Taro T

We're also coming up on the 1st time any GM has gotten a 4th shot at the draft since that fateful pronouncement was made. Expect that if Regier was kept in place, the team would've been quite competitive by now, but that's not a given as Darcy's worst stretch as a GM pre-suffering was when he was given an open wallet to spend as he saw fit. Darcy was always at his best when he was told to win but with more constraints than the other GM's he was competing with. (Maybe that was strictly a correlation thing and not a causation one, but expect it's the latter. Wonder if that made him think longer and harder about getting the right additions into the lineup.) Expect that Murray would've figured out how to get the team into the playoffs, but doubt that they'd've been serious contenders. Hard to believe he'd've ever started seeing the players as people that sometimes fit better with certain linemates and can be made more than they were/are by themselves but that the wrong fits can also make the sum whole less than it should be. Have no faith that Botterill ever would've figured it out based upon his 2 coaching choices and his seeming perpetual penchant to spend to the cap with little or nothing to show for it. How much different would the team be today had he told the Pegulas 'sure, let's sack the entire front office?' Scary thought.

Had hoped they'd try that for more than just part of 1 game down the stretch. It didn't work at all the little bit it was tried, but really expect a lot of that was neither Mittelstadt nor Quinn knowing what the other was going to do. They looked extremely out of sync when it was tried.

Doubt you will ever get either to make that statement. Because when they make that statement, they start making moves that will hurt tomorrow's chances of getting to the ultimate goal. Adams has been pretty consistent in that sentiment. Do expect that he expects the team to solidly be in the playoffs next year barring something catastrophic. But that's where missing the playoffs by 2 points hurts so much. The fanbase would be very forgiving should the team have a serious run of injuries like what Columbus had this year (could've sworn they said 47 different players dressed for them this season which is absolutely shocking) had the team snuck in this year and a miss was year 1 in the losing skein. But it would be year 13 were it to come to pass. (Doubt it does, but until they're actually in the playoffs, they're still on the outside looking in.)

Yup. And they seem to be more beholden to it than the guys that brought "process-driven" to town. They trust that their process will work but they flat out won't say that the goal is to win the Stanley Cup - too much luck involved. The goal is to be a legit contender every year. It seems from this vantage point, that Adams puts a smidge too much emphasis on his "being true to himself and being truthful" to the point that if he says the goal is WINNING the Stanley Cup that in a year that they don't do that (and lets face it, they won't far more often than they do) that they'll necessarily have to make changes they don't really want to make to try to find that elusive result. His goal is to be a contender every year because he can control whether the team is a legit contender but he can't control for that final step actually being taken. Probably reading too much into his comments (and to be fair, haven't heard today's comments yet; just the reactions to the comments) and am stating this concept too succinctly. There's a nuance to it that doesn't really translate in a non-GA length post. ;) It gets back to the answer about playoffs being a goal next year a few weeks back. He said that yes, it is, but that they won't mortgage the future to make it happen if they are in the same exact place next year they were this year. The moves they'll make will be designed to help today AND tomorrow.

Harder. Used to never be able to watch the round after the Sabres were eliminated. Just too painful thinking what might have been. The last few years, could watch pretty much the whole tournament. Am following what's happening, but just don't have the heart to watch just yet.

That would be durn near the perfect off-season IMHO. (Though personally would rather have Girgensons back rather than Okposo as IMHO he has more in the tank. REALLY expect Okposo to have a Pominville part 2 type season if he comes back but would be starting from a much lower floor than Jason had to fall from.)

Considering if they trade away Mittelstadt they now have made the F grouping weaker and the number of GOOD 4D options about to hit FA, would much rather see that Samuelsson V2 brought in via FA or a package including Olofsson, the 2023 1st, and possibly a non-A list prospect. A 28 goal scorer who seems like he could get to 30 with some PP1 usage and the 13th overall pick both have legitimate value. Tack on a Weisbach (or if absolutely necessary Rousek) and that should bring something useful back even though there isn't room on the Sabres as currently constructed for either Olofsson or Weisbach (and Rousek would be a spare too at this point). Capitalism at it's finest. Do what you do well (draft and develop F's) and use your surplus to get what you need but don't do well (draft G's and D). And, through next year, the Sabres also have a surplus at cap space. (Still disappointed they didn't weaponize it while they had far too much of it; but that water has already moved under the bridge and drifted out to sea.) Really hope they can get the D they need via FA (or the 2 of them that would be good to have) so that that package of Olofsson, the 2023 1st, and a non-A list prospect could get converted into other futures to keep this window that certainly seems to be opening open for a very long time.

