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The Buffalo Sabres have 5,996 games of NHL experience based on their current roster on EP. https://www.eliteprospects.com/team/53/buffalo-sabres/experience/2025-2026/all?league=nhl Montreal is next closest with 6,582 games and then Chicago at 6,945. Edmonton has 10,991 and Florida 12,384 for comparison. The Sabres are not only dead last but outside of Montreal, the next team is 1,000 more games of NHL experience. This team does not have enough experience and Adams has failed in almost trade or signing where he has tried to add experience because he is a bad gm, with a bad sales pitch.

I’ve said it before that if the team was “finding ways for it work” in the way you consistently outline, not in similar fashion but literally just employing the mindset and tactics that would lead to the same conclusions your draw, it would necessarily be far more likely to yield a playoff team than whatever malarkey they’ve been engaging in

Plausible. I’ll accept it.

This is an interesting facet of this offseason's transactions: Out: 622 career GP JJP - 238 Clifton - 384 (career 6/7 D) In: 675 career GP Danforth - 183 Doan - 62 Jones - 115 Kesselring - 156 Timmins - 159 Did they get older and more experienced? Not really. Definitely not if Danforth is a scratch. They could be better, but it's another kick of the can into the future because you can't be certain what you're going to get.

With respect to counting on UPL, I agree with you that the GM is taking a big gamble. Not adequately addressing the most important position has put this team in a vulnerable position. To make things worse, he never has had an adequate backup plan if things didn’t work as he wanted to. I hope that UPL can re-establish his game. But I can’t say that I’m confident about him.

The Sabres are most likely missing the playoffs for a 15th straight year and we will see a gutting of coaches and front office personnel again. This is an 85pt with this coaching group, a group that has failed repeatedly. Lindy Ruff doesn't change anything and in fact his team was worse last year than Granato in part because Ruff spent 3 months dithering and being like "oh I thought these guys were different than what they are". Adams is incompetent by any measure and at this point who cares if they make the playoffs by some miracle? That doesn't change 5 years of abject failure by Kevyn. He is slow to adapt, gets hyper focused on 1 problem at a time, and cannot stand getting rid of ppl he likes on a personal level. In the end, it's nice they want to improve the defensive ability of the team but they didn't improve the coaching, they didn't improve the goaltending. We are going to win a few more games but the chance of the least experienced team in hockey putting it all together are slim to none and this team actually is less experienced than it was last year. Basically I guess we should just wait 3 years for them to mature because Pegula ain't going to change. He's convinced his farts smell like roses and champagne.

When you’ve failed as regularly and consistently as the Buffalo Sabres have you don’t get the benefit of the doubt. Especially when your signature off-season move is trading the remaining bright jewel in a fading collection of young forwards for a couple of unproven and unheralded young support pieces. There’s a general consensus among hockey-watchers that general manager Kevyn Adams is in over his head and a growing concern that the game has passed venerable coach Lindy Ruff by. This was the often disorganized team that allowed more goals than all but three NHL franchises last year and attacked that problem by bringing back a struggling starter who lost his net down the stretch, along with its entire failed coaching staff. This was the immature and fragile bunch who responded to a perceived lack of veteran savvy by adding 4 skaters who average 140 career NHL games among them. Last season crashed on the rocks of a 13-game December losing streak where Ruff openly acknowledged his players where not who he had thought they were, Adams failed to react with any significant action, and goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen broke under the strain. The rest of the year basically served as an audition where Ruff attempted to sort through what worked and what didn’t and Adams began the process of re-setting, specifically jettisoning perceived building block forwards Dylan Cozens and JJ Peterka from a group that had shown so much promise just two years before. The Sabres aren’t without talent, and that starts on the blue line, where Rasmus Dahlin, Owen Power, Bowen Byram, Michael Kesselring, Mattias Samuelsson and Conor Timmins are as toolsy as any NHL starting six in terms of size, skill and skating ability. But other than Dahlin — who has become truly become a world-class blue liner — it’s an unproven collection of talent that has largely failed to realize its potential on an individual level. Perhaps Kesselring, the key piece in the Peterka return, can be the missing piece to unlock the group’s potential? Scoring goals hasn’t been a problem for this iteration of the team, but there is the question of whether that will remain true with the departure of Peterka, an offensive finisher and driver who was not replaced. With Thompson’s move to wing likely permanent, how will they fill the hole at centre? Certainly Thompson is an elite goal scorer and Alex Tuch a legit all-round power forward, but will Ryan McLeod and Jason Zucker repeat their excellent seasons? Can the talented Josh Norris stay healthy enough to be an upgrade over Cozens? Will any of the gifted but callow group of Zach Benson, Jiri Kulich, Jack Quinn and newcomer Josh Doan take a step? Is there enough ‘hard-to-play-against’ in the depth collection of Beck Malenstyn, Peyton Krebs, Jordan Greenway, Tyson Kozak and 30-something addition Justin Danforth? Luukkonen was excellent in the back half of 2023/24 to earn the starter’s net and the contract to go with it, but faltered badly down the stretch this season after being unable to stop the bleeding in December. Newcomer Alex Lyon is a battler and a viable stopgap, but he’s not the answer. Devon Levi might be eventually, but he wasn’t last year and seems almost certain to start the season in Rochester. Uncertainty in net has been an Adams trademark since he let Linus Ullmark walk in his rookie season. Statistically the Sabres got some of the league’s worst goaltending last year, but it’s hard to fully blame the goalies when their environment was so awful most of the time. So much of goaltending depends on the skaters – forwards and defensemen — making good decisions with the puck and adhering to the structure of the system and the Sabres were among the league’s worst last year in terms of allowing high-danger chances. Can the roster tweaks combine with a year of coaches and players adjusting to each other yield significant defensive improvement? Is the collection of talent in the crease enough to take advantage if they do? The Sabres are apparently counting on it. Sure, it does seem like the Sabres have made some incremental improvements in areas where they needed it: roster construction, grit, defence. But incremental is incremental, and incremental is not what is called for when you need to make up a 12-point playoff gap, especially in the wake of two years of decline on top of 12 years of relentless, pulverizing losing. What it all adds up to is that — in a market bereft of it — the Sabres seem to once again be pinning their improvement largely on hope. And in the words of their most veteran skater, Zucker, hope is a ***** strategy.

