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He has to get a lot better to what? Earn a $50M contract? Agreed. To help the Sabres? He already does. Byram gave team a full season of 20+ minutes a night as a plus player against the other teams' best. I'm shocked at how many people seem to take that for granted. How many Sabres defencemen have done that over the past decade? Pretty sure there are 4, and people want to drive two of them to the nearest airport. The 3rd is Dahlin and the 4th is Brandon Montour, another skilled D this board stupidly wanted to get rid of. By all means, trade Byram. Just understand that even if you are replacing him with somebody different who can eat the same minutes, you still haven't made the team any better.

That's because he didn't use a high draft pick on one. That was the criticism.

My only issue is that Samuel and Shakir are basically the same player but they are all talented. Maybe one of Samuel or Shenault can pop.

I definitely had Rossi over Quinn. That's who I wanted and would still make that pick today easy. I don't remember being all that aware of Jarvis. I liked Holloway then and still do today. If I was picking today, I would take Eklund over Power, but at the time I thought Power was the right pick in a draft lacking top-end talent. So far, he has not lived up to #1 pick expectations in any way, but again, I'm inclined to give him some grace because defensemen almost always take a while to get going. Hedman wasn't anything until year 5. Pietrangelo took 4-5 years. Yeah, there's guys that jump right in like Ekblad, Doughty, Makar; but it's not unusual for them to take a while to get there. My concern is this injury is going to set him back big because he really needed this summer to work on his game and get stronger. I just don't have a really bad taste about taking him because it was a weak draft for top-end talent and he seemed to have the most potential. Will Eklund or anyone else had been better? We need another year or two to probably know. Cossa over Rosen? Sure, but he's played 1 NHL game. No idea what he's gonna be. Can't argue one way or another there. Leinonen, give me Hutson there of course; other than him it's a crap shoot. It's a good debate. With hindsight, there are several different picks any of us would have made. Bottom line in the end is Adams sucks at his job. I just don't have HUGE issues with his drafting. Or not nearly as much as everything else he's done or failed to do. But I guess when drafting appears to be your "strength" and it's really been pretty "meh" we kind of arrive in the same place.

Also that burner with the unusual name — Shenault?

WR room is now … Shakir, Samuel, Palmer, Coleman, Moore … and someone like Shavers maybe?

But that would offend the league’s gambling overlords. That will never happen.

We’ll see what happens with the reshuffle

That's great! Makes Beane look more odd from the other day. Dude literally went and got a wr the same week he melted down about being asked about wr... weird. I like this signing. He's still young. He's cheap. Decent upside.

Everybody eats!

Booya…maybe

He doesn’t have inside info They sabres social media people don’t know anything

Yet

He's gotta to get a lot better. Also that's such an indictment of how terrible buffalo's defense is. Byram is a 4 at best right now and I don't see anything saying he'll ever be a 2. How long should we wait until he figures it? How much should we get he does. Everyone shouldn't be getting 7yr deals. It's stupid and it locks you into guys that are flawed. They need to move on from Power or Byram. Keeping both is bad team building.

I’m glad Beane takes a macro approach to managing the roster. Instead of pigeon holing a receiver into an immediate large role, when rookie receivers are notoriously slow starters and quite frankly bust at a high rate. They are most likely much higher on Coleman than I am. I am also fairly optimistic about Palmer. We’ve seen average receivers flourish under Josh and good receivers flounder. A room starting with Shakir, Palmer and Coleman is promising but we’ll see if it comes to fruition. I don’t think any of the WR outside of Travis Hunter are going to blossom in the NFL. At least not anytime soon.

I had Eklund rated 1st overall, I stick by that. Had Rossi and Jarvis over Quinn, I stick by that. Peterka is Adams best pick followed by Benson. The rest is, ok. Hence why Forton should be fired. You could swap Rosen for Cossa and then Leinonen for several better rhds.