To the 1st sentence, that is yours truly's expectation as well. A goalie (Varlamov?) gets brought in, one of UPL or Comrie gets traded (most likely UPL as he likely has more trade value) and the other is loaned to Ra-cha-cha and hopefully clears waivers. Agree that not bringing Savoie in would be a solution, but not ideal if he is in fact ready for the NHL. And would flat out hate the 3rd sentence coming to fruition.

Which is fine. But it doesn't address how the Sabres would keep the 3HGM a thing especially if Okposo comes back. There are people that expect the 3HGM to be back with the old head lopped off for a very young one (yours truly and you are not among that contingent); would like to know how they see that playing out.

Any relation to Euell Shootyereyeout?

Question for those that think the Sabres will bring back the 3 headed goalie monster AND Kyle Okposo (at least for 16 games and presumably the whole season). Presumably Savoie will be on the roster to start the season and IMHO there isn't a spot for Olofsson (his spot likely goes to Savoie). 1st off, for those that expect Kyle and 3 G's, do you agree that is most likely what happens with Savoie? Still also expect the Sabres to go after a Graves or an Orlov or Hannifan, so the Sabres should have the top 4 D set, at least on paper with solid 3rd pairing guys behing them; 1 of which Granato often played 20+ minutes per game this past season. Should the Sabres land another power forward like a Tom Wilson or a true 4C; it would seem that with 3 goalies, and Okposo that something will have to give. Either Girgensons doesn't get a new contract (but personally expect he will get an offer) or they have to do something truly off the board to have room for Okposo and the 3HGM. Would the Sabres be crazy enough to try to run with only 5 D (4 of which would get close to 25 minutes/game and the other 20) and dress 13 F's? They'd pretty much need either Lybushkin or Stillman to start the year on IR as whichever one wasn't the spare 6th D would almost definitely get claimed off waivers. Not expecting them to be that crazy. But really don't see how they make the 3HGM and bringing Okposo back work without doing something wild like that. Thoughts?

Took a peak at the bracket just now and it's a good thing. Had filled out the bracket for the NHL's league, not the Sabrespace one. Oops. Got that fixed.

FTFY. Can't go getting all bloaty on a weeknight. ;)

Agree with most of what you've said and the bolded might be true or more accurately might become true. But for right now, we don't know that he can fill in anywhere but 4C & 3C. (Personally expect he'll be able to fill in higher, and still hold a VERY small amount of hope that he can become a Marchand-lite for the Sabres; but Marchand was putting up twice as many points as Krebs put up at similar ages and IIRC similar bottom 6 usage (though obviously as a W rather than a C.)

True. He doesn't dream of being a 3rd/4th liner. But he doesn't become a UFA for 5 more years. A lot of things can change in that time frame. He can have a Mittelstadt like jump in his play at some point, or maybe he just stagnates. A key piece of the what we all perceive as the Sabres core may himself stagnate or may have a club desperate to get him and make an offer to Adams that he simply can't refuse. He seems happy here and is growing into an NHLer. Expect him to have a role similar to his current one next year but with more PK & PP duty (like he was getting towards the very end) and whether he is centering the 4th line or the 3rd line or possibly moving to 3rd line winger will be a function of what other moves happen this summer. What to do with him LT doesn't need to be determined this off-season nor even next. Expect his next contract is a bridge while he and the club find out what he will become.

Haven't looked real close at the #'s, but that seems realistic.

Hopefully their 8 year deals come in just under those #'s, but for planning purposes would run with them.

It's that following year, '25-'26 when things will start to get tight and some players that they might like to keep around have to go to fit everybody into the bag. (Btw, expect that Dahlin and Power will be closer to $18 combined, but that still leaves them room to fill holes.)

Some of us actually disliked them from the days when the were the Whalers. Never played them in the playoffs but playing them 8 times/year leads to a general disdain. Rooting for a small market team, hate seeing other small market teams lose their team. Just too many boxes checked prior to that series to not dislike the Canes. Their fans being whiny and Ol' Camelface crying about Lindy Ruff right after winning the Stanley Cup just add to the distain. But personally, dislike the B's, Phlyers, Aisles, Loafs, and Sens way more than the Canes. The Canes are in the group with the Stars and the Pens (Rags and Krakers are in that group too just because, and the Bolts are getting there if they aren't already).

