Sabres sign 3 year, $2.5M deal with Jokiharju

[Curt]

2 hours ago, thewookie1 said:

Does Adams have some sort of specific love of signing only the same contract information.

It’s either 1 year $750k, or 3 years $2.5M.  There is nothing else.

[K-9]

58 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Two words: Anderson, Dell

But we finished last without them, too. I understand your point about not addressing the goalie position, I just don’t agree that’s indicative of a deliberate tank. Tanking is simply not necessary for this team to suck.

[I-90 W]

Keeping players hungry and only wanting players who want to be here. I’m liking KA more and more every week that goes by.

[Pimlach]

Can we keep this thread from turning into a debate on what a tank is?  We covered that already. 
 

Anyway, good signing.  Dahlin next up.   

[Buffalonill]

2 hours ago, K-9 said:

Tanking isn’t necessary to finish last as we are all too painfully aware, so I don’t see KA having “opted” for it at all. 

 When you signed the 2 worst goalies in the NHLI would have to disagree

[nfreeman]

I like it. 

[K-9]

1 hour ago, Buffalonill said:

 When you signed the 2 worst goalies in the NHLI would have to disagree

So, we needed to sign those two goalies to ensure we would finish last because we just couldn’t finish last without them. Got it. 

[nfreeman]

15 minutes ago, K-9 said:

So, we needed to sign those two goalies to ensure we would finish last because we just couldn’t finish last without them. Got it. 

Serious question:  do you not think they would've brought in better goalies if they were trying to win?

[pi2000]

[Andrew Amerk]

1 hour ago, nfreeman said:

Serious question:  do you not think they would've brought in better goalies if they were trying to win?

Serious question: who did you want them to bring in?

[woods-racer]

1 hour ago, Andrew Amerk said:

Serious question: who did you want them to bring in?

That's a loaded question for this group.

Who did they have the very reasonable possibility of bringing in better than them is the better question?

With the secondary part : as long as no assets or high round picks need to be dealt for the goalie.

Edited September 3, 2021 by woods-racer

[nfreeman]

1 hour ago, Andrew Amerk said:

Serious question: who did you want them to bring in?

A ton of goalies change teams every summer, including this one.  KA has sat out the game of musical chairs for the last 2 years.

It’s not acceptable.  

[Skibum]

Poor kid.

[JohnC]

11 hours ago, nfreeman said:

Serious question:  do you not think they would've brought in better goalies if they were trying to win?

To start off I agree with you that the KA should have made a more serious effort to add a higher caliber of goalie to the mix. Conjecturing:  Just maybe the GM thought that UPL was ready to be added to the roster and that he didn't feel the need to crowd him out with another goalie who would crimp his playing time. If that is his thinking I agree with you that it would be a glaring mistake. It seems to me that UPL needs more time in Rochester in order to advance his career. If that is Adams's reasoning although I disagree with it at least there is some logic to it. 

I'm hoping, as you do,  that another more credible goalie is added to the mix before the season starts. It just seems that Adams action toward the position is inexplicable lax. And that is very puzzling. 

[Sabres Fan in NS]

This is a good deal for both.

I think it will be a very good deal for the Sabres in years 2 and especially 3.

He is still RFA at the end of this deal, which is good.

Edited September 3, 2021 by New Scotland (NS)

[GASabresIUFAN]

16 hours ago, K-9 said:

But we finished last without them, too. I understand your point about not addressing the goalie position, I just don’t agree that’s indicative of a deliberate tank. Tanking is simply not necessary for this team to suck.

While I don't want to turn this into a tank thread either, KA said when he couldn't re-sign Ullmark he "pivoted" and signed Dell and Anderson.  I took that to mean he pivoted from supporting the kids with good goaltending to not supporting the kids by giving them crappy goaltending and thus helping to insurance a bottom of the standings result.  

[Archie Lee]

1 hour ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

While I don't want to turn this into a tank thread either, KA said when he couldn't re-sign Ullmark he "pivoted" and signed Dell and Anderson.  I took that to mean he pivoted from supporting the kids with good goaltending to not supporting the kids by giving them crappy goaltending and thus helping to insurance a bottom of the standings result.  

