thewookie1

2 great PP goals 1 mind numbingly stupid play by Dahlin, he’ll need to make up for it.

No chance I make any trades with Toronto

don’t need Jagr, Pavelski would be great

Legitimate NHL goalies aren’t an easy thing to get and I just wish people would stop complaining about it since more than likely no one would of come in and played great just due to our play style to begin with. Samuelsson looked like a Top 4 D last year off and on but I’d of liked to have gotten one but it seems like Adams struck out with Chychrun and Pesce. Never was interested in Provorov or Krug, and Petry wasn’t a Top 4 anymore. Clifton thus far has not been Top 4 quality and Erik Johnson has been old. Effectively he went to the plate and fouled off a few balls before striking out. One thing I certainly agree with though is getting a 3rd line winger to replace Olofsson. That did annoy me

To me it all depends on retention and how he looks this season when he returns. As of last year he was still putting up 60pts and had possession numbers near 50% in nigh 50/50 deployment and just shy of 50% on face offs. He has quite the pedigree of playoff performances and leadership and at 5 to 6 mil per wouldn’t be a terrible contract. Otherwise there aren’t many guys out there that have 3C/W skills in a manner we need.

Well excuses aren't something you can just disregard. If Dahlin can't use his physicality as much due to be banged up then that is a legitimate excuse to his recent troubles. Just because they may be excuses doesn't magically make them non-issues.

I’d say it’s more likely he’s playing with a minor lingering injury which prevents him from playing more physically which effects his game.

https://www.capfriendly.com/armchair-gm/team/4786008 So this is what I thought of in regards to a Couture acquisition and some smaller depth signings. We’d have a hair over 8 mil for a 2RHD, a 1G and 2 extras. The biggest issue are the vast majority of UFA goalies are either extremely old or no more experienced/reassuring than the present guys. Plus teams don’t tend to have much bulk in net aside from maybe targeting Markstrom in CGY. Defense is also a concern with a lack of quality pieces on the market that are either 33+ or likely looking for absurd numbers for a contract. Otherwise there isn’t much there to pick through. From a quick glance over the best analytically seems to be TJ Brodie from the Leafs but for all his analytics he’d not exactly fix anything particularly on the D in regards to size. At this point, besides Mitts depending on his ask, I’d look to deal off the RFAs barring UPL going ham over the stretch. You find a handful of players known to play for grimy goals, even if they’re on the downside of their careers with the idea that a new coach can use their experience and grit to help inspire and compliment and far more finesse based Top 6 who do have minor spurts of aggressive play.

I meant the trade, I'd include Krebs over Greenway. He had 2mil retained in the offer

Personally I put Krebs in over Greenway I don't need Couture to be better than Cozens or Mitts I'm just looking for a competent 3C who isn't a train wreck in his own zone but isn't looking for 9mil+ like Lindholm

Someone on CapFriendly offered us Couture at 2mil retained for Greenway and Jokiharju. Franky if he looks fine when he returns from his injury he'd be a guy who could check some boxes for a solid 2 way center with experience who can still play. Emphasis on his return this year being a caveat.

I'd say in most cases it is a present for future trade however, it isn't supposed to present for 4 years out. The ROR trade is akin to a happy accident seeing as the primary stopgap pieces were both abject failures. Thankfully Tage and R. Johnson seemed to have turned out great/potentially good and as such the trade is no longer a completely 1 sided deal. There's a reason that picks further down the line are worth less than those in the immediate up incoming draft. It's the same idea with prospects and younger players.

Happy New Year everyone, I hope to God its a better one this past year.

The coach, the entire coaching staff.

People need to be fired

You guys have some strange obsession with every player with any amount of size checking. Not every player does that league wide.

I guess the Sabres just intend to spam the waiver wire until the NHL says stop it please.

Oh I don't agree with her decision to pull rank but I do agree that the team should get to go to the place in Nashville. It wasn't exactly some sort of detrimental to the team sort of time sink.