In a philosophical way, yes. But, considering the cap for that season won't be known until the end of the next season (and won't be known on a ballpark basis until the middle of next season), it can't have "huge" implications on who they can and cannot sign this off-season. They should be planning for a modest increase in the cap that season (though it could be a Billy Fuscillo HUGE increase) and basing their offers on how they see potential FA's slotting into the lineup with most everybody's next deal the milepost those FA offers are compared to. MHO.

It would make sense that winning a faceoff (cleanly) on the PK leads to a clear more often than not. But even that stat will be tempered by the rest of the variables. A clear against the Sabres will result in far fewer goals against over the course of the PK than it would against a team like Edmonton that is very good at zone entry on the PK. Because that one single clear won't necessarily only result in 15 seconds of non-zone time for the PP but could result in the full 2 minutes being shot. Personally, expect the teams do have their stats broken down to a microevent level (understanding that for some it makes the sample size too small to be meaningful) whereas the people doing this for random websites don't have nearly the resources to do that kind of analysis. (Also, wouldn't necessarily trust a website to be analyzing the data consistently enough to have the results be meaningful. One volunteer stat tracker could have a much different view on whether a face off was won or was won cleanly than another one would.) But, it would absolutely be cool if that research is being done by a source that is available to the fans (even though the data collection biases may leave it unreliable). Would be something else to talk about over the long off-season.

It'll blow up my bracket. But the NHL deserves to have the Aisles win this in 4 games. Knock a team that plays entertaining hockey out of the tourney and leave in one that the late '90's Devils look at and say 'holy ####, that is some dull hockey; never seen anything so brutally dull."

Fix the 2 A's above and most of the rest will be fixed as a result. (Easier said than done.)

Yes Adams finally is at a point where he doesn't absolutely HAVE to do anything to have a good team. But also believe he is smart enough to know that he has the team he has and understands what the holes are. And that he very likely can fill those holes using only assets that aren't in the long term plans here &/or only cost cap space. His plan seems to be on the right track. He followed it and he stuck to it. He's gotten to this point without giving up any of the assets he does still see as fitting in to the LT picture. (He actually has more assets at F than he'll be able to keep there in a couple of seasons, which means he can either move some for futures to keep the window open or for then current holes to increase the chances of doing damage while the window is open.) Realize that many of us are frustrated with missing the playoffs again, and expect that Adams is frustrated by it too, but based on his background and what he's been saying for the past 2 years really believe that he doesn't see as much value in the players getting playoff experience this year as many here believe it has. They beat playoff teams down the stretch when they were in desperation mode. (They also lost to a couple. It's what midlevel teams do.) Expect Adams and Granato see the value in that and find that valuable enough of a teaching tool moving forward that a handful of playoff games wasn't worth what it would cost in other assets that he wants to keep. (And interestingly, he was willing to give up something that he still has under his control for Chychrun. Besides this year's 1st, curious what the other part(s) was (were).)

Having been through the desert of pretty much no C spine for much of the last decade (and early on, not having enough quality players to support their TWO good C's) agree that ideally the C's are the top F's. But just find it interesting that for the 1st time in a long time, there are actual options to have very possibly 4 quality lines and they can be stacked like the traditional 1, 2, 3 scoring lines with a 4th 2 way line or a 1A, 1B, 1D and a 4th line and a few permutations in between. (Until Olofsson gets traded, and really expect he will be, this team has 10 guys that are legitimately top 9 F's (several of which are significantly better than that) plus Jost who can adequately fill in there. And that doesn't include any of the kids playing in Junior or Ra-cha-cha that might be good enough to be top 9 as well. And, unless they bring in a Tom Wilson, believe that the key to how Granato will be deploying his lines will come down to whether he wants Greenway to be part of a Minny style line he just left &/or an Aisles 4th line or whether he wants him to be running shotgun to Thompson, Cozens, or both to keep opposing teams from taking liberties with his best players. And, keeping Krebs in this post, could see him at 3C, 4C, or 3W (in that order) in the mix of what Granato puts together. And, based on how much Krebs improved from October to his mid-season play with the 4th line to where he was at the end of the season, really do believe that Krebs could be fine at W now that he's finally adjusted to the speed and physicality that happens at this level.