Goaltending this season and Beyond

[LGR4GM]

2 minutes ago, New Scotland (NS) said:

Here is the list of UFA goalies.  The top part are signed and the bottom part are still available.

https://www.spotrac.com/nhl/free-agents/goaltender/ufa/

Bernier, maybe.  Dubnyk, maybe.

Any warm body at this point. It's a major issue.

[Sabres Fan in NS]

Just now, LGR4GM said:

Any warm body at this point. It's a major issue.

We have warm bodies.  We need better / warmer bodies.

[Drag0nDan]

5 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Not really.  When we had good goaltending the team was a playoff caliber team.  When we played in front of Hutton, UPL, Tokarski, Houser etc... we were the worst team in the NHL by a wide margin.  Who failed to get an upgrade for Hutton?  KA that's who.  Had we had a better backup the team might not have spiraled into oblivion.  I don't know for sure, but the early metrics on last season were good and KA, like Jbot before him, failed to support the team and down the drain they went. 

So while it isn't a perfectly straight line, KA bares much of the blame for last season by not fixing the obvious glaring hole in net.  Just to add insult to injury he made the situation even worse this year. 

Sadly cap space was mostly allotted to bringing in Hall.  The goal in the shorter season was to probably get to the deadline in position to acquire an extra goalie.  With Ullmark penciled in at starter i cant imagine buffalo was in on Markstrom, Talbot, Khudobin, or Holtby.  Greiss maybe?  After that it's basically who buffalo signed this year.  

[bob_sauve28]

2 hours ago, Thorny said:

Isn't the implication of "good" above average? That's a solidly in-the-playoffs team. A last place roster minus Reinhart and Risto is "good'? 

IMO a good goalie would be enough to keep this team in games they'd eventually lose, but the position isn't holding a good team back from being in the playoffs. 

Even Ullmark, the best goalie who was available, did *not* contrary to popular belief have the team playing at a "playoff pace" for a short stretch, I believe they played at a pace, with Reinhart, of around 90 points. Playoffs is usually around 95. 

Ullmark with Kruger was not good enough. They sure looked good under Granato even with really, awful goaltending. They beat NY, Pitt Wash  with sixth string goalies. 

[Thorner]

1 minute ago, Drag0nDan said:

Considering the struggles with Kruegers system, and just an absurd number of lost games to injuries, I don't know how I'd feel putting that on Adams.

Eichel, Cozens, McCabe, Girgensons, Ullmark, Okposo all missed a ton of games.  Add in a really long covid protocol issue, and a few players who were clearly negatively affected by it.  Just an absolute disaster of a year on the health front.  

Every team has injuries. It was Adams' failure to adequately plan in advance for these that would be the failure on that front. Ullmark, McCabe, these are players more likely to go down than not. We needed a capable backup regardless of Ullmark's health status.

Adams chose to funnel as much influence to Krueger as he did. 

Of course there are mitigating factors to a last place finish - there's a lot of luck and randomness. But it's statistically difficult to regardless. He still actively beat out 30 other teams to do it. There's a lot of error mixed into the the bad luck. The mitigating factors are significant, and are why I haven't once said "Adams should be fired" or that the last place finish was the final straw to prove he's an awful GM. 

But it's still the biggest black mark on his tenure thus far. Where you finish in the objectively measured standings is still more relevant than any one single move. If Adams made 10 moves adjudged to be bad this offseason out of 10, and we made the playoffs, I'd say he did a good job. If he made 10 decisions that looked good through the prism of the moment and we finished last, he'd have done a poor job in the macro. We can certainly attempt to pin down the individual decisions that had the most affect on the result, but the result simply matters the most, that's all I'm saying. 

[dudacek]

I think we should sign Lundqvist and Miller and then team them with Anderson to form a classic rock reunion/farewell style tour while they each play once a week to stay fresh while entertaining the kids in the room with takes of bygone seasons and distracting media attention from the state of the Sabres.

You think I’m joking, but I defy you to find a happier way of meeting the organization’s goals this year.

 

[GASabresIUFAN]

5 minutes ago, Drag0nDan said:

Sadly cap space was mostly allotted to bringing in Hall.  The goal in the shorter season was to probably get to the deadline in position to acquire an extra goalie.  With Ullmark penciled in at starter i cant imagine buffalo was in on Markstrom, Talbot, Khudobin, or Holtby.  Greiss maybe?  After that it's basically who buffalo signed this year.  