That's fair and I don't necessarily disagree at all. Quinn hasn't lived up to a #8 pick, but his arrow was pointing up until the Achilles injury. That can be a rough injury to recover from so I think he gets a little longer runway to arrive as a result, a bit of a mulligan for this year. If he spends 2025/26 looking like the same player he was this season, then yeah. I'd be leaning towards bust. I preferred Rossi then and still do now. At this point, I'd really prefer Holloway who had a nice season for STL and looks like a good power forward, something this team needs more of. Give me Jarvis over Jack, too. But the wildcard is would Rossi/Jarvis/Holloway have become the players they are here? Would Quinn have been better in MIN/CAR/STL? As for Power, looking back, that 2021 draft sucked as far as top-end talent. There'll be some good players, but I doubt any that will produce like your typical #1 overall. Who do you take instead? Beniers? Nice rookie year, middling since. Kent Johnson is coming along in Columbus, but not at #1 overall expectations. McTavish has been okay for the Ducks, but again, not like a #1 overall. Luke Hughes? Meh. Eklund? He's progressing, but nobody had him rated that high. Guenther - same. I'm still bullish on giving Power time. Rosen, could have had Wyatt Johnson, but there's rally not much below him. Again, bad draft. In 2022, nobody really stands out below Östlund. Kulich seems like a good pick. They're still pups. You're probably right about Benson. Overall, aside from 2020 I cannot take much issue with his picks. Nobody stands out to me below who he selected. I agree aside from Peterka, his non-firsts do not look to be exactly pounding at the door. And that is where good GMs find value. He hit it out of the park with Peterka, but so far nothing else.

Personally expect we can speak to his drafting. He's drafted in the top 10 pretty much every single year (at least 3 out of 4 and gets a top 10 pick once again this year); only Benson and Kulich of all his 1st round selections has looked as good or better than what you'd expect to get at his draft slot and at minimum 2 of them look to be underperforming where they were selected (especially when compared to guys that were still on the board) and a case could be made that at least 1 other is underperforming. And even the selection of Benson comes with an * because if they didn't have Savoie on the same junior team they probably wouldn't have gotten to know him nearly as well as they did. Of his post-1st round picks only Peterka (who was a great selection and a smart move up) has exceeded expectations. There are a LOT of 2nd round picks he's gotten to make and not many have flashed the wow factor nor are expected to be a top 6 guy. With the exception of Novikov, are any of the D tracking to be top 4? Are any post 2nd round guys tracking to be that diamond in the rough that makes top 6 / top 4? (Maybe Poltapov, but can't recall if he was 2nd round or not and he's locked up in the KHL for a few more years anyhow.) He's shown to be middling at drafting. Sure somebody might turn out to be a late bloomer and truly surprise, but you can't expect it. And when your operational model is draft great and build your core through the draft & through youth traded for during the great purge, middling simply isn't good enough.

I too am glad that I've avoided the gambling bug. I do the normal stuff -- March Madness brackets, Super Bowl squares, fantasy football -- but have always stayed away from the real sh1t. Somewhat ironically, I sort of enjoy the "degenerate gambling" banter on a podcast I regularly listen to. Maybe it's akin to getting a contact high from someone else's smoke.

I tend to agree. It's not a defense of Beane but his last 2 top picks prior to last week were Kincaid and Coleman. Those 2 and Samuel were all hurt for long stretches last year. They should all enter the summer healthy. Then he signs Palmer who does get separation and cuts on a dime. Shakir gets paid. I do think a lot of this noise is blowback for not picking Worthy last year. He has twice been accused of domestic violence, so I'm sensing a pattern in the character dept. When you lead the NFL in scoring, the issue is the D. We all saw what Philly did in the SB. They had 1 vet WR visit and I'm guessing more will be talked to. Beefing up the D was prudent.

To the bolded, Ruff flat out said what he sees of the roster while being in the organization is significantly different than what it appeared to be to him when he was outside the organization. Personally expect we'll see some substantially different direction in what players get let go and who/what get brought in than what we've seen in previous off-seasons where Adams was exclusively the final decision maker. Will it be good enough? Well, it can be. Will it be? Don't know. Wouldn't want to have a mortgage payment riding on it. Heck, right now, we're not even sure who has what titles nor who will still be here even by the time the draft rolls around. Would still like to see (as does pretty much everybody here) some major changes in the coaching ranks and would like to see Adams with a less direct role on the personnel available to the HC. And will continue to dream of what might be with Sullivan until he officially signs in NY or Boston. (This place really has morphed into hockey purgatory over the past 15 years; THAT would be a sign we're finally nearly done with our penance and hockey heaven awaits.)

