Reviewing Adams’ Off-season Departures at the Halfway Mark

[Porous Five Hole]

In the spirit of GA’s thread, I thought we would check in on old friends to see if there was any remorse to be had. 
 

Zemgus Girgs- 43GP, 0G, 2A, -5. He signed a three year deal for essentially the league minimum and I bet TB already has regrets.

Eric Comrie- 3-6-1, 2.94, .904% for the best team in the western conference. The drop off between Helle and Comrie is huge, but Eric has been good enough to stay their backup.  The Jets have scored 3 goals or less his last 7 starts, including only 1 goal in 4 of those 7 games.  

Victor Oloffson- 23GP, 9G, 7A, PLUS 9! Not bad for a guy who was a career -63 in Buffalo. 6 of his 16 pts have come on PP2. Did miss some time with an injury. Fans are pleased with his play. His time was up here and a fresh start seems to be what the doctor ordered.

Eric Robinson- 45GP, 10G, 11A, +8. He’s having his best year as a pro. It would have cost us nothing to bring him back. While he didn’t hit a ton of guys, I think the Sabres miss his size and compete.  His skating was more than fine. You know who else has ten goals so far this year? Peterka & Cozens.

Jeff Skinner- Yikes. Pretty well documented. Has been a healthy scratch for the last three games.

AHLers who suited up last year:

Brandon Biro- AHL Coachella. Production in line with his Amerks career. He’s unlikely to get an NHL look from here, but he lived the dream of scoring two goals in the NHL last year for Buffalo.

Tyson Jost- earned a call up to the Canes after starting the year in the AHL. 16GP, 2G, and has been out of the lineup due to injury. Same guy we knew…

Guys we traded away:

Mitts- It has been documented on the board that he’s been bad and he was recently demoted to 3C. Rumors just today circulating that the Aves could be selling him at the deadline. 46GP, 8G, 18A, team worst -16 while the rest of the top six is +10 or more. That’s astonishing.

Locked in for two years after this season at 5.75MM. Oof. The Sabres took the Aves to the cleaners with this trade.

Erik Johnson- Remains the seventh (eighth?) defenseman for the Flyers. 15GP, 1G, 1A, -2, 13 minutes a night when he plays. Remember when he was signed to help Owen Power? 🤣

Okposo- Champion and still retired.

 

I’m not going to assign grades, but in summary: Correctly moved on from Skinner, Girgs, and Comrie. VO’s fresh start has gone well for him. Whiffed on Robinson, but whatever. Byram trade aging well and something for nothing with Okie & EJ.

[Thorner]

You really have to hand it to Kevyn Adams 

[Porous Five Hole]

17 minutes ago, Thorner said:

You really have to hand it to Kevyn Adams 

This made me laugh harder than it should have 

[JohnC]

30 minutes ago, Thorner said:

You really have to hand it to Kevyn Adams 

When checking to see where the Sabres are in the standings, start at the bottom. Our earnest GM may be mediocre at his job but at least his performance has been reliably consistent. 

[Thorner]

6 minutes ago, JohnC said:

When checking to see where the Sabres are in the standings, start at the bottom. Our earnest GM may be mediocre at his job but at least his performance has been reliably consistent. 

Mediocre would be a spa day 

[Weave]

12 minutes ago, Thorner said:

Mediocre would be a spa day 

Yeah, mediocre implies average or ordinary.  This has been anything but ordinary.  Ordinary would have resulted in an occasional playoff visit.

[Porous Five Hole]

I hope no one views this thread as a defense of GMKA. My takeaway from last offseason was that he didn’t do nearly enough and it’s time to move on from him. Once you pile on, ‘GMing is hard/it’s hard to make a trade,” plus taxes and palm trees, he should have been let go already.  

For me, starting the thread was because I’m interesting in armchair GMing and I wanted to see how players have faired away from Buffalo.  

[msw2112]

What this says to me, is that, along with the arguably positive acquisitions of Zucker, McLeod and Malenstyn, that Adams did fine with the moves he DID make.  The issue was the moves that he DIDN'T make.  For what it's worth, I didn't like the Byram trade at the time, but it's aging well.  

The glaring lack of veteran DEFENSIVE defensemen is still the biggest problem with the team and went unaddressed by Adams.

[PerreaultForever]

Veterans all around, but they're not going to do it that's obvious. They're going to wait for Rochester players to develop and nothing else. In that timeline others will leave and it'll just stay the same unless Pegula gives up and turns it all over to somebody else to run. 