I've mentioned this up thread but Nedjelkovic was waived right before last season started.  KA could have grabbed him for nothing.

[Curt]

3 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I think we should sign Lundqvist and Miller and then team them with Anderson to form a classic rock reunion/farewell style tour while they each play once a week to stay fresh while entertaining the kids in the room with takes of bygone seasons and distracting media attention from the state of the Sabres.

You think I’m joking, but I defy you to find a happier way of meeting the organization’s goals this year.

 

That would be the cutest!    Seriously.

[dudacek]

6 minutes ago, bob_sauve28 said:

Ullmark with Kruger was not good enough. They sure looked good under Granato even with really, awful goaltending. They beat NY, Pitt Wash  with sixth string goalies. 

Houser, Tokarski and UPL were .904, .901 and .906 respectively in terms of save percentage and an ugly 3.54, 3.46 and 3.88 GAA.

[Drag0nDan]

Just now, dudacek said:

Houser, Tokarski and UPL were .904, .901 and .906 respectively in terms of save percentage and an ugly 3.54, 3.46 and 3.88 GAA.

Shot suppression was not their strong suit apparently.

[Drag0nDan]

10 minutes ago, Thorny said:

Every team has injuries. It was Adams' failure to adequately plan in advance for these that would be the failure on that front. Ullmark, McCabe, these are players more likely to go down than not. We needed a capable backup regardless of Ullmark's health status.

Adams chose to funnel as much influence to Krueger as he did. 

Of course there are mitigating factors to a last place finish - there's a lot of luck and randomness. But it's statistically difficult to regardless. He still actively beat out 30 other teams to do it. There's a lot of error mixed into the the bad luck. The mitigating factors are significant, and are why I haven't once said "Adams should be fired" or that the last place finish was the final straw to prove he's an awful GM. 

But it's still the biggest black mark on his tenure thus far. Where you finish in the objectively measured standings is still more relevant than any one single move. If Adams made 10 moves adjudged to be bad this offseason out of 10, and we made the playoffs, I'd say he did a good job. If he made 10 decisions that looked good through the prism of the moment and we finished last, he'd have done a poor job in the macro. We can certainly attempt to pin down the individual decisions that had the most affect on the result, but the result simply matters the most, that's all I'm saying. 

Right, but there were other factors at play.  The condensed schedule didn't exactly help things, nor did playing in basically the toughest division (minus NJ).  The covid issue was a big one that really seemed to sap the team - they went like 2-20 after that and its pretty obvious that like more than half the team got covid.  The travel issues after the 2 week "break" (where they couldn't practice or prepare really, and a number of players were physically ill), are just a nightmare to look at.  

[jsb]

1 hour ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Gotcha!  I figured as much, but had to be sure.

I wish he would use emoji's then because l can't differentiate his DA posts from his sarcasm ones.

[GASabresIUFAN]

52 minutes ago, Drag0nDan said:

Right, but there were other factors at play.  The condensed schedule didn't exactly help things, nor did playing in basically the toughest division (minus NJ).  The covid issue was a big one that really seemed to sap the team - they went like 2-20 after that and its pretty obvious that like more than half the team got covid.  The travel issues after the 2 week "break" (where they couldn't practice or prepare really, and a number of players were physically ill), are just a nightmare to look at.  

The team went 9-6-3 with Ullmark in net last season.  The other 5 goalies 6-28-4.  We can blame Covid, injuries, hard division, condensed schedule etc... for the last place finish, but regardless of coach and players the team was a playoff caliber team with Ullmark in net.  Had we had a credible backup we wouldn't have finished last and might have competed for a playoff spot.  It's really that simple.  

[Drag0nDan]

9 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

The team went 9-6-3 with Ullmark in net last season.  The other 5 goalies 6-28-4.  We can blame Covid, injuries, hard division, condensed schedule etc... for the last place finish, but regardless of coach and players the team was a playoff caliber team with Ullmark in net.  Had we had a credible backup we wouldn't have finished last and might have competed for a playoff spot.  It's really that simple.  

Who were they signing though (https://www.spotrac.com/nhl/free-agents/2020/goaltender/ufa/)?  And what cap space were they using?  