Girardi is a part-time coach; he isn't anywhere near relevant enough to fire.

Neither asked for a trade due to the team. Miller wanted to go to the West Coast for his wife and Vanek didn't want to stick around through a full rebuild.

I do know through a secondary source at least one of the reasons Lafontaine left. During that season the team took a trip to Nashville the afternoon prior to the game the next day (regular 8PM start) Kim had decided that she wanted the team to stop by the new music studio they owned in Nashville to hang out with the people they had deals with and the workers there that night; so the day prior to the game. Pat and Kim got into a rather heated argument over it because Pat outright refused to let the team go. After some back and forth, Kim pulled the ownership card and overruled Pat. Frankly this story actually has me agreeing with Kim for this specific occasion. Another situation mentioned was Tim Murray working around Pat straight to the Pegulas when he wanted to go scorched earth with the tank. One other interesting tidbit I learned.... Buffalo interviewed Danny Briere for a POHO position around the time Adams became GM. Both sides were interested but Briere wanted Brandon Beane/McDermott's clauses. (Beane and McDermott have non-meddling agreements in their contracts that allow them to "kick out the Pegulas" when dealing with football related activities. Effectively it lets both of them run the team while Terry and Kim had a very reduced access to the players. For example Kim couldn't take the Bills to the Nashville music studio as it would violate the agreement. It also limited Terry's influence on personnel decisions) The Pegulas hated this primarily due to it shutting them out of their own team. As such they outright refused to give Briere carte-blanche and after some back and forth he stayed in Montreal until going to Philly as AGM. Now for my personal conjecture. Originally Kim was going to run the business side of the Sabres and Bills and as such be able to bend the non-meddling agreement slightly so they could take advantage of Josh Allen's fame and the like. After Kim's event, Terry no longer heavily meddles with the teams but that is partially due to Adams being a man Terry trusts and doesn't feel is looking to take advantage of him. Kim's dream of a strong PSE died with that stroke/cardiac event. Now Terry has more or less dismantled the overhanging PSE structure since he just wanted to own teams and enjoy the perks of being an owner. I personally see no intention to sell the Sabres fully as if he wanted to get rid of it he wouldn't care about not having any place at the table. He may want to sell a minor portion to bank role an arena revamp but no more than that.

But that isn’t accurate; each year is a separate entity. You can’t merely average seasons together due to the massive differences in circumstances between each season as well as one being a shortened season against a makeshift division. Adams had a train wreck 1st season while being copilot to Krueger’s wild ride The 2nd season saw marginal improvements The 3rd season was our most successful season since 2012 with us being in the race until game 78. Thus far Season 4 has been at minimum a moderate step back. If I knew for certain that Adams willingly ignored a potential 1G trade with a reasonable ask then I’d be far less lenient but I can’t know that because I don’t work in the front office. You can be hellbent on hating Adams for inaction all you want but you are doing so from a very limited scope of information. What would you say if the extreme case was true? No one is trading a 1G for anything remotely sane. And they haven’t since Ullmark’s departure. I have no idea how close to reality this could be but would your vitriol change? I hate losing, I want better results too. I just don’t have any motivation to get worked up over a lack of moves in a position that has few trades to begin with and a league that trades are rarely done outside of the Deadline or draft/FA time. I can’t bring myself to wholesale denounce Adams for something I do not know the full story. It may be a result based world but not knowing the causes can make any final determination difficult to make. For instance, I have no qualms with Adams turning down a hypothetical Saros for 4 1sts deal this past offseason since it would be borderline psychotic. Or a Cozens for Pesce type deal. Trade offers that are ridiculous that he declines aren’t automatically a blight on his record due to circumstances. If you need $1000 and someone offers you $1000 for your Porsche you wouldn’t take it because it’s insane. Making trades for goalies is a borderline impossible job. If it were so simple then Toronto and Edmonton wouldn’t be in constant disarray over their goalies. There are “64” NHL goalies, less than 32 would be considered legitimate 1Gs. Boston has two and the Rangers/Isles have 1.5 1Gs. Trading for a goalie is very nearly the same as trading for a QB in the NFL. The best QBs don’t get traded, the mediocre ones occasionally do when their team drops off and decide to rebuild, the bad ones are a dime a dozen and are swapped at random as needed. Rarely, if ever, do you see a generally good goalie or QB traded and when it happens you see massive overpayment and 9/10th of the time huge regrets by the team receiving the major player. After all, there’s a reason a goalie is being dealt and rarely is it flattering to the goalie. Arguably the best goalie we could theoretically get our hands on is John Gibson from Anaheim who is covered in warts and scars. After all good goalies are on good teams and good teams don’t trade away good goalies barring cap issues as well as a cheaper and likely better option in the wings. Jacob Markstrom would be the only other goalie that would fit the criteria of a once well thought of goalie with ok stats usually being borderline expendable. Even then those teams know they have a rare commodity and thus ask for far more than the player is actually worth. Gibson for instance has been on trade rumors for 3 years and yet nothing has happened likely due to Anaheim asking for a King’s ransom for a guy who’s at best a Prince.

