How to retool the Sabres forward group?

[thewookie1]

42 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

It's possible, just not probable.  KA moves slower than a glacier.  He waits until the player has no value before moving on (see Asplund, Olofsson), and in some cases not even then.  

By the way, anyone wanting Z back needs to look at his stats.  Z has 4 points (all goals) in 31 games this season.  This is Jost-level production.  He needs to go.  We can find cheaper and better players at this point.  By comparison, Mr. Robinson has had only 16 games in our neighborhood and already has 6 pts (a 31 point pace over 82 games).  He also has had better production in the prior 2 years (51 pts vs 36 for Z). Robinson is also younger, faster, and the same physical size, but we are paying Z 2.5 and Robinson only 1.8.  

Honestly I think he’s tried to move Olofsson for 2 years to no avail. I honestly don’t think anyone ever offered much to the point he chose to just eat it versus trade him far below his original ask and thus show weakness to other GMs.

 

Okposo and Girgs are great people and I’d offer Okposo a front office job but as players they both very limited and Okposo scares me when he gets into shoving matches due to his injury history. From my brief interactions I’ve had with Okposo I’d say he’s a legitimately great guy. Girgs is a great event killer but his offense has deteriorated every year since his rookie season. 

1 hour ago, Weave said:

Wookie might be more risk averse than even Botteril was.

Nothing risked, nothing lost, low reward.  Talk about low event hockey.

Probably, I’ve never been an aggressive person in regards to decision making or risk taking. 

But honestly, I don’t exactly see a good move in the Top 9. I see far more risks than potential rewards. If you stripped Skinner’s NMC he’d be my likeliest choice to move to find a different type of player. Otherwise you’re just looking for a better Greenway to push him down a line. 
 

Id love to say I’m not gun shy but Buffalo teams have a tendency of getting burned badly by any trade with actual value involved. Regardless of how we do, the other side always seems to get the better result. The Bills literally traded the picks in which Mahomes and Justin Jefferson were taken who are arguably the best at their respective positions. We got Tre White, Allen and Diggs out of it but somehow we still lost somehow. The Sabres got Alex Tuch, a guy who bleeds blue and gold in the Eichel trade and has been better than expected; however Eichel suddenly decided to play defense and won a Cup. Reinhart’s trade got us our best future goalie candidate and a steal in Kulich yet Reinhart has literally exploded this year in goals and helped take Florida to a Cup Finals. You can run further down the list with Montour, Scandella, And even Ristolainen to some degree. Arguably the only trade that worked out for us pretty well was ROR’s original trade as Colorado didn’t get any major success stories out of the players. And there’s the mutually detrimental trade of Lehner for “Colin White” which just hurt both sides to varying degrees. 
 

So yes I’m gun shy for good reason; I don’t feel like watching us trade Cozens for an ok player while Cozens turns into a monster.

[mjd1001]

1 hour ago, Taro T said:

Love Johnson, and he'll likely be a fixture in the top 4 LT.  But, can we PLEASE stop projecting 2nd year D into major roles?  Let him be 1/2 of the 3rd pairing next year and look like an absolute stud rather than force him higher into the lineup than he's likely ready for.  

Plus, it would be really a nice change to give Power a partner that can help cover his young D-man mistakes rather than the other way round.  These kids have to cover for F mistakes often enough; cut them some slack.

Agree on your main point.

I am not as down on Dahlin as many are right now.  I think Jokiharju is actually "OK" . Power is having a rough/bad year, but he isn't a total trainwreck.  R. Johnson looks encouraging if you DON'T rush him. Samuelsson is having a down year also, but hes overall good.  I think the D-group is better than most think because they often look bad because of mistakes the forwards making putting the D in no win situations.  HOWEVER, they are very, very young and inexperienced.  The Sabres have no one in their 'top 4' in terms of minutes that is over 24, and they average 23 years of age.  I put in another thread that most of the top teams in the league have their top 4 d-men average 27, 28, even 30 years old.  

This D may be good, great eventually, but they simply do not have enough experience to have all of the top minutes between all of them.  I'm actually happy with R. Johson getting reduced minutes, I woud LOVE for power to get 5 less minutes per game...if you can bring in a legit, experienced vet that is good enough to plug into the top 4.

Edited January 30 by mjd1001

[Crusader1969]

2 hours ago, Thorny said:

It’s very rarely only one thing.

 

If you can’t win, you can at least be right.