So the starter played 20 games (18 to get stats in).  There are 44 goalies who started more games than him.  22 started 30 or more.  They were clearly planning to lean on him in that high 30 to 40 games.  Since teams needed to carry 3 goalies this year, it became even more challenging to bring in a quality backup. 

Hutton was bad, but the team was on 3rd, 4th, and 5th options by the end of the year.  No team was going to be super successful with their depth players playing that much.  Johansson on the Taxi squad seemed to make him generally less effective, but his numbers in colorado show that the defense in front of him was probably equally ineffective.  

[GASabresIUFAN]

4 minutes ago, Drag0nDan said:

Who were they signing though (https://www.spotrac.com/nhl/free-agents/2020/goaltender/ufa/)?  And what cap space were they using?  

So the starter played 20 games (18 to get stats in).  There are 44 goalies who started more games than him.  22 started 30 or more.  They were clearly planning to lean on him in that high 30 to 40 games.  Since teams needed to carry 3 goalies this year, it became even more challenging to bring in a quality backup. 

Hutton was bad, but the team was on 3rd, 4th, and 5th options by the end of the year.  No team was going to be super successful with their depth players playing that much.  Johansson on the Taxi squad seemed to make him generally less effective, but his numbers in colorado show that the defense in front of him was probably equally ineffective.  

except you are forgetting that the other 5 goalies are below replacement backups.  Johansson is barely an AHL goalie, Tokarski is a solid AHLer, UPL is a raw prospect, Houser is an ECHL goalie and Hutton proved during his stay here that he shouldn't be in the NHL either.  While better defense and better offense would have helped, the guys not named Ullmark were not and should not be NHL goaltenders last season or this (including UPL).

Edited August 9, 2021 by GASabresIUFAN

[Thorner]

3 minutes ago, Drag0nDan said:

Who were they signing though (https://www.spotrac.com/nhl/free-agents/2020/goaltender/ufa/)?  And what cap space were they using?  

So the starter played 20 games (18 to get stats in).  There are 44 goalies who started more games than him.  22 started 30 or more.  They were clearly planning to lean on him in that high 30 to 40 games.  Since teams needed to carry 3 goalies this year, it became even more challenging to bring in a quality backup. 

Hutton was bad, but the team was on 3rd, 4th, and 5th options by the end of the year.  No team was going to be super successful with their depth players playing that much.  Johansson on the Taxi squad seemed to make him generally less effective, but his numbers in colorado show that the defense in front of him was probably equally ineffective.  

You have a point that you can blame Adams less and less for the quality of play of the goaltender the further you move down the depth chart, but the key here is even with normal injury luck, and the normal challenges of a full season, we would have been in trouble with Hutton as the backup. And that's even with Ullmark remaining healthy. And I would not argue that Ullmark remaining healthy was a reasonable thing for Adams to rely on - it only made the first backup position even more important. 

[Drag0nDan]

Just now, GASabresIUFAN said:

except you are forgetting that the other 5 goalies are below replacement backups.  Johansson is barely an AHL goalie, Tokarski is a solid AHLer, UPL is a raw prospect, Houser is an ECHL goalie and Hutton proved during his stay here that he should be in the NHL either.  While better defense and better offense would have helped, the guys not named Ullmark were not and should not be NHL goaltenders last season or this (including UPL).

I'm just not sure who they should or could have brought in.  The third highest AAV guy retired before the season.  Markstrom was the top dog, and the next 4 either signed to start or joined timeshares for playing time buffalo was not able to guarantee, nor do i think buffalo was capable of matching those dollars while bringing in Hall.  So you're left with the guys making below a million - who are basically AHL/NHL goalies.  

[Taro T]

9 minutes ago, Drag0nDan said:

I'm just not sure who they should or could have brought in.  The third highest AAV guy retired before the season.  Markstrom was the top dog, and the next 4 either signed to start or joined timeshares for playing time buffalo was not able to guarantee, nor do i think buffalo was capable of matching those dollars while bringing in Hall.  So you're left with the guys making below a million - who are basically AHL/NHL goalies.  

It was reported here & elsewhere that Adams had been extremely close to a deal for a goalie with at least AZ, Calgary, & the BJs.  But then when the league re-revamped its resumption plan to include a taxi squad all those deals dried up as the teams didn't need to waive their 3rd goalie.