After the exhaustive coaching search (or just promotion from interim label if Ruff is fired mid-season), will Appert be able to make them look like a properly coached team? Will Appert keep Wilford on his staff for "continuity" and because they're already familiar with each other? Would Appert be able to, and permitted to, get a more expensive and more playoff-experienced defensive coach?

Finding ways it could work is kinda what I do around here and I hope I never get to the point where that stops. I don't agree with all the nuance above, but I absolutely agree with the overarching theme. I wrote something a few days ago trying to capture my pragmatic view of the off-season. I was going to use it as a thread-starter, but I might as well post it here because it fits..

Embedding this. It isn't knew info but it is condensed into 1 video versus 100 threads.

I think they very well could. I also think people underrate what we needed on O even before we traded Peterka, though. But we’ve debated this before and I know I’m generally on an island on this one thinking we needed help at F even before that move - - - At the end of the day I think the simplest view here is also the one that incorporates the most data which is standings points. I do believe in the old “you are what your record says” cliche and the sabres were and are a 79 point team. Did you see addition this summer akin to launching a 79 point team into the mid 90s as usually required for playoffs? We can break down the variables every which way but the fact of the matter is the roster is deficient to the tune of being a 79 point (bad) team. If your equation doesn’t account for a HUGE influx of needed improvement, whether from external sources or within, it’s going to fall short. Shoveling it onto UPL’s plate doesn’t work for me either, in estimation Adams’ tactics and mode of operation haven’t changed even if he’s switching up slightly on the “type” of roster he’s building - when we have literally AVERAGED 78 points a year, too, for half a decade, I don’t see why the smart bet could be on anything else than that when we’ve only seen that same modus operandi continued I could easily finally be wrong but the roster still looks to me like mostly a shell game shuffle, as it’s seemed to be for a few years. As always in a position of “it could work”, but reeking of winning in the now not being the central priority.

I don't know if you ment to imply that Florida is a fast team. They are strong and disciplined but about average when it comes to team speed. Certainly not as fast as the Oilers. Just wonder if the the goaltenders were swapped would the narrative be different where people pointing toward speed and skill is the formula and not puck possession teams who just grind on you. I think either or can work. We just can't under estimate how good Bobrovsky has been when it has mattered the most.

Danforth is the 1C

Mittelstadt looked good because he had a good season. His numbers at ES were very good league relative There’s a borderline obsession with predictive stats. You can prioritize those all you want and claim Casey is a poor player now and forever because of them and that can be totally fair while still *not changing what actually happened* Cheechoo scored 56 goals that year. That year he WAS really good. Mittelstadt played and produced well that season. Not relatively well: well.

Danforth 15 minutes a night dudacek why do you hate the fans?

Don’t agree on UPL, Adams has incessantly built the roster for 6 years acting as if goalie doesn’t matter so it’s not the area of the roster he’s supplemented with close to the talent required for it to be a key area, for me. I agree on Tage though. I think he probably ends up back at C - I may be traditional but needing a great 1C has just more often than not always been a thing. Everything shines a tad brighter for me when Tage is there

Dahlin, Tage, Tuch None of the other players mentioned doing what is mentioned will matter or amount to enough if the guys we expect and need the most from don’t fulfill those higher degree of difficulty roles

Under no circumstance should the word “process” be uttered should the regime come to an end and a new GM instated. The Sabres can’t afford another reboot or rebuild. Whatever remoulding needs to be done has to be done with an eye on making the playoffs the immediate year and in no way invoke the context of “next few”. There’s no rule you need to take a “step back”. Make moves based on winning in the now.

The top line with Tage at center with two experienced and rugged wingers should be able to win their matchups.

I've been getting such spotty information this preseason. Are there players in the WR corps that are giving the team concern? I've heard several times that the team would likely move on from Curtis Samuel if the finances worked (which apparently they don't). I also saw a couple of "woof" Tweets from the Chicago practice/game re: Elijah Moore's drops. Davis doesn't make sense, I don't think. No special teams role. And the team seems to like Coleman and Shavers as "X" style WRs.

yo whodat, though?

I don’t really care about top-loading a 1st line, or a traditional hierarchy, just give me lines that can win their matchups.

I don’t think there’s any way to argue the Sabres didn’t look like a poorly coached team last year. It’s the thing most likely to hold them back this year and the reason I think the most likely outcome of the season is a mid-season bloodletting of the brain trust. The decision not to do it in April will likely not only cost the team this season, but also the next few as the new regime restarts the painful (and what should have been unnecessary) process of rebooting the core.

How about moving Tage back to the 1C and Norris to the 2C? A Zucker/Tage/Tuch would make for an experienced and sizeable top line. Or a Benson/Tage/Tuch on the top line? My hope is that Quinn makes the leap forward and earns a role on the second line with Norris centering it. This is going to be an interesting camp to see how the lines get formed. I prefer to see McCleod as a 3C and with the ability to move up the lines when needed. I think most people agree with you that UPL's play is the most important issue entering the season.

Gabe Davis will be visiting the Bills this week