Taro T

Right now, there are a lot of possibilities. But we know Dahlin and Samuelsson play very well together. Clifton should complement Power's game very well. So, personally am expecting those 2 pairings barring another D-man being brought in. Which leaves 2 of Jokiharju/Lyubushkin/Johnson working the 3rd pairing. With Stillman getting a great view of a lot of games from the pressbox. But won't be shocked if they run your lines, but will be mildly surprised.

They absolutely aren't carrying 9 D on the roster, barring injuries of course. It's possible after the trade deadline but wouldn't expect it then either. They only get 4 callups until the Amerks season is done and with the D and young F's they're going to have they should have another long run in the spring so those 4 callups need to last a long time.

Don't know that it would "significantly" reduce Dahlin's minutes, but it would reduce them some and would likely reduce Power's as well. Not positive that's necessarily a bad thing as making sure both of those guys have gas in the tank remaining when the playoffs hit is a good thing. They also would be able to drop to essentially 4 (or 5 depending upon the situation) D rotating out in crunch time and Dahlin and Power would be 2 of those guys getting the crunchtime minutes. IF they did land Hanifin (or Pesce or a guy of that quality), providing they didn't lose any of last year's top 3 nor Clifton to get him would leave the Sabres with arguably the best D-corps in the league. You would have 60 minutes of quality D play every night the top 6 are healthy and you'd still have a very solid D should one be out with injury.

IF they land Hanifin, personally see him anchoring the 3rd pairing (or 2nd if Power anchors the 3rd). They'd have the ability to ice 3 extremely balanced pairs that way with a playmaker and a stay at home guy on each: Samuelsson - Dahlin Power - Clifton Hanifin - Lyubushkin/Johnson Spares: Stillman - Johnson/Lyubushkin Presumes Jokiharju is part of the package for either Hanifin or something else Adams tries to bring in. And that D could be mixed and matched depending upon situation or opponent and also doesn't go to crud with an injury or 2 (even at the top of the food chain).

The Sabres aren't a team near the cap. And MOST teams will carry 23 on the roster with only 2 Gs. So, you either run 8D or you run 14F's. When they had 14F's early in the year how long did Sheahan, then Asplund, then Hinostroza spend in the press box? You aren't going to keep a kid in the press box which would almost necessarily happen should the Sabres try to keep 14Fs. With the current D-corps, Stillman is the 8. He's probably getting waiver claimed. Kulich is likely the 14, he's waiver exempt. Which one do you expect goes down?

Have been pointing out the bolded for a few years now. It makes practice way easier to run as you not only have a D-pair resting up at either end of a drill you also are only rotating 1 F through the lines in drills rather than 2. And also believe the Tokaraski signing showed that they were only keeping 2 goalies in Buffalo. Whether they trade whoever will be 3 on the depth chart after Adams is done adding talent to today's roster or try to waive that guy and fail; they have a guy at 4 (presently, 3 in that scenario) that they trust for a game or 2 should he absolutely be needed to step in and either finish a game or actually get a start to give the healthy guy of the top 2 a rest. Unless they are really light on F's, don't see them running 7D in a game.

Wow. Expected him back if only 1 D was added. Didn't expect him to come back with 2 guys added though did believe it was possible. Guess nobody else was going to give him nearly a half mil to play in the AHL. For those saying Pegula is cheap and he won't let Adams retain salary on Olofsson, he is now spending $150k shy of $1MM for the guy who may possibly be his BACKUP AHL goalie (should at least 1 of UPL or Comrie still be in the organization in October and #3 on the depth chart) and the D-man that is currently somewhere between 9 and 11 on the overall depth chart. He absolutely will let Adams retain salary if it improves the deal there. And this is further proof that the Sabres will most likely be running 8D on the 23 man roster on opening night.

Very possible. If he's fully recovered, believe at this point in their careers he's a better goalie.

Will preface this with not wanting ANYTHING to do with Gibson. But a reason why the backups look reasonable and the starter looks like trash, especially on one of the 3 worst teams in the league, is that the starter gets the bulk of the games against good teams which are significantly better than the skaters in front of him so he looks even worse than he should but the backups get to play against teams that are aren't significantly better than the skaters in front of them or maybe even that 1 or 2 teams that the Ducks are actually better than. Who you play against can go a long way towards making you look like a hero or a bum. Only saw 2 Ducks games this year, so this spitballing could be WAY off. But should it turn out Gibson gets moved and actually stops being a sieve, it would go a long way towards explaining it. Even if he still is bad (as expected) but not terrible ...

Really expect that should Olofsson get traded that the Sabres will be retaining salary. Unless Adams still has a couple of very big moves left to come, retaining salary on a guy with only 1 year left won't affect the team's ability to stay under the cap at all. Retaining salary will make Olofsson's flaws much more palatable and can see a lot of teams interested in getting a 28 goal scorer for less than $2.5MM. Teams like Carolina are way closer to the cap than the Sabres are. Any deal will likely be structured in a way that the Sabres take on the bulk of the salary, not the other way around.