So, Adams gets a smidgen of slack there, but he gets none for not making any waiver claims on guys that had been cut loose in season.  A couple were dogs like Dell buy there also was a steal or 2.

The problem w/ getting a waiver claim guy was that by the time most of them were available the focus had shifted from winning to Power.  Really believe they went into the year expecting to be good but when they couldn't get a goalie, Eichel broke before they even got him out of the box, & Staal apparently lost his love of everything by the 2nd game, it didn't take long for that focus to shift.  Suspect management was OK w/ losing back when they were still flirting w/ NHL 0.500 and they had options but chose not to follow them.

[Drag0nDan]

2 minutes ago, Thorny said:

You have a point that you can blame Adams less and less for the quality of play of the goaltender the further you move down the depth chart, but the key here is even with normal injury luck, and the normal challenges of a full season, we would have been in trouble with Hutton as the backup. And that's even with Ullmark remaining healthy. And I would not argue that Ullmark remaining healthy was a reasonable thing for Adams to rely on - it only made the first backup position even more important. 

I just think it was a cap issue as much as anything else.  Probably self-inflicted by the Hall signing - and obviously terrible cap hits of okposo and skinner.  The Eakin signing (while terrible) didn't break the bank, and may be like 1M different than bringing back larson.  They non-tendered Kahun to save some scratch (I forget how much the QA was for, but much higher than the sub 1M contract he signed), that also opened up a spot for Hall. 

There was also a rumor floated that they were possibly non-tendering montour (would have saved them probably the 3M needed to sign someone, and put Borgen on the opening night roster).  While many would have accused KA of wasting an asset as they probably could have traded him for something, RFAs had like no value last offseason because of the reduced cap crunch being in year 1.  6 total UFA defensemen received contracts with AAVs higher than Montour, and didn't require any draft compensation to acquire.  

[Thorner]

2 minutes ago, Taro T said:

It was reported here & elsewhere that Adams had been extremely close to a deal for a goalie with at least AZ, Calgary, & the BJs.  But then when the league re-revamped its resumption plan to include a taxi squad all those deals dried up as the teams didn't need to waive their 3rd goalie.

So, Adams gets a smidgen of slack there, but he gets none for not making any waiver claims on guys that had been cut loose in season.  A couple were dogs like Dell buy there also was a steal or 2.

The problem w/ getting a waiver claim guy was that by the time most of them were available the focus had shifted from winning to Power.  Really believe they went into the year expecting to be good but when they couldn't get a goalie, Eichel broke before they even got him out of the box, & Staal apparently lost his love of everything by the 2nd game, it didn't take long for that focus to shift.  Suspect management was OK w/ losing back when they were still flirting w/ NHL 0.500 and they had options but chose not to follow them.

Eerily similar to Botterill and getting help at C, during the season post massive winning streak when the team needed a boost. Not addressing the position the second window is almost worst. It's more deflating. 

[Taro T]

1 hour ago, Thorny said:

Eerily similar to Botterill and getting help at C, during the season post massive winning streak when the team needed a boost. Not addressing the position the second window is almost worst. It's more deflating. 

Beyond frustrating.

[dudacek]

Still think there will be a goalie and a centre added before puck drop.

[Andrew Amerk]

Not only can the Sabres set the NHL record for consecutive seasons missing the playoffs, but they could also become the first team in NHL history to finish 32nd. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

The best available solution to the goaltending right now is Korpisalo from CBJ.  He is 27 and on the last year of his deal.  He took a small step back last year and CBJ wants to dump his cap hit.  Sound like a Butcher type trade that could yield significant upside.  At worst we could probably trade him at the deadline for more then it would cost to acquire him now.

[triumph_communes]

15 hours ago, Thorny said:

There's one other minor, small thing on the "negative" side of Adams' 1 season tenure, thus far. I don't know if these kinds of things matter in people's evaluations of the job the GM is doing but, it should be mentioned just in case it matters, if only a little bit - the team he Generally Managed finished dead last among all of the teams Generally Managed. I'm not sure if the General Manager is accountable for the results of the team he managed, though. It's so difficult to draw a direct line between the managed and the manager, after all. 

Any good manager knows it takes 2-3 years before the effects of a change in management actually takes place.