- - - 

But GA’s post is pretty low-level stuff. Same old “top 9 is set” stuff. I get that KA doesn’t do anything, but he doesn’t really do NOTHING. A 4th line retool in the offseason with the rest likely untouched is hardly swinging for the fences 

Im still gonna disagree with you.  The top 9 at full health is already in place for next season   
Fixing the 4th line will have a ripple effect throughout the entire line up. You need guys that bring "it" every night; who can forecheck and play physical.  

I'll be amazed if any of cozens, JJP, Tage, Quinn, Benson and Tuch are moved 

Greenway, Skinner and Mitts? I'd hate to see Mitts traded at this point, Skinner is probably untradable and Greenway brings what the Sabres don't have in any other forward

of course, if they can bring in a top pair dman to pair with Dahlin or Power, I'm open to the possibility 

[Thorner]

33 minutes ago, Crusader1969 said:

Im still gonna disagree with you.  The top 9 at full health is already in place for next season   
Fixing the 4th line will have a ripple effect throughout the entire line up. You need guys that bring "it" every night; who can forecheck and play physical.  

I'll be amazed if any of cozens, JJP, Tage, Quinn, Benson and Tuch are moved 

Greenway, Skinner and Mitts? I'd hate to see Mitts traded at this point, Skinner is probably untradable and Greenway brings what the Sabres don't have in any other forward

of course, if they can bring in a top pair dman to pair with Dahlin or Power, I'm open to the possibility 

I’m agreeing with you that he’ll probably approach it that way, tho. The post I responded to seemed to doubt he’d accomplish even what you mentioned: I said I could totally see 4th line upgrades 

[Mango]

3 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

Obvious about Quinn? Is he the Power of the forwards? Maybe the Sammy given that he also can't stay in the lineup? When's Quinn signing his monster deal?

Sabres hockey is Bizarro World.

Very fair point. 

A better way of putting it is that almost immediately since Quinn came back he was one of our best and well rounded wingers. I think it would be a huge mistake for anybody to put Quinn on the trade block or plan on moving on from him in the near future. 

Would I give him the Power deal right now? Nope, nope, nope. 

But if he wanted to sign Sammy's deal at @4.2M x 7 years I would very seriously consider it. Even if he is permanently bitten by the injury bug, I think that is a valuable and tradeable contract. That would make him something like the 50th highest paid RW in the league today. That will only drop given the cap increases. 

This almost always works on XBox, sooo maybe trust me please. 

[FrenchConnection44]

VO is an obvious trade but who will give us anything for him?
 

I see a lot of desire to trade Skinner, but I think that’s a mistake. How many pure goal scorers / shooters do we have? Skinner.  JJP. Tage, when he has his head on. Tuch is pretty good. Not a sniper. But the others are not really shooters or pure scorers. None of Mitts, Cozens, Greenway, or Benson have any kind of shot. Quinn is a good player and has potential. We don’t need them all to be in that category but I don’t see us getting goals with any consistency line to line if we trade away our shooters/scorers. 

[Weave]

You heard it here first, folks.  There is no point in trading any of our top 9.  We’d lose the trade every time You can’t improve upon them.

I’m with PA.  This fanbase is broken.

[PerreaultForever]

4 hours ago, Weave said:

You heard it here first, folks.  There is no point in trading any of our top 9.  We’d lose the trade every time You can’t improve upon them.

I’m with PA.  This fanbase is broken.

Well, no doubt the fanbase is broken, hardly surprising right?

But to the point, I disagree. You simply do NOT have to "win the trade" , you just have to get the thing you need/want that makes your roster better. Fills a hole. We can afford to trade a more talented (for lack of a better word) player(s) to get the player(s) with the right skill sets we need. It's the whole roster that matters, not what any one individual player brings. It's how the roles on that roster are filled and that might take "losing" a few trades to get what we need.

I think this is why VO never got moved and now his value has dropped. KA wanted to "win the trade" and that just wasn't going to happen for a one dimensional player like VO. 

[spndnchz]

12 hours ago, inkman said:

The major reason Tage blew up was because he was moved to center.  

And his hand got injured. Not sarcastic 

[Ctaeth]

They need a shake up.  Ship out at least one of the core forwards so that they realize that this is a business and not fun and games.  Send their buddy packing so that maybe they can find the motivation to stop giving up 2 goals in the first period every game.  They need to have their feathers ruffled or this group, as constructed, will never be sufficiently motivated to succeed.

Edited January 30 by Ctaeth

[triumph_communes]

I don’t have issues with the players beyond the guys who should’ve retired already. 
 

it’s more of a coaching problem. Multiple levels of coaches just don’t have it. Might be good people who mean well, but they lack it. And the team abides 

Edited January 30 by triumph_communes

[Norcal]

Can they get a Tkachuk? I'd say a Tkachuk type but those boys play like each other and nobody else.