[JohnC]

The Washington Capitals and the Buffalo Sabres were in the same talent strata. Washington squeaked into the playoffs last year. In comparison, over the past couple of years Washington has made a number of medium type deals that refreshed the roster by adding more talent to create a thicker roster. As others have stated, KA did make some reasonable deals to improve the roster. But he didn't do enough, especially when considering that he had more assets to work with than Washington had. Even if one makes the argument that KA did improve the roster, it still is inadequate when you are competing with other teams that are improving their roster at a greater clip. Annual futility has become the norm for this flailing franchise. 

[mjd1001]

4 hours ago, Porous Five Hole said:

In the spirit of GA’s thread, I thought we would check in on old friends to see if there was any remorse to be had. 

I’m not going to assign grades, but in summary: Correctly moved on from Skinner, Girgs, and Comrie. VO’s fresh start has gone well for him. Whiffed on Robinson, but whatever. Byram trade aging well and something for nothing with Okie & EJ.

So, win some, lose some. Kinda ends up even-steven.

[GASabresIUFAN]

6 hours ago, Porous Five Hole said:

Eric Robinson- 45GP, 10G, 11A, +8. He’s having his best year as a pro. It would have cost us nothing to bring him back. While he didn’t hit a ton of guys, I think the Sabres miss his size and compete.  His skating was more than fine. You know who else has ten goals so far this year? Peterka & Cozens.

As I wrote discussion Beck Malenstyn, we would have been better off keeping Robinson for less money and for less cost of acquisition.  Robinson does hit people.  He has 64 YTD, which would put him 4th among Sabres Forwards and had 72 in 40 games for the Sabres last year.  

[Carmel Corn]

41 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

As I wrote discussion Beck Malenstyn, we would have been better off keeping Robinson for less money and for less cost of acquisition.  Robinson does hit people.  He has 64 YTD, which would put him 4th among Sabres Forwards and had 72 in 40 games for the Sabres last year.  

Perhaps, but I think Robinson vs. Lafferty is a better comp.  Malenstyn has been more impactful and I like him on our 4th line.  Lafferty and possibly NAK are not getting it done.  I’d take Robinson vs. Lafferty or NAK.

[Pimlach]

I thought Robinson earned another look.   I am happy for him.  

VO needed to go somewhere.  Vegas, what luck for him.  Glad to see him do well.  He was a #7 draft pick made by my least favorite Sabres GM. 

Mitts - Our best two way center last season is now -16 in Colorado and struggling.   Byram has been far better and he has much more value today.  Would love to give Adams props here but we have the worst center spline on the league so ... 

[GASabresIUFAN]

1 hour ago, Pimlach said:

I thought Robinson earned another look.   I am happy for him.  

VO needed to go somewhere.  Vegas, what luck for him.  Glad to see him do well.  He was a #7 draft pick made by my least favorite Sabres GM. 

Mitts - Our best two way center last season is now -16 in Colorado and struggling.   Byram has been far better and he has much more value today.  Would love to give Adams props here but we have the worst center spline on the league so ... 

maybe they’ll trade Mitts back to us for a 2nd rd pick in 2026

Edited Saturday at 01:33 AM by GASabresIUFAN

[JP51]

20 hours ago, Thorner said:

Mediocre would be a spa day 

Mediocre just called it wants a word with you.... not happy lol 😆

[JP51]

13 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

maybe they’ll trade Mitts back to us for a 2nd rd pick in 2026

Stranger things have happened lol 

[DarthEbriate]

16 hours ago, Pimlach said:

I thought Robinson earned another look.   I am happy for him.  

VO needed to go somewhere.  Vegas, what luck for him.  Glad to see him do well.  He was a #7 draft pick made by my least favorite Sabres GM. 

Mitts - Our best two way center last season is now -16 in Colorado and struggling.   Byram has been far better and he has much more value today.  Would love to give Adams props here but we have the worst center spline on the league so ... 

Mitts has been poor for the Avalanche, but the -16 was established early.

October/November, 18 points (mostly PP) and a -15. Everyone was injured so he had AHL and 4th line wingers and the goalies were Georgiev and Annunen. Part of the poor defense was Mitts himself, but Georgiev was just plain awful. The Avalanche were only good when MacKinnon-Rantanen and Makar were on the ice together.

December/January, Mtits has only 8 points but only a -1. The team is getting healthy, they've swapped out both goalies for Wedgewood/Blackwood. Mitts just isn't scoring.