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We need to accept the fact that no matter how much the fan base believes Bryson should be the 8 at absolute most; the Sabres brass see him as their 7. We don't have to LIKE it; but it simply is.

If I were Tim Hortons, I would sue them for defamation.

The implication of the "8th defender" comment means that Kevyn Adams thinks Jacob Bryson is the 7th defender on the Sabres. Just utterly stupid.

Right now? Some unproven talent and 3 options, but mostly huge questions in goal. They are betting on someone to emerge and have to be considered lacking until that happens. A real odd mix of pieces up front. There is some unproven skill, decent speed and a surprising amount of size. They've improved the grit. Thompson can drive a 1st line, Tuch a 2nd and McLeod a 3rd. But there is a lack of passers and huge question marks at the top 2 centre slots. And so many possible variations in terms of what you’re going to get from Kulich Quinn, Benson, Norris, Doan, Krebs and Greenway and how those pieces are going to fit together. I actually like the defence as it looks right now: lots of size and skill and improved reliability. Dahlin and Byram is an excellent first pair. I think a better Owen Power is almost inevitable. Kesselring was a good add, pretty much exactly the missing piece. Samuelsson is someone I wanted to move away from, but he’s certainly capable of being a solid 5 and Timmins a serviceable 6. Trading Byram without a solid replacement would push everybody up a slot and erase most of this. I see the depth chart changes as it stands looking like this: Cozens -> Norris top 6 centre Peterka -> Quinn top 6 wing Quinn -> Doan middle 6 wing Lafferty -> Danforth energy depth forward Samuelsson -> Kesselring shutdown D Jokiharju -> Samuelsson 3rd pair D Clifton -> Timmons 3rd pair D Reimer -> Lyon backup goalie Looks better away from the puck, worse with it, and a lot like another 79 point team

Kevyn Adams "we like where our roster is at today"

Adams just said they were "surprised he was on the market"

I would just rather resign Byram and be done with this!

Adams claims the arbitration award for JBD would have been too much for the 8th defender... the MOFO signed for 875 in Detroit.

This is so depressing wondering what the mediocre return for Byram is going to be. I'm ready to keep him at this point on a bridge deal. Keep him with Dahlin the whole year. KA is not going to get a legitimate top 6 forward in return. I don't even think he thinks we need one of those. Kulich and Quinn can fill those roles in his and Daddy Pegula's minds on the cheap.

Zary is a total waste of a roster spot

Adams says that they let Docker walk because they slotted him at 8 and that Johnson, Rathbone, and Zac Jones are young and they just didn't think it was a fit. It was honestly one of the stupidest things I have heard. He even mentioned JBD projected salary. Just not a smart guy and very one dimensional in how he thinks.

Adams said he had been chasing Kesselring for "a couple of years now"

With Calgary, there isn’t a top6 forward coming back that makes the deal good for us. Mews might be a good value add along with the depth forwards, but I could only rationalize the trade if the offer sheet threat or Byram is unhappy and doesn’t want to bridge— and Mews at least gets us a couple years ahead of what a 1st round pick compensation would n

Adams said that they will match any Byram offer sheet.

Well, yes, they did. They also had guys like Rodrigues playing in the top 6 because they were defensively responsible playing with guys that could carry the offense even with a bottom 6 guy on their line. They also, by the time the playoffs rolled around had a team payroll that was way over the cap. Both of those tended to make that 3rd line REALLY hard to play against. The Conn Smythe winner and one of the runner's up was playing on that 3rd line. And both are going to be paid this coming year. Cracks me up when people try to boil the winning formula down to 1 thing.

A fair conversation to have. Yet those payroll #s make clear that Florida makes do with league-minimum (or close to league-minimum) guys for the bottom 8 slots on their roster (~4-5 forwards, ~2-3 D, 1 Goalie). So they ARE emulating Florida! This got a couple of LOL reactions. I'm not sure I was kidding? Maybe I was - but didn't realize it.

According to baker Fairburn podcast sabres currently have one of the highest counts of $4M+ salaries in the nhl.

Funny; my interpretation of what happened is Ruff got Adam’s to castoff all the anointed ones and now we have an excess of players that could fit all of our holes. We have five third pairing defenseman who all show promise they can make the jump in minutes. We have a handful of forwards who all have compete, enough skill to play up or down if they need to, etc in their game. They’re all aged 25-28 as well. Look at the lineup and it’s really hard to project where things will go- and that’s by design. Competing for roster spots is Ruff’s name of the game and he got it. sure it wasn’t with big UFA splashes, but those don’t really work do they

NHL radio guys were theorizing the opposite yesterday--Toronto and Edmonton couldn't compete against Florida because Florida had better third and fourth lines and third pairing.

"Terry, how many $775k two way deals do you want?"

That's the point. Who are your 3 best pairings? Don't really care who the 6 best are individually. Power and Byram are the 2nd and 3rd best D-men on last year's roster in no particular order. They were awful together. Power and Bernard-Docker were good together. Get it, that they're likely planning on using either Kesselring or Timmons as a partner for Power. And if either pairing is better than what Power JBD were, then awesome. But, we don't know yet if they will be. We do know that there are several players that Power hasn't meshed with yet. Will they be Power JDB when paired together or will they be Power Byram when paired together? No data. But it would be nice to know they could run the actual Power JBD if necessary.

Zary is like getting a second Krebs at this point. That doesn’t really do anything for me.

Yeah I’m aware. I still think they aren’t adding payroll intentionally.