That would go a long way towards fixing the F group though. 

Is Brady available? Tired of Canada yet? 

Edited January 30 by Norcal

[Pimlach]

16 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

Why do I suspect the average poster here spends more time thinking about improving the roster than Kevyn does?

I stopped doing this.  I can play GM but it’s no use.  The GM we have won’t do it either. 
 

I think a few big trades are needed.   One that changes the team dynamics and brings in hockey leaders, and not just nice guys who will get along.  Some of the top 6 needs to change.  You can’t just replace the 4th line and fix things.  
 

Goaltending aside, our first and seconds lines, and our 2nd pair defense are the reason we did not improve this season. 
 

Get a veteran NHL Coach and listen to him Adams.  
 

 

Edited January 30 by Pimlach

[Pimlach]

13 hours ago, Weave said:

You heard it here first, folks.  There is no point in trading any of our top 9.  We’d lose the trade every time You can’t improve upon them.

I’m with PA.  This fanbase is broken.

So, if the fan base is broken that includes you and @PASabreFan , correct? 
 

I would assume that the more invested the fan, the more pain, and the more likely to break in some way.  Some fans cling to the current plan and some reject everything - both are on the extreme defensive moves. 

[\GoBillsInDallas/]

21 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

How to retool the Sabres forward group?

You said "tool"

 

[Weave]

14 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

So, if the fan base is broken that includes you and @PASabreFan , correct? 
 

I would assume that the more invested the fan, the more pain, and the more likely to break in some way.  Some fans cling to the current plan and some reject everything - both are on the extreme defensive moves. 

Oh, I’ve been very open about my broken fandom. 

[Pimlach]

7 minutes ago, Weave said:

Oh, I’ve been very open about my broken fandom. 

Yes, I catch myself being very frustrated.  I will always be a Sabres and Bills fan.  Clinging to better days in the past is sometimes helpful, but no Cup on the shelf is a painful.   

Everything about Pegula's regime has been bad.  I certainly don't think he intended for this, and he obviously underestimated what it take to run a successful NHL franchise. 

[Warriorspikes51]

Trade for McDavid after the Oilers are eliminated in the playoffs 

[Doohicksie]

2 hours ago, Pimlach said:

he obviously underestimated what it take to run a successful NHL franchise. 

I think TPegs was not properly connected in the NHL when he bought the team, and was too enamored of former Sabres players as team executives, especially early on.  He's learned since then, and through the end of last year it appeared Kevyn and Donny had the team on the right track.

I still haven't given up on the current regime.  I think at this point though, perhaps Donny has topped out.  It's taking an extra year for the D corps and goaltending to ripen, and last year's career years among the forwards haven't been repeated. 

I think there is a decent chance that this was a bump in the road in terms of a young team generally on the ascent, and yeah, we probably need to shake things up.  How to do that... not sure.  Trade someone in or near the core, new coach, etc.

[Thorner]

12 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

You simply do NOT have to "win the trade" , you just have to get the thing you need/want that makes your roster better. Fills a hole. We can afford to trade a more talented (for lack of a better word) player(s) to get the player(s) with the right skill sets we need. It's the whole roster that matters, not what any one individual player brings. It's how the roles on that roster are filled and that might take "losing" a few trades to get what we need.

I think this is why VO never got moved and now his value has dropped. KA wanted to "win the trade" and that just wasn't going to happen for a one dimensional player like VO. 

I’ve been preaching this for a good long while: unwillingness to lose a battle to win a war 

I agree with your premise 

[Thorner]

4 hours ago, Pimlach said:

I would assume that the more invested the fan, the more pain, and the more likely to break in some way.  Some fans cling to the current plan and some reject everything - both are on the extreme defensive moves. 

Interesting 

[Doohicksie]

38 minutes ago, Thorny said:

4 hours ago, Pimlach said:

I would assume that the more invested the fan, the more pain, and the more likely to break in some way.  Some fans cling to the current plan and some reject everything - both are on the extreme defensive moves. 

Interesting 

And... a lot of the conflict on the board ends up with fans on either side of the "stay the course" and "blow it all up" divide.

[Thorner]

18 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

And... a lot of the conflict on the board ends up with fans on either side of the "stay the course" and "blow it all up" divide.

there’s there’s me caught in the middle 

[TageMVP]

Don't blow it up, or stay the course. 

Fire Granato 

[Weave]

54 minutes ago, Thorny said:

there’s there’s me caught in the middle