I'm not sure if this is sarcasm.  If so, my apologies for misreading.

I think the plan was to go with Ullmark as the starter with Tokarski or Luukkonen as the back-up; Luukkonen would have gone back to Rochester if not obviously ready to make the leap. This would not have precluded the possibility that a goalie could come back in an Eichel trade who would have pushed both Tokarski and Luukkonen to Rochester. It is still a possibility we will get a goalie in an Eichel trade.  It is also possible that they were having discussions with both Dell and Anderson about coming in to play behind Ullmark.

When Ullmark opted to go to the Bruins, "the pivot" was (I think) to sign both Anderson and Dell. The reason to sign both is to increase the possibility that at any given time during the season you have at least one goalie between Anderson, Dell, Luukkonen and Tokarski who is playing at an NHL level.

The one UFA goalie who I think the Sabres should have been all over was David Rittich. Having Rittich would not have been cause for any great level of comfort for us fans, but I think he checks a # of boxes (veteran, younger than Dell or Anderson, has had some NHL success) and would have been a decent add to back-up Ullmark and provide some insurance if Ullmark did not re-sign. Rittich was coming off a two year deal that paid him 2.75 per.  He signed pretty early in free agency with Nashville for 1 x 1.25.  If we had given him one year at 2.5-2.75 I don't think anyone would have said it was ridiculous.

Finally, I like the Joker and Mittelstadt signings.Both have a chance to be real value deals by year 3.

 

 

Edited September 3, 2021 by Archie Lee

[bob_sauve28]

15 hours ago, nfreeman said:

Serious question:  do you not think they would've brought in better goalies if they were trying to win?

What better goalies? There is a quality goalie shortage at the moment. 

[Thorner]

People also used to say a lot, re: Botterill and his failure to bring in 2Cs - "who was even available?"

It's the job of the GM to find a way to adequately fill the positions. There are *always* players who move teams, and there are always players who DON'T move teams, who hypothetically could have been had. Asking a fan to name specific names without said fan having access to the wealth of information and contacts a GM has, to find out, is meh.

There are always guys. People want to give Adams both the "this situation was lumped on him" caveat AND the "what can he even do now?" caveat. *AND* he gets the "out" of the next two years "not being about winning"? 

None of the other results apparently matter: if Adams makes Eichel sit for the next 5 years, he's going to have a statue built.

Edited September 3, 2021 by Thorny
edit - He actually gets the "last year wasn't on him - this is year 1" caveat, too lmao

[Curt]

10 minutes ago, Thorny said:

People also used to say a lot, re: Botterill and his failure to bring in 2Cs - "who was even available?"

It's the job of the GM to find a way to adequately fill the positions. There are *always* players who move teams, and there are always players who DON'T move teams, who hypothetically could have been had. Asking a fan to name specific names without said fan having access to the wealth of information and contacts a GM has, to find out, is meh.

There are always guys. People want to give Adams both the "this situation was lumped on him" caveat AND the "what can he even do now?" caveat. *AND* he gets the "out" of the next two years "not being about winning"? 

None of the other results apparently matter: if Adams makes Eichel sit for the next 5 years, he's going to have a statue built.

The guy is just a victim of circumstance.  Caught in the machine he is.

Honestly, Adams was thrown into a garbage situation, but that’s why the opening existed.  It’s his job to fix it.

[Thorner]

2 minutes ago, Curt said:

The guy is just a victim of circumstance.  Caught in the machine he is.

Honestly, Adams was thrown into a garbage situation, but that’s why the opening existed.  It’s his job to fix it.

Totally fair.  There's plenty of context....there's certainly a high degree of difficulty to what he has to do...it just gets to the point sometimes where the expectations start to read painfully low. "Just don't make a complete ass of yourself" reading like the bar reminds me how much we've seen. 

[Drag0nDan]

On 9/2/2021 at 3:25 PM, New Scotland (NS) said:

This seems to be the pattern.  

First go everyone gets 750K.

Now two at $2.5M for 3 years.

