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The more we discuss the various and infinite scenarios for this off-season, two decisions seem to be the linchpins of the offseason. 1) What to do with Skinner. There are 4 options. A) Find a trade partner, assuming Skinner is willing to be traded. Salary retention will be part of the equation, but better than the cap hit from option B. If possible this could free up about $6 mill a year for the next 3 seasons. This is the most unlikely option. B) Buyout. This would leave a cap burden for the next 6 years. It would save over 7.5 this coming season, 4.5 in 25/26, and only 2.5 in 26/27. We then be on the hook for 3 more years at 2.45 per season. Not a huge fan of this move, but is would help KA afford to make a big swing on a top6/top 2 pair skater. I also doubt TP will sign off on paying $14.67 million to Skinner not to play for us. C) Keep Skinner in the top 6. Here his poor defense is least likely to harm the team and it would best utilize his skillset. Playing him down the lineup is a mistake. Leaving him in the top 4 might allow KA to focus on building a strong 2 way 3rd line featuring Benson and Greenway with a strong 2 way center like Wennberg, Kerfoot or Bennett. This is turn might free up money to upgrade Jokiharju. D) Play Skinner on the 3rd line. If this is the plan, KA better find away to get someone like Karlsson, Duchene or Monahan to center the 3rd line or we'll be wasting Skinner's O talent and making his lack of a 2 way game more pronounced. Spending big on a 3C, then also limits how much can we spent replacing Girgensons, Robinson and KO on the 4th line. If we could some get Monahan or Karlsson, I'd be on board with this plan. but I think plan C is the most likely outcome. 2) What to do with Jokiharju? How do the Sabres really view Jokiharju's talent level? Is he a bonfide top 4 D? There are 3 options here as well. The Sabresm without Joki already have 6 D under contract for next season A) Re-sign him for a year or 2 to see if he continues to improve and becomes a bona fide top 4 D. This would lower the cap hit some on the extension and allow Joki to serve as a bridge until Novikov and or Komarov are NHL ready. AFP projects a 1 year deal at 3.328 B) Re-sign Joki to a long-term extension. Please, please Adams don't do this. We can find better stay at home D to pair with Dahlin or Power for less than the AFP projections. AFP projections his long-term deal at 3 years 4.016 C) Trade him for other assets and players. I'm hopeful that this is the path they take. Teams need R shot D and we don't need another long-term contract for a D on the books. He just isn't worth it. These two decisions will ultimately determine how much cap KA has to work with over the summer and what positions on the roster need to filled by outside talent.

I agree with your assessment of Greenway. I don't think he will be on the 4th line. I think the reason fans move him to the 4th line in projections (I've done it) is less about him being a 4th line player than it is with us having nobody else who remotely fits a 4th line wing profile. Fans are expecting that we will either upgrade the forward roster or add one of the prospects. If that happens on the wing, then the house is full. Barring a buyout or trade of a roster player, then Skinner, Tuch, Peterka, Quinn and Benson are locks for top 9 roles on the wing. It's a bit of wish fulfillment. If Greenway is on line 4, then it means we have brought in an upgrade.

Welp good luck to the Oilers now with them making fun of the bills. I wouldn’t of poked that bear

Wash, rinse and repeat....this organization can't get out of it's own way.....ever!

Headline: Wookie maims Generational Talent at NHL Scouting Combine

I frequently see people pencilling Greenway in as a 4th-liner. I struggle to think of many teams who have a player as strong as Greenway on their 4th line. With the exception of the year he was in the doghouse and traded to Buffalo, Greenway was inarguably a 3rd-liner in Minnesota, part of what was considered one of the best 3rd lines in the game with Foligno and Ek. In Buffalo last year, he was actually 4th in ice time among forwards at more than 17 minutes a game, ahead of Cozens, Skinner and Peterka. Statistically, a 10-goal, 30-point player is a good 3rd-liner. His 28 points last year put him 64th among left wings. Throw in the fact that he is strong defensively and a mammoth human being, I tend to think of him as almost a prototypical 3rd-liner.

Make reasonable well thought out suggestions and there should be no problem. Say we should trade our 11th overall pick for Jeannot and a 7th and .......... Speaking of the NHL draft. Two former Sabres' son are in this year's draft class. Max Plante, son of Derek, looks like a 3rd round pick. The other is Miro Satan Jr. The kid is 6'7" 190. Talk about needing time to fill out. He was 51st on Central Scouting EU list. Looks like a late round pick.

Exactly. I care more about losing good players like ROR, Eichel, Reinhart, Montour, Ullmark, etc., and being stuck in rebuild mode. I am sick of losing, and sick of the acceptance of losing, an sick of the way 40 years of respectability have been washed away.

Leone.

My question was "far better". I think they are still close in talent and skill. Quinn has more of a scoring touch and is to me the more instinctive player. JJP has a powerful and grittier side to his game, which is something we really need. I don't see Quinn as grittier or more competitive, but he is more instinctive and he sees the game in front of him. The key is him staying healthy. If he does, we have a top 6 forward that can score and create. I see him as a notch better than Perterka when healthy. He sees the game better than most. Pitiful on Adams for letting this happen, especially when he saw very early on that the team needed something and last year was the "in it to win" year. Cozens problems had much more to do with his own maturity and inability to handle pressure than with who was on his line. Sure, he missed Quinn, but he needs to put on the big boy pants this season. Ditto. I will give him a break due to the circumstances of being on team with poor leadership. Actually the poor leadership goes beyond the team, to the the coaches, and the FO.