What you're missing (your phrase, not mine) is that only the next 3 are going to count towards that total spent on D and that one of them will be Ryan Johnson who will be on a cheap contract. Those 3 additional contracts will likely come in at $6MM total (or less). Additionally, though Skinner makes $9MM, their 2 best C's will combine for just over $14MM. The goaltending will either be cheap (Levi will earn less than $2MM even with hitting on his bonuses) or extremely cheap (should they be running UPL as his backup 1 season from now). Further, the cap will make a fairly significant jump next year with another jump to follow that subsequent year. They also are set for the next 2-3 years with the ability to bring 1-2 highly skilled rookies into the lineup on ELCs. IF goaltending holds, this team is in a very sweet spot contract wise. They'll be close to the cap (in a year, they're still clear of it this year) but they shouldn't have to be jumping through the same sort of hoops that Vegas and Tampa have been jumping through.

Nah, it'd still be under $40MM next season presuming Jokiharju is sent out in the deal for Hannifan and Dahlin bumps to $10 and Power bumps to ~$7MM. And THIS year it'd still be under $30MM. It is very doable IF Adams is willing to move enough assets to get Calgary to pull that trigger.

It's possible. But until it happens, much like a trade to improve the #2/1B option in net, won't assume that it will.

And MANY years back, the Sabres were told they wouldn't be allowed to use Tim Connolly in the playoffs if he didn't play any games at the end of the regular season. Am fairly certain, though not positive, that the league has been letting teams get away with not meeting that formality on the 1st day of the league season the last couple of years. If you take a look at Cap Friendly's cap tracker, it shows Vegas's full projected cap hit on the 1st day of the past league year October 11, 2022 as $96,557,127 which is significantly above the salary cap. Tampa did the same thing the year before with Kucherov.

Everybody else is saying Benson has a 200' game. And you decide the comparable is Danny Briere? Interesting.

Yeah, we have to figure that Clifford is pencilled in as Power's partner. The good thing about that is on paper his style of play and his strengths complement Power's. They also, especially if they just need to do it for a few games if Clifton or Samuelsson is out, have Jokiharju, (a presumably healthy) Lyubushkin, or Johnson to slide up into the top 4 if necessary. Which looks a heck of a lot better than sliding Bryson, Clague, or Pilut into the top 4 in a pinch. Liking this signing more and more upon further review. And should they still make a move for a Hannifan or Pesce or the like, well what is now a deep D becomes really deep and good. (Not expecting to see a move like that at this time.)

Biron, Noronen, Thibeault, Enroth, & Lalime were the main ones.

Qualifying offers expire at 5PM on July 15 (unless the team decides to extend it beyond the deadline). It is not automatic. The player has essentially 2 weeks to sign the QO and receive that as his compensation for the next season. If he doesn't sign it, he remains an RFA with the team still having right to match any other offers the player might receive. He will most likely still end up back with his original team but not necessarily at the salary provided for in the QO. Also, a QO is only for a single year. The player and team are still free to try to negotiate a multiyear deal. But if he does sign the QO, he is done with negotiations with anybody (he can't even sign another contract with his own current team until January 1 ).

Ab-so-frig-gin-lute-ly. COULD either or both be good enough to be a SOLID backup. Yes. Is there any reason to state definitively either or both WILL be a solid enough backup to pick up the slack when the rookie needs to have somebody picking up slack? No. Which is why it is imperitive for Adams to still be on the prowl for a goalie for whom the answer to that last question is YES.

The statements are spin. They're technically true, but they provide a perception that isn't accurately reflecting the degree to which they are true. He might still have a career in politics if this hockey thing doesn't pan out.

There are things that he does that are very reminiscent of when Skinner started here (not that he's great in his own end, he isn't, but he isn't a tire fire anymore) that should be easily correctable IF he is willing to concentrate on them (because they won't be anywhere close to a habit until later in this season if even then). One of them being, if you charge the point man, don't then turn away from him giving a clear lane past him. Ideally, he'd actually engage him, but even if he doesn't if he turns towards the point man's skating lane (typically towards the boards but not always) he's at least taking space away if not time as well and he isn't letting the point man easily create an odd man situation. He also can, when a linemate or the Sabres D-man creates the turnover or picks up a loose puck, also move to a place where that teammate that has the puck can get it to him. Part of Mittelstadt's problem early this season is when he got control of the puck he looked to move it out of danger but there was no pass open to him so he'd skate the puck to the boards where the forecheckers would double team him resulting in either an easily recovered dump out or a turnover. Neither Olofsson nor the other winger dujour were on the same page with him. These are 2 little things that would make him look MUCH better in his own end and would help to keep his line from getting hemmed in. Don't really want to make this a bashing Olofsson post, so won't mention any other things he should be able to easily do. And he was doing some of them when he was dealing with the hand/wrist injury.

With the Sabres cap space, absolutely expect the Sabres to retain salary when he gets traded. And have said this before, coming this close to being traded but getting a reprieve MIGHT end up being his come to Jesus moment. He can play reasonably well defensively if he really concentrates on it. Now maybe he'll actually concentrate on it. Wouldn't have money on it, but it is POSSIBLE.

Well, if the GM doesn't make any counters, pretty sure we understand why Hannifan is still a Flame.

So, what was Calgary's counter?

Technically true but doesn't seem to be the way it works in actual practice.