Archie Lee

Spending more money and wisely would be best. Unfortunately, we do neither. We leave millions unused and the money we do spend we often waste. We are spending $10-12 million more against the cap than Calgary and Columbus and we are trailing both by 11 points. I think you are right, our GM has done such a poor job spending the money available to him, it may well be foolish to give him authority to spend more.

I think there are sound arguments for keeping Byram and Power and also for trading one of them. I don’t know why you think we would get very little in return for either player. I think both would be sought after if the Sabres made them available.

If I thought this were true, I would stop watching Sabre hockey. We could have traded for Sam Bennett. At the time he was acquired by FLA, his stock was down. He was a pending RFA. There is zero reason to think we would have been unable to extend him. We didn’t sign Hagel when we could have, but nothing stops us from identifying the next Hagel and trading for him. Tampa had the guts to offer what was thought to be higher than value. They won that one, then lost on Jeannot. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I’m generally a glass half-full guy. Looking at the approximately 100 players in this tourney, I would say about half are no-doubters. Then there are 35 or so who could be interchanged with similar players depending on the preferences of the management and coaches. Then there is the bottom 15 who are there because someone has to be (ie: the entire Finnish D). We have a legit no-doubter in Dahlin. We have a guy in the interchangeable category, IMO, in Thompson. We have a couple of additional forwards in Tuch and Peterka, who are in this tourney if they are Swedish or Finnish (Cozens, on reputation, might be also). Byram and Power are 1st or 2nd pairing Finns. Last year’s UPL belongs. We need a GM who knows what he is doing. To hell with the current “woe is me” guy.

I completely agree. There is a world where a different “new” GM has one meeting with Ralph Krueger and goes to Pegula and says the first thing I’m doing is firing this phoney. Then I’m hiring a real coach. Then I’m extending Reinhart and Ullmark and telling Eichel to go have his surgery. My point is not to defend the decision to tear things down. But, if Adams manages things properly starting in June 2023, I don’t think we are having this discussion. If we break it down to three questions: 1) Did the tear down need to happen? No, it didn’t. 2) Was the tear down managed well? Sure, but that was always going to be the easy part. 3) Have things been managed well since making the playoffs has been a reasonable expectation? Not close. Disastrously bad.

I have a little bit of a different view on the outcome of the tear-down trades that saw Hall, Montour, Staal, Risto, Reinhart, and Eichel moved. Those trades looked at individually, were never going to be wins unless one of two things happened: 1.) The player we traded fell on his face; or 2.) We somehow lucked into a star-level-talent in return. Both of those outcomes were always unlikely. Individually, the probability was always high that they would be losses. The point of the teardown was asset acquisition. You bring in a plethora of top picks and prospects and build an asset-base that eventually feeds your NHL roster through players that develop in your system and through trading those assets for NHL ready players. Adams did fine with the first part of the plan. He has failed miserably after that. I think that the absolute and utter failure of this season has cast a shadow of complete failure on Adams and his plan. I think that in many ways that conclusion is justified. The bottom-line is that in his 5th year at the helm, when the team should be at it's highest level of performance during his tenure, we are playing as badly as we have under him (post-Krueger). He owns that. Completely. He should be fired. The sooner the better. But, it should not be overlooked that in April 2023 we missed the playoffs by one point, with one of the 2-3 youngest rosters in the NHL, and while having a top 5 rated prospect pool. Adams's failing was not in the tear-down and was not with the assets he acquired in that period. His failure came from falling in love with those picks and prospects and not proactively moving the team forward when it was obvious to anyone paying attention that it was time to do so. As a GM, his failing is not in the moves and trades that he made, but in those he failed and refused to make.

Nice job!!

Yep. Incredibly, Dahlin will be in year 8 of his NHL career next season. Wasted.

