The Sabres need to move on from Mattias Samuelsson

[LGR4GM]

The Samuelsson contract was always stupid. Adams gave him a 7yr deal after he played 50ish games even though he was already getting injured. Fast forward and this will be the 4th year in a row (I won't count his rookie year) where Samuelsson has not eclipsed 55 games. He isn't getting hurt from player super duper hard, or running dudes over, being a physical force, or any of that. He gets injured on the dumbest plays imaginable, ALL THE TIME. This time he blocked a shot and rumors are he broke something doing it. Guy is made of glass and his contract is an anchor. If he isn't healthy in time for the deadline, they should look to move him this summer. Either way I would take a 4th rounder to get his contract gone. If that won't work, buy him out. You can't keep devoted 4.285mil to a guy who can't stay healthy and is a negative when he is on the ice. His possession quality, negative. His corsi% negative. His +/-, negative. 

As early as next season, you could replace him with Novikov and get better results in all areas. Move on, reallocate his money to Byram or someone else. The fact they gave him an A is just maddening. If he manages to get another 15 games in this season, he will have played in only 57% of the available games over the last 4 years. Jacob Bryson, a guy who gets healthy scratched will have played in 67% of his games over the same time frame with better numbers. 

[LGR4GM]

Mattias Samuelsson: 38pts, in 185games game career spanning 5 seasons (he should have around 328 games played if he was ever healthy)

averages 17pts a year with 173 hits a year ( IN A FULL 82 GAME SEASON WHICH HE WILL NEVER PLAY)

82 game season he would average, 48 giveaways and 20 takeaways. 

His xGF% is -9.6 over 82games on average

His cf% is -10.8% for his career average

 

 

 

[GoPuckYourself]

If we all know he’s not worth the contract I’m pretty sure all GMs around the league do also. That contract is most likely a buyout and I doubt Pegula would agree to that imo. 

[CallawaySabres]

It's getting difficult to figure out which contract is the worst on the Sabres right now, there are so many to choose from. Between trade returns and contracts, Adams has to be labeled as the worst GM in Buffalo sports history. 

[Thorner]

Some good reading 

 

[inkman]

Anchors are a good thing.  I think the issue started when everyone dropped “boat” from the phrase making autistic people like me go nuts.  (I don’t think I’m really autistic but stuff like this is like a road block in my brain that I can’t move past)

Edited 2 hours ago by inkman

[GASabresIUFAN]

He will be bought out this summer as no one is taking on that contract.  It will cost the Sabres 714K for the next 10 years.

[GoPuckYourself]

11 minutes ago, Thorner said:

Some good reading 

 

That was so 2022 ago 

[Hawerchuk]

I had really high hopes for him, but he just cannot stay healthy, like ever!

[Stoner]

21 minutes ago, Thorner said:

Some good reading 

 

I've said it before. This place is full of the smartest dumb ***** you'll ever read.

There are dozens of threads like this. One of our resident geniuses was arguing for Asplund to get a LT deal.

That people continue to post with certainty, with total amnesia about how many times they've been wrong, is amazing.

I just stick to Terry sucks and the Sabres suck and have no regrets.

Edited 2 hours ago by Stoner

[Ctaeth]

it's the dahlin effect.  you pair the two together and suddenly muel looks decent.  you remove dahlin from the equation and you have a mediocre borderline ahl/nhl player.  

i would be concerned about paying byram the big bucks for the exact same reason.  

[steveoath]

I thought this would be a great deal as Samuelson matured into the stay at home d we needed. However it turns out he’s a stay at home D because he’s always injured. 

[mjd1001]

59 minutes ago, GoPuckYourself said:

If we all know he’s not worth the contract I’m pretty sure all GMs around the league do also. That contract is most likely a buyout and I doubt Pegula would agree to that imo. 

I agree. Its not a good contract right now, but its not something that is preventing you from making other moves.  You keep the contract, and if you can't trade him you keep the player. You have an overplay for basically a 3rd pair D-man or even a 7th D-man if it doesn't work out that well.

[WhenWillItEnd66]

He was supposed to be our physical defensive dman. Unfortunately if he hits anyone he breaks. Definitely not what we need and a horrible signing. He is too fragile and he brings nothing else to the table. He needs to be bought out

[inkman]

34 minutes ago, Stoner said:

I've said it before. This place is full of the smartest dumb ***** you'll ever read.

There are dozens of threads like this. One of our resident geniuses was arguing for Asplund to get a LT deal.

That people continue to post with certainty, with total amnesia about how many times they've been wrong, is amazing.

I just stick to Terry sucks and the Sabres suck and have no regrets.

I had to find my reaction in that thread.  Cautiously optimistic but certainly not overwhelmingly excited about it.  I guess more of us should have realized how much Rasmus was impacting his game.  It’s blatantly obvious at this point.  

54 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

He will be bought out this summer as no one is taking on that contract.  It will cost the Sabres 714K for the next 10 years.

Is this what you want, what you think will happen or do you have evidence indicating it is fact?  