If Dahlin is next in line for this I am going to ***** this place.

750000(The KA 1yr deal) x 3 = 2.25 m

+ (.333 x 750000) = 2.5 m (the KA 3 year deal)

2.5M x 3 = 7.5M

+ (.333 x 2.5M) = 749250

My guess based on this ridiculous math i made up? 6 years 8.25 million for Dahlin.  The KA 6 year deal 😁

2 hours ago, bob_sauve28 said:

What better goalies? There is a quality goalie shortage at the moment. 

Free agent goalies aren't lining up to ruin their careers in front of the worst team in the league.  It was Ullmark or bust, and i think Adams knew that.

[Drag0nDan]

3 hours ago, Archie Lee said:

I'm not sure if this is sarcasm.  If so, my apologies for misreading.

I think the plan was to go with Ullmark as the starter with Tokarski or Luukkonen as the back-up; Luukkonen would have gone back to Rochester if not obviously ready to make the leap. This would not have precluded the possibility that a goalie could come back in an Eichel trade who would have pushed both Tokarski and Luukkonen to Rochester. It is still a possibility we will get a goalie in an Eichel trade.  It is also possible that they were having discussions with both Dell and Anderson about coming in to play behind Ullmark.

When Ullmark opted to go to the Bruins, "the pivot" was (I think) to sign both Anderson and Dell. The reason to sign both is to increase the possibility that at any given time during the season you have at least one goalie between Anderson, Dell, Luukkonen and Tokarski who is playing at an NHL level.

The one UFA goalie who I think the Sabres should have been all over was David Rittich. Having Rittich would not have been cause for any great level of comfort for us fans, but I think he checks a # of boxes (veteran, younger than Dell or Anderson, has had some NHL success) and would have been a decent add to back-up Ullmark and provide some insurance if Ullmark did not re-sign. Rittich was coming off a two year deal that paid him 2.75 per.  He signed pretty early in free agency with Nashville for 1 x 1.25.  If we had given him one year at 2.5-2.75 I don't think anyone would have said it was ridiculous.

Finally, I like the Joker and Mittelstadt signings.Both have a chance to be real value deals by year 3.

 

 

He could absolutely have made more than the 1.25 from Nashville if he came to buffalo.  But if you are a backup NHL goalie, you'd probably rather be a backup for a good team than a bad one. 

Buffalo isn't offering backup goalies term even as the laughing stock of the league.  They aren't dumb enough to do carter hutton's deal again.  Time to develop some goalies internally.  

[bob_sauve28]

1 hour ago, Drag0nDan said:

750000(The KA 1yr deal) x 3 = 2.25 m

+ (.333 x 750000) = 2.5 m (the KA 3 year deal)

2.5M x 3 = 7.5M

+ (.333 x 2.5M) = 749250

My guess based on this ridiculous math i made up? 6 years 8.25 million for Dahlin.  The KA 6 year deal 😁

Free agent goalies aren't lining up to ruin their careers in front of the worst team in the league.  It was Ullmark or bust, and i think Adams knew that.

The team is not the worst in the league, the goaltending is THE issue. And there is not a surplus of even decent goalies in the league. Carter Hutton is still in the NHL, that says a lot 

[Thorner]

1 hour ago, bob_sauve28 said:

The team is not the worst in the league, the goaltending is THE issue. And there is not a surplus of even decent goalies in the league. Carter Hutton is still in the NHL, that says a lot 

Agree goaltending is a huge issue, arguably the biggest issue, but it doesn't dwarf the other issues at all. The team itself could easily be the worst in the league. All you have to do is look at the record under Granato to know that is possible. Minus Reinhart and Ristolainen. 

Casey Mittelstadt is our number one centre. It's like it's been said so many times it's just accepted and the words have lost all meaning, but your number one guy at forward? This isn't about not liking the kid, I think he still has good potential. He could end up having a really good year. But comparing him one-to-one to the other number 1 Cs across the league...it's pretty clear where we sit

And that's not the only position it looks like that. The roster isn't good. The goaltending is bad, but for as much future potential as this roster has, until it's proven to have arrived, it doesn't stack up.