This is largely how I felt, though my peak off-season optimism was when they fired Granato, which was quickly deflated when they almost immediately hired Ruff. Up until the Ruff hiring, I had convinced (tricked) myself into believing that when the time came to win that Pegula/Adams would pivot to ensuring the organization behaved like a normal NHL team. We would do an actual search for the right head coach. That coach would bring in a new assistant or two. We would make one or two prominent off-season personnel moves (not just 4th line changes). We would spend like a team that plans to win. We would be proactive if things were not going well. We would no longer worry about kids being blocked. Then we hired Ruff in what was an obvious charade intended to bring back a public-relations-nostalgia-hire who the owner and GM were comfortable working with and who would accept their preferred terms (2 year deal, no new coaches). This cemented for me that the Sabres are simply not a normal NHL team; the goal of winning has been displaced by a hundred sub-goals related to cost and personality and fear and apprehension. It’s too late now though. I’m in until the end.

Well, I already did when I replied to your earlier posting of the Lysowski quote. I pointed out the following: "...you look at the Florida Panthers and see Mikkola and Kulikov as the 2nd pair. Or Dallas and a right side of Lyubushkin, Dumba, and Ceci. Or Tampa and Raddysh on pair 1. Or Winnipeg with Samberg on pair two with Logan Stanley and Colin Miller as pair 3." I'm not saying we should go and get any of those players specifically. What I am saying is that every year teams make the playoffs, and in some cases have deep playoff runs, with players of this quality playing in their top-4. Often such players don't have trade protection. In some cases it isn't about being more talented, it is about being more experienced, or about having better support from forwards, or being better coached, or having better goaltending. Rasmus Dahlin is a legit top 10-15 D-man in the NHL. Three 3 years ago Bowen Byram played 2nd pair minutes on the Stanley Cup Champion. If Owen Power decided tomorrow to retire from hockey, the Sabres would still have ½ of a top-4 defense core, that is legitimately Stanley Cup capable. And, I'm just talking playoffs here. Any person worthy of being a legit NHL GM, could start an off-season with Dahlin, Byram, Connor Clifton, and Ryan Johnson, and piece together 3-4 additional d-men that an NHL team could make the playoffs with.

On Power. You are correct that he is not living up to the big contract. A bridge deal similar to what Dahlin had on his 2nd contract, might have been more suitable. Also, though he was never going to be a physical brute, his near complete lack of physical engagement is concerning. What I think you under estimate is how his deficiencies have been magnified by just how poorly he has been supported throughout his pro-career. On Soucy, he is actually not a good example as he has a full NTC (changes to 12 team next season). He did, however, sign with the Canucks in the summer of 2023, when the Sabres were starting to come off some no-trade-lists (reportedly). His contract is 3x$3.25. What I reject is that we can’t get players like Soucy in free angency, even if we are prepared to go an extra year or two on term or to a higher AAV. We have just decided not to pursue such contracts, in my view.

It is simply not the case that the sort of d-men you need to round out your top 4 and your 5-7 roles, all have trade protection.

The flaw with the Lysowski argument is that it makes the misguided assumption that every playoff team has a perfectly appointed 7 man D core, where you have a true #1 supported by a solid stay at home veteran #2, and then a 2nd pair with a #3 who could be a #1 and a #4 who could be a #2, etc. And then you look at the Florida Panthers and see Mikkola and Kulikov as the 2nd pair. Or Dallas and a right side of Lyubushkin, Dumba, and Ceci. Or Tampa and Raddysh on pair 1. Or Winnipeg with Samberg on pair two with Logan Stanley and Colin Miller as pair 3. It just isn't how it works. I'm not opposed to keeping both Power and Byram. But if we trade Power, for example, it is a myth that we need to acquire a couple of stud R shot D men like Rasmus Andersson and McKenzie Weegar to pair with Dahlin and Bryam in order to get better. Note: Calgary is somehow in the playoff hunt without Dahlin and Byram to pair with Andersson and Weegar.