[GASabresIUFAN]

10 minutes ago, inkman said:

Is this what you want, what you think will happen or do you have evidence indicating it is fact?  

This is what I think will happen.  It was @Brawndo who originally brought up the idea and we all know his sources are very good.

This transaction would save the Sabres about $3.5 mill a year for the next 5 years and only cost the Sabres 714k per season the 5 years after that.  Given the rising cap, $714K liability is a drop in the bucket.

Edited 1 hour ago by GASabresIUFAN

[pi2000]

I'd remain patient, he's still young for a defenseman and has shown he's a solid defender when healthy.

Jake McCabe also had trouble staying healthy early in his career and yet he developed into a very reliable player over the past 4-5 seasons. 

[inkman]

2 minutes ago, pi2000 said:

I'd remain patient, he's still young for a defenseman and has shown he's a solid defender when healthy.

Jake McCabe also had trouble staying healthy early in his career and yet he developed into a very reliable player over the past 4-5 seasons. 

Quite frankly, I think McCabe is twice the player Samuelsson is.  Jake wasn’t perfect but he was more than serviceable in a 4/5 dman role.  His problem here is that he was often asked to be 1/2 dman.  Not ideal. 
 

Samuelsson might and I mean might be a 5/6 but he’s probably best suited as 7/8 dman.  

[Porous Five Hole]

The week the signing was announced, Seravalli said to an NHL scout, “tell me what you’ve seen from Mattias Samuelsson, and he said, here’s what he looks like in our scouting rankings…

He gave Samuelsson a 4.5/10 in intelligence, three in skillset, one in offensive instincts, 5.5 in defensive instincts, 5.5 in competitive toughness, and an overall score of 4.4 out of 10. He said ‘I’m not entirely certain yet, given he played on a bad team, that Mattias Samuelsson is even a full-time NHL player yet.’

https://www.dailyfaceoff.com/news/daily-faceoff-live-agent-nhl-executive-say-mattias-samuelsson-contract-is-among-the-worst-theyve-ever-seen
 

This is the guy our GM gave a seven year deal to. Another nail in the GMKA coffin. 

Edited 1 hour ago by Porous Five Hole

[GASabresIUFAN]

3 minutes ago, pi2000 said:

I'd remain patient, he's still young for a defenseman and has shown he's a solid defender when healthy.

Jake McCabe also had trouble staying healthy early in his career and yet he developed into a very reliable player over the past 4-5 seasons. 

But we weren't paying McCabe 4.3 million a season. McCabe low contract cost during his development afforded the Sabres time to be patient.  We don't have that luxury now.  

[JoeSchmoe]

41 minutes ago, Ctaeth said:

it's the dahlin effect.  you pair the two together and suddenly muel looks decent.  you remove dahlin from the equation and you have a mediocre borderline ahl/nhl player.  

i would be concerned about paying byram the big bucks for the exact same reason.  

Everyone that plays with Dahlin looks like a superstar. We cannot let him go the way of Eichel or Reinhart because as we saw during the losing streak, he's by far the MVP of the team.

[mjd1001]

11 minutes ago, Porous Five Hole said:

The week the signing was announced, Seravalli said to an NHL scout, “tell me what you’ve seen from Mattias Samuelsson, and he said, here’s what he looks like in our scouting rankings…

He gave Samuelsson a 4.5/10 in intelligence, three in skillset, one in offensive instincts, 5.5 in defensive instincts, 5.5 in competitive toughness, and an overall score of 4.4 out of 10. He said ‘I’m not entirely certain yet, given he played on a bad team, that Mattias Samuelsson is even a full-time NHL player yet.’

https://www.dailyfaceoff.com/news/daily-faceoff-live-agent-nhl-executive-say-mattias-samuelsson-contract-is-among-the-worst-theyve-ever-seen
 

This is the guy our GM gave a seven year deal to. Another nail in the GMKA coffin. 

On the other hand, Eliott Friedman said shortly after he was signed that he talked to another current GM in the league and they said something like "In a few years, that Buffalo Defense is going to be scary for other teams to play against with Dahlin, Power, and Samuelsson"

[LGR4GM]

18 minutes ago, pi2000 said:

I'd remain patient, he's still young for a defenseman and has shown he's a solid defender when healthy.

Jake McCabe also had trouble staying healthy early in his career and yet he developed into a very reliable player over the past 4-5 seasons. 

McCabe played 77, 76, 53, and 59 games in his first 4 years. 3 of those years would be more games than Samuelsson has ever played in any season. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

2 minutes ago, mjd1001 said:

On the other hand, Eliott Friedman said shortly after he was signed that he talked to another current GM in the league and they said something like "In a few years, that Buffalo Defense is going to be scary for other teams to play against with Dahlin, Power, and Samuelsson"

How is that working out for us?  Dahlin is great, but Power is a cream puff and Samuelsson is completely lost.  

[Bangarang]

The fact that he's always injured just means I get to watch him suck less.