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Quick glance at the preds depth chart he’s currently the 3rd pair, 6th dman. Is that worth paying 5.5 per year for? I’d want to find avg salary of 3rd pair or 6th dman and go off that.

Interestingly, Kesselring played 701toi with Ian Cole at 5v5. He managed a 53.53cf%, 52.85xgf%, and 58.37hdcf% Without him (so everyone else) he played 608toi with 54.35cf%, 55.64xgf%, and 54.31hdcf% Me thinks we do not value Kesselring as much as we probably should. Or Columbus was a lot worse than Utah which I am not sure I believe.

VERY possilbe. Both from punishing a guy for oftentimes not playing the "right way" and rewarding another one for ALWAYS playing the "right way." (Well, at least as long as he wasn't giving refs the ability to call him for trips not a single other player on the ice would get called for. Still amazed at how jealous the refs are that a little young player like Benson gets to live their dream and they never could.)

Sabres should re-sign Byram to a bridge deal. At least one area, the defense, will be stronger than last season with the other moves made. Unfortunately, this front office, led by Adams, is so overtly intentional that they will end up trading Byram even if the return is not what it should be.

This is how Sabre fans are when you give them anything....chills

I don't think we can make the money work Voronkov is an RFA looking for 3 to 5mil Provorov at 7.5mil The big thing is, we re-sign Byram and our offense is as is; there won't be any fixes because we all know the team isn't going to sign a splash offensive UFA.

Really don't like the idea of having Power-Dahlin pencilled in as the top pairing this season. Power is coming off a major injury (the 1st of his career) and very likely could have rust to get out of his game. Playing top line minutes isn't condusive to overcoming rust. Also, Byram, while not great in his own end, was significantly better there than Power is. Plus, Power isn't going to create the quick breakout that Dahlin and Byram both can provide. Expect that Dahlin will have to rein his game in a smidge if partnered with Power, which is the last thing you want to do. Kind of like when Eichel was centering Skinner and Pominville he'd have to hang a bit higher in the offensive zone than was ideal because Pomms couldn't get back in transition and Skinner wouldn't.

Agree with pretty much all of this. Byram is probably better than any other option available and maybe that’s why Adams hasn’t moved him. Sign him and use the next two years to try to change his mind about walking to free agency. Use free agency or trade other assets to add another forward.

I wonder if Benson got top line work because Ruff got fed up with Peterka's d-zone play.

I mean - ffs

I like Bedkowski and EP being higher on him gives me some hope as I find that they are really detailed oriented when it comes to how they build their stuff. That said, unless he works hard on making sure he can take pucks away and either skate or pass them out of his own zone, aka facilitate zone retrievals, he's not gonna make it very far. He's got some skill though, so if we let him sit for a couple of years, might really have a hard nosed defender at the end.

I think if the re-sign Byram it would be more of a bridge deal, like 2 years; which is what they should have done with Power and Samuellson instead of giving them unearned long term contracts

After some early season experimentation, Ruff had Dahlin and Byram together for almost the entire time the Sabres had a realistic chance of making the playoffs. Once it got to be, well, if everybody else falters (pretty much happened) AND Buffalo runs the table (not even close), then Ruff went back to Dahlin-Samuelsson Byram-???. Expect that was for 2 reasons, 1 Ruff (probably heavily influenced by the staff's opinion) had expected Muel-Dahlin would work as a pairing and he wanted to see if it would once both had been exposed to what he was asking of him; which would free up Byram to either run a lesser pairing (Power's and Byram's pairs seemed to be 2A & 2B down the stretch with neither really getting THE 2nd pairing matchups, at least from the eye test) giving the Sabres a chance to create mismatches with the other team's lesser lines and/or to decide how easily they could overcome Byram's departure using him to either improve the F's or the goaltending. Am HOPING that's a big part of why they let Kulich play 1C pretty much the entire last month of the season even though teams with really good 1st lines were eating him alive. Explains Benson getting some top line work too as the last month was. or seemed to be,- let's see what we have while not getting blown out on a nightly basis time.

I’d like that better too, not sure it works under the cap, even if Ehlers is interested. I was thinking his AAV starts with a 9, but I see AFP is projecting 6x$8.1M and they’re better at this than I am. For what it worth, they project Provorov at around $7M

This would be enough to allow me to think they MAY have a chance to fight for 8th. I could not care less about being a contender because they are still so far away from being on that level. Can they please just give the fans a season where it's not over by Christmas? It's unreal how many meaningless games have been played over the last 14 years, totally unreal.

Welcome to the Buffalo Sabres!! A team with no direction

Better yet... trade Byram for Provorov's rights and Voronkov and a 2026 2nd. Make it on the condition Prov signs a 5yr 7mil contract extension. It is less than he would get with UFA but maybe if you get exclusive rights to sign him he feels really wanted and would want to come play with Voronkov and Dahlin. I don't love Provorov tbh. He gets hard minutes and is just okayish at them. He's got a ton of turnover as well but they aren't tracked well. Provorov played 356 minutes with Werenski and was at 52.77% corsi and 51.63%xGF. Ivan played 1178 minutes with everyone else and was 46.38cf% and 44.84xgf% at 5v5. These numbers are very similar to Byram away from Dahlin. Why not just pay Byram 7x5yrs and keep him with Dahlin. He is the same thing with probably more upside.

WGR talking Marchand. He's 37 and doesn't score like he used to, but he certainly would be a culture changer. He also plays LW, which is our greatest need at forward and won't be super pricey. Getting him to consider Buffalo is the issue.

I like Provorov but not to the point of paying him that much. at $8m, keep Byram (who's a different type byt prob better than Provorov) and sign an UFA winger (Ehlers...)

1 - Demko. Adams, make it happen. (But please DON'T bring Petterson with him.) Bring in Demko, and then he's the #1 until (and possibly beyond) when Levi is ready to take the reins. If Levi gets to the point you have to make a decision on one of them, well, 1st world problems are good ones to have. And you've got a pipeline behind Levi finally. Something they haven't actually had since Lehner didn't work out and Ullmark wanted out.

I'm not really sure how much this supposed "not as strong" market really means though. Guess what happens in 48 hours? That market gets turned on its head.

It’s a painful situation. UPL has shown he can do it, but not that we can count on him to do it. I think Levi will get there, but when? Overpaying in UFA isn’t the answer in this year’s market. Trade seems like the best bet, but our roster and cap is such that it is hard to make a deal without also dumping UPL. And how many goalies available are safer bets than UPL?

Good for him! I always thought he was a decent Middle Dman with a bad rap.

Get Jake Allen and Ehlers. Allen would cost $5million, Ehlers $7.5million - we can afford both while keeping Byram but it would be tight. Would love to dump Samuelsson somehow

He’s my target tomorrow, and I don’t mind throwing term at him because he’s 28 and can play both sides. The fact Provorov doesn’t seem to be a big city kinda guy and has a relationship with Jarmo gives me hope that palm trees and taxes can be overcome. But we’ll be paying at least $7M AAV and probably closer to $8M. Leaves us cap room to flip Byram for a good middle-six forward, preferably one with upside like Voronkov, and makes the Timmins deal make a lot more sense. Overall, Byram out, one D and one forward in is what I’m expecting over the next few days.