I think on balance he makes bad decisions. Post-tear-down, the caution he has shown in making trades and signing UFAs has shown mildly positive results for individual players, but has not had a positive overall impact in the standings (quite the opposite). I think it would be flawed to expect that if he becomes more aggressive in these areas that the results would be good. His aggressive contract extensions for young players have not gone well. His aggressive pursuit of Ruff, ignoring many good alternatives, has been a disaster. There is just no reason to think a more aggressive Kevyn Adams in the areas of trading or signing UFAs, would yield positive results.

The Sabres need to move on from Kevyn Adams (and Lindy Ruff). Judging any player in the bottom-of-the-league environment that Adams has created, in this Adams’s 5th year as GM, is a flawed endeavour. At this point, if Adams stays on, the best we can hope for is that Adams accidentally stumbles into a line-up that can hang in the playoff race until the last few days of the season. He has proven himself capable of nothing more as GM. The sample size is more than large enough to draw conclusions.

Byram’s most common d-pairs this season at 5v5: Dahlin 524 min, Power 237 min, Joker 102 min. Power’s: Samuelsson 261 min, Byram 237 min, Joker 235 min, Dahlin 104. Byram is getting 1st pairing time with a legit Norris calibre d-man. Power is getting shuttled from one struggling young vet to another. I’m suspicious that our views on Power/Byram would be the opposite if their common d-pairings were also. Adams and Ruff have treated Power disgracefully.

Maybe. But by that logic, we have no chance of extending Zucker or Greenway or any player with any value. Granlund and Ceci, the players I referenced as examples, are, not unlike Zucker, 2nd and 3rd level free agents who are at a point in their careers where they might be enticed by term.

Not quite. Vesey never had a contract and wasn’t obligated to report to the Sabres. Any pending UFA that the Sabres trade for now, is ours until July 1st. At some point the organization has to have some belief in itself and in the notion that if they can get a player here then they can keep him. Or maybe not, and we just keep on with the defeatist attitude that because Jimmy Vesey had dreams of being a Manhattan Socialite that means there are no NHL players who would decide to re-sign with the Sabres.

I googled “can an injured NHL player be bought out?” and everything that comes up says no, unless the player gives permission.

This. Under Ruff, the Sabres are currently on pace to finish with 75-76 points. That’s what Granato got out of the team in his first full season, when we were still tearing down and the goalies were Tokarski and Dell and the we were using players like Wil Butcher and Andres Bjork.

Makes one wonder about the value of our analytics department. Are they not doing their jobs or just not being listened to? Cap space, especially on a team with an internal cap, has value. Remove Cozens, Quinn, Samuelsson, and Joker from our line-up and that's over $15 million in cap space (more next season, with whatever raise Quinn will get).

Yeah. Last night it worked, for the most part, because we were playing Columbus. Had we been playing a better and healthier team, it may not have gone so well. The Sabres wouldn't be the first team to play the "get a lead and then clog the neutral zone" style. There is some logic to them learning how to "grind" out points. But they don't seem built for this game. I assume Adams/Ruff imagined they would be getting more from Aube-Kubel and Lafferty and, of course, Greenway. Weird to me though that the 13 game losing streak saw McLeod largely on line 4.

You have won me over (wore me out? 😀) on the Cozens is not a centre argument. Honest question though. In 2-3 seasons when the cap is $105-$113 million, could a 20-25 goal, 45-50 point, Cozens on the wing, work for $7.1 million? It seems that 2-3 years from now, that won’t be out of line. He still could be a physical presence as a winger in a playoff lineup.

Rosen doesn’t look small out there.

I don't know that it is. But Weekes's schtick is for cryptic posts when something might be happening. This is not an endorsement. Pierre LeBrun's TSN report has the Flames (and, he says, 2/3's of the NHL ) inquiring about Cozens. I assumed people knew at least that much.

Apparently there has been some speculation about Calgary being interested in Cozens.