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Interesting, and very plausible. Not sure that JK would perish in the Red Wedding, being an experienced and presumably leaguewide-respected GM who was very recently brought in -- I'd guess he'd probably just replace KA or, possibly with Lindy, advise TP on choosing a new GM.

That is true. Later in the season Savoie kept dropping. I can't remember if his play trailed off or what the reason was but it seemed people were losing interest. Hagens is a bit like that this year. Misa went way up but Hagens had been top 2 or 3 and is now a question mark around 6 or even lower. Desnoyers kept rising with his playoff performances but now after his last bit people souring again. Very few players are seen as can't miss this year. I think Philly got all those picks in the wrong year. I normally would never trade a top 10 first rounder but in the Sabres case, if there is a great deal out there this might be the year to do it. Whoever they take will be a question mark if they do pick. You know the guy I am now intrigued with is Martone. Others have gone up and down the rankings but he's quietly stayed there around 4. Nobody talking about him much other than "big" as a description and everybody obsessed with centers but what he turns into will be interesting to see.

Similarly, so many things in society seem to drive us to make binary choices— this or that, this candidate or that one, is this good or bad, etc. I’m continually reminding myself that I don’t have to have an opinion on everything.

It feels like the first time since that initial group of hirings (Craig Patrick and others) where he has actually tried to bring in outside help.

I agree with you that it was an understandable approach for a novice owner. The problem is that he hasn't learned from his mistakes. That's the maddening aspect of how he has handled his ownership. There's a stubbornness that he is going to do it his way without the benefit of enough consultation from more knowledgeable people inside and outside the organization. Hopefully, the hiring of this experienced executive is a step in the right direction. He needs to build on it.

He still got drafted right where he was ranked. Benson on the other hand dropped quite far.

If that happens, the Dallas GM would be committed for insanity. And Jarmo would be charged for a felonious theft. However, I do see Jarmo working to bring in a veteran goalie to our questionable mix at that position. You may be right that UPL could be dealt in the offseason. He had a big-time opportunity to secure the position for himself. He didn't live up to the task.

It’s not, but with a new and inexperienced owner, it’s an understandable approach. That’s all I’m saying.

Making a critical hire based on demonstrating a connection to the fans is not the smartest way to make a decision for such an important position. But let's put that aside and look at the owner's overall record in hiring the top hockey staff. They haven't worked out for a variety of reasons, some of it having to do with the churning of staff resulting in a start and stop and restarting again approach. Each hire at the GM and HC position brings in a different system and philosophical approach. The constant changing and instability is a hallmark of the Pegula era. The hiring of KA to be the GM made no sense other than he presented the owner with an appealing cheaper plan to rebuild. And I'm comfortable in saying that not only would KA not have been considered for a GM position by any other sober owner but am absolutely sure that no owner would have kept him on after five years of an excruciating rebuilding plan that resulted in the team being a bottom of the pack team. What's interesting about this new senior advisor addition to the staff to help the current GM is that if he would have been the replacement for the current GM, there would have been even more positive feedback. From an overview perspective, this franchise has been flailing for a generation because of a pattern of bad management/ownership decisions. What's obvious is that when you shoot yourself in the foot you can't run very well. It gets tiresome.

Earlier he got up to 3. Not final rankings but mid season roughly. He went up and down a fair bit.

Trade UPL straight up for Ottenger. GET IT DONE JARMO!!

A feisty Finn in the building?? I like it...I like it a lot...

Thanks for this. I get it, Karmanos and the analytics team were not in place in 2020. I remember being very excited when they announced "Buffalo selects from the Ottawa 67's...", thinking it would be Rossi, and then being very disappointed when it was actually Quinn. I can't remember the exact statistic, but there was something about Rossi's draft year scoring level that historically has always translated into a star-level player. But, it was less than a year ago that a pretty common view among fans on this board was that Quinn was nearly untouchable. So, I'm not sure we have the final outcome of this just yet.

Adams’ goal is clearly to lose more nhl games in the nhl as a GM than he suited up for as a player The idea of Adams as an NHLer at this point is like trying to envision a stupid Albert Einstein: very unnatural

I really thought they were going to focus on that “senior” side a bit more and go with an older advisor trying to step back a bit. Scotty Bowman did that a bit once he finally stopped GMing. Granted, a lot of that was for his son. But that’s pretty clearly not what this is. At 58, he’s only 8 years older than Adams. This is a guy who should have a good number of miles left on those tires. I’d love to be a fly on that wall and hear some of these discussions.

I went and looked. A few midterms have Savoie 5 but final rankings all have him lower. 7-10

Housely was a coach on the rise, at least. He was going to get that shot somewhere very soon. Boterill is a ridiculous stretch. That would be the equivalent of being nostalgic over that one random peanut butter sandwich you had back when you were 6. I lump Nolan and LaFontaine together in my mind since it all happened together. That one at least makes sense as you’re just taking over the team and you want to try to show this connection to the fans. The rest up until last summer, I really don’t see it as them going out of their way to hire ex-Sabres. If that was the case, Perreault would have been wooed to some ambassador position or something.

I think the deal was that if Adams can successfully hire his replacement they both stay (Adams “up” to a more behind scenes position, Jarmo to official GM), otherwise there’s a total shitcanning at end of year

No he wasn't. He might have gotten up 6 but not 3. Savoie went right where he was ranked.

I agree. The lack of pulse Adams has had on his own roster every year has been shocking It’s like no information has been relayed and he hasn’t attempted to glean anything

Correct. Nothing like the NFL's "cap." A true hard cap with very few opportunities for players to earn bonuses. One of the very ways to partially, sort of, circumvent the cap is to include signing bonuses that get paid on day one of a league year but count against the cap like an ordinary contract (~1/187th counting against the cap each day during the regular season). So, a team could pay the player a significant portion of his salary on day 1 then trade him and the team trading for him has the whole remaining nut that season count against the cap but only having to shell out the actual remaining $'s for that season in that season. And those sort of bonuses can only move money around within that particular season. (You can't sign an 8 year contract with 90% of the total value of the contract paid out as a signing bonus at the actual signing of the contract.)

It would probably be beneficial for Sammy not to wear the C. It would take some responsibilities away from him and allow him just to play and not worry about anything else. And to be blunt he hasn’t earned the letter.

Oh I think that's easy. Benson was ranked 4 or 5 and Savoie sometimes got as high as 3 (or thereabouts). They fell because of size and then Sabres had their BPA analytic lists and went oh my, we can't pass on these guys at 8 or 9 or whatever it was. In Rossi's case he was ranked roughly where we were but so was Quinn. Close enough in any event that you could choose either one and they went for the bigger. This year is weird and thin with a lot of guys ranked roughly the same so if teams do go size you never know what we get and we might be looking right at Hagens thinking here we go again, the higher ranked smaller guy. I think it likely he gets taken earlier by Philly or Boston but you never know. Cam Neely might think Martone is his long lost son and maybe somebody even thinks McQueen is fine. Drafts can go that way. I would have taken Rossi over Quinn myself, but I wasn't sure about either one of them. I would have taken Perfetti (although I also liked Holloway and Mercer but recognized they were going to be a little lower).

Guessing the OP's Q is now moot. (If it wasn't at the time it was asked. 😉 )