Yeah, knowing the league was switching to Fanatics starting next season was on a bit of a binge this year. Have pretty much everything we'd hoped to get (including 1 not worn yet which is kind of going to be this coming season's "new" sweater) except they didn't do a jersey for the Dyngus Day game (which was actually on Dyngus Day's version of Boxing Day, being celebrated the day after DD); had a player all picked out for that one and that sweater would've been SHARP but alas, it wasn't available. Oh well, should one of those come out this year, could possibly buy a Fanatics jersey, but if not don't see any more jersey purchases for quite a while.

Couldn’t agree more. Adams either makes moves Ruff wants or needs (given injuries) and we make the playoffs or both of them can be replaced. Only a couple three catastrophic core veteran losses to injury can make missing the playoffs even comprehensible next season, imo. No more excuses, Adams.

Whether he finds 1 remains to be seen, but right after the trade deadline Adams literallly said he wants to add a bottom 6C that wins faceoffs and is very good on the PK. Personally am hoping that guy is the 3C in which case, yeah, Krebs can be pencilled in on the 4th line and if he improves, well great. And if not, there are still guys pushing him towards 13F from below. (And in an ideal world, Krebs is pencilled in as the 13th F, and Greenway has a new C and a new W to help him make that "identity" line.) Personally, wonder if Robinson was getting pencilled into that other 4W slot until that couple of shifts in the Filly game where he and and Olofsson both had their Sabres careers essentially end. If he was, wonder if he's going to be given a shot at beating out whatever journeyman Adams signs for that role or if he's simply going to be some other team's journeyman signed to try to fit in on their 4th line.

Won't speak for @Weave, but personally see this team as being good enough to be in the playoffs but not particularly relevant right now (as Levi is becoming an NHLer) and is being built to be a true contender in year 3 from this year 1 when Levi is established at the NHL level. The item that sealed that belief was the Mittelstadt (entering his prime NOW) getting traded form Byram (entering his prime 3-4 years from now). And expect that Ruff signed on for the 2 years because he believes this team has (or will by the time the off-season is through) enough talent to get into the playoffs and that they can legit compete for the SC next year. And he'll make his decision of whether to stay on as coach or bump up to PoHO (or Special Advisor to the PoHO should things be going swimmingly and Adams gets that role with Karmanos getting Adams title) at that time. At some point the rigors of being the HC has to get old especially for somebody that'll be ~68 by then. And IF the UPL we saw from January into March is the REAL UPL then this team could be a contender this season. It still remains to be seen whether he can sustain that level of play or if the UPL we'll really have is the one we saw in April when Levi was back as the 2nd half of the battery. Would expect it's either something between the 2 or maybe we finally lucked out and that goalie he was in January is who he is. If January UPL is who he really is, well In that case the Sabres will have gone nearly overnight (just over 1 season) from having some of worst goaltending in the entire NHL to easily top 10 and arguably top 5 with both goalies at a stage of their careers where they can get better yet.

It concerns me that a guy we (front office) have pegged as a top two center could be thrown out of sorts by the loss of a winger. Cozen's had enough weapons to stay 'in' sorts from my perspective.

Pipeline continues

18 draft picks over the next 2 drafts. We should see a fair few moved We have to move 4 just to get to an average slate, never mind the surplus of prospects

It's going to be funny when logos start peeling off during games.

Kinda hoping Krebs is involved in a trade during the process of filling those 4 forward spots

I might quibble about the way the pieces get used, but the only thing I'd say differently about the roster is Krebs is the 4C and I'm fine with him in that role, so long as the new 3C is sturdy and can win a faceoff. And I also think Adams will try to move Jokiharju if he can find a more physical 4/5 RD at similar or cheaper $$

FWIW this is from Corey Pronman’s Mock Draft this AM 11. Buffalo Sabres: Tij Iginla, C, Kelowna (WHL) Some may say Buffalo can’t take another scoring winger, but you could have said the same thing about their approach last season and the Zach Benson pick has looked good for them so far. Iginla is a highly competitive and skilled winger who can score and would complement the group Buffalo is building. Several NHL team sources think Buffalo is a strong candidate to trade their pick.

Peterka - Cozens - Tuch Benson - Thompson - Quinn Skinner - 3C - 3RW Greenway - 4C - 4RW …honestly I think we need 4 new bottom 6 players, and we’d be good with that t6. It’s 4 guys but considering our prospects and pick asset pool that should be fishing with dynamite, more less. I think Skinner is fine on L3 if there’s a shooter with him allowing him to clean up rebounds, Greenway nice in a 4th line roll. Byram - Dahlin Samuelsson - Power Clifton - Jokiharju D is fine as is. We’ve spend a ton of capital there. It’ll either be the strength of the team or we will suck. If we have to spend even more on D to make that happen we are probably screwed anyways. I like the group and it’s upside tbh UPL Levi GT should finally be ready to contribute positive results for a full season () - - - That should be a fun offseason for a GM, no? At least as far as one on the hot seat? 4 good bottom 6 forwards. Hardly an unreasonable ask.

No it’s awesome I’m pretty biased but I dunno it’s awesome lol one day Kevyn will come calling for it (as president of hockey ops) and I’ll happily turn it over. For the price of a small discussion on this website, of course