This all seems like what I envision this means. Ultimately, we still don't know how well Adams has drafted because it takes years to flesh that out. Early returns are decent enough. We can get a decent feel from his first rounders: 2020 #8 Jack Quinn - A lot are ready to give up on him, I'm not there yet. Achilles injuries are a mother to recover from, particularly for a skater. How much has that affected his production? I like his offensive game for the most part, has a good shot. Not sold he will ever be more than below average defensively and weak on the boards. You can live with that if you have guys around him to mitigate it and he's producing offensively. I see his ceiling as a middle-six winger with a 30 goal/60 point ceiling. Floor is Olofsson. 2021 #1 Owen Power - The potential is vast, but so far the production is middling. Defensemen take longer to cook, so I'm not panicked by his glaring flaws like many others. He needs help with his development to get to that ceiling. Otherwise he will end up just another puck-moving soft blue liner. 2021 #14 Isak Rosen - Still growing as a player, he's been solid for the Amerks the last two years, but I've barely noticed him on the ice in his 15 games with the Sabres. He seems redundant to Quinn. I wouldn't mind seeing him as a trade chip if the value is there. 2022 #9 Matt Savoie - He netted Ryan McLeod who I thought was fantastic this season. 20 goals, 53 points and can fit anywhere from 2C-4C who is one of the fastest skaters in the league, a solid defender, and excellent on the PK. McLeod should be here for a long time and be a really good player for us. That's good value for a #9 pick. 2022 #16 Noah Östlund - Only 8 games, but I thought he acquitted himself well starting out on the 4th line. Seems to have good hockey sense and plays a responsible game. Not sure he'll ever be much of a scorer, but I could see him becoming a reliable middle-6 forward in a year or two. I have no real concerns about this pick at this point. 2022 #28 Jiri Kulich - I like Kulich. I think he has the makings of a 2C down the road with a solid 2-way game. He alternated between excitingly noticeable and invisible in his first full year, which is to be expected. He's a part of the future. 2023 #13 Zach Benson - Our little ball of mischief. Got thrown to the wolves as a kid and though the stats don't stand out, he gives his all every shift and if his offensive game grows to match his effort his ceiling is very high. Could end up our Marchand a couple years down the road. 2024 #14 Konsta Helenius - Way too early to have much of an opinion here. Peterka was a homerun in round 2. He's the kind of guy you hope you find there. Other than him, we haven't got much return from any other Adams non-1st rounders yet. I guess this is all to say, to this point, it's hard to really grade out Adams' drafting. His first rounders seem to be coming along just fine, just lacking significant production at this point. Quinn, Kulich, and Benson have shown flashes but still have some strides to make in assorted areas. Power has been somewhat disappointing, but again, most defensemen take a while to find their footing. Rosen, Östlund are wildcards because they've barely played. Helenius is just getting started and is a few years off. Savoie got you McCleod. Aside from Peterka, we don't know how he's doing later. We're still probably 2-3 years from knowing how effective he is drafting, but at least so far he doesn't appear to be a disaster. Where he has been a disaster is building a functional roster. If he's drafting, I don't have a huge issue. But he clearly lacks the gravitas to do the rest: Manage the cap - We don't know how much them spending under the cap has been a KA thing or a TP mandate. But his contract decisions have been spotty. TNT looks like it could be a steal, signing him when he did was the smart move. But he also handed out bad deals to Samuelsson, Cozens, and looking like maybe UPL. May have pulled the trigger early on power, too, but we don't know for sure yet. Go to league meetings - Is this the guy we want as the face of the franchise in these situations? A good GM needs to be able to be confident and command respect. I see him seriously lacking in both of those areas. The "taxes" and "palm trees" diatribe will always stick with me. That's weak excuse-mongering. I don't want excuse-mongering from the guy making decisions. Coaching decisions - He inherited Raaaalph and made the right call firing him when he did. I cannot fault him for Granato. Granato ultimately wasn't overly successful, but he did a nice job developing some of our younger guys. Hring Lindy was a mistake in my opinion and a lazy move. His roster of assistant coaches has consistently been among the worst in the league. It looks like he's married to Appert as Lindy's successor and that's a bad idea and more nepotism *****. Really don't want him making the next hire.

Sorry but I don't believe this for a second. It implies Ruff is smarter than he is. It also is far from occams razor. They needed a center, analytics identified McLeod. Beck Malenstyn was Appert who played against him in the AHL. Lafferty and Kubel might have been an archetype Ruff wanted but suggesting they set some minimal bar makes Lindy look worse. Kubel was waived. Gilbert was big and tough and wanted to be here. They also dumped him so if Lindy wanted him... that didn't last long. Zucker. They needed a winger and I could buy into Lindy tossing out Zucker. I just don't see some mastermind type of thing going on. I can totally complain if Lindy ordered these parts because he then didn't understand this teams true weakness.

I also thought Larkin as 3C was fantastic for the USA.