before I would bet on Adams. The Kakko trade is a warning about falling in love with young players. There were some who thought trading Quinn in the off-season in a package for a legit top 6 forward was crazy (more than crazy actually; some fans thought that trading Quinn straight-up for an actual good established NHL player would have been GM malpractice). No doubt Adams shared that view. Today, Quinn’s value has surely sunk below what Kakko just returned.