Merely telling you as I see it; I don't exactly feel bad for Adams but I can sympathize based on what we do know. What good does it do to just stomp our feet and whine about Kevyn not doing something if we give no context. It would be like blaming a person trying to buy a computer at a Best Buy on Black Friday who chooses not to because none of the deals made sense.

Yes he does care about winning however he doesn’t feel beholden to the years prior to his hiring. Where we have 12/13 years of baggage, he has about a third of that. 1. As I’ve mentioned a million times by now, the number of legit 1Gs that have actually changed teams over the past 4 years have been few and far between. This does not mean he shouldn’t have acquired a vet goalie this past offseason but it does sound like we made a promise to Levi about not blocking him and giving him an opportunity to be our starter. (Friedman more or less hinted at this) Seems pretty likely based on our previous experiences with college goalies screwing us. 2. Regier had the GM role from the late 90s through to the 2012 season. Of course he would find some good players in that time, he held the role longer than most. Adams hasn’t found a UFA/trade Top 4 D, Top 6 Forward or yet again you mentioned a goalie. He has however drafted Quinn, Peterka and Benson whom all slate to fill the Top 6 winger role. Last year we looked great in our top 6; he failed to rid us of Olofsson’s weight but he’s now Bottom 6. Top 4 defenseman is the only thing that perplexes me to be honest. We can all see we need a veteran solid Top 4 defenseman. It certainly seems as if Adams himself is very much aware of this and has made attempts to fix the issue. We know he targeted Chychrun from Arizona but was more or less cheated price wise. We also have strong indications that he went after Pesce only for the deal to fall through at the final minute which strikes me as a player using his NTC. He also was very interested in Hanifin during the off-season but was likely turned away by the trade cost or Hanifin’s extension demands. While all failed attempts, they certainly point to Adams knowing of and trying to fix the issue. We aren’t happy with what he ended up trying but it had its merits. Clifton looked good in Boston and Johnson could be a handy addition to the locker room. In theory an ok bandaid for the D core when imagining continued progression. Instead Power decided to back into a ditch and Samuelsson went from steady eddy to Mr. Softee. Combine that with Clifton struggling mightily and Johnson being over used due to the other circumstances and you get the sheer mess we have now. Now Adams is sort of trapped defensively for this season. The emergence of R. Johnson gives him no wiggle room. To bring in a defenseman he’d need another roster spot which would mean either benching/cutting the vet they brought in to help mentor (seriously bad look) or sit the new guy who’s only played 30 or so games here. Unless your on a Cup team, GMs of all other teams would be extremely unlikely to play with either of those scenarios. He’s more or less handcuffed to this D group by proper etiquette because dumping either new guy would make acquiring future pieces even more difficult because they’ll see what we did with them. Vegas is ridiculed and despised for their cutthroat approach and if they lacked success I’d imagine they’d be utterly screwed. We don’t have that success to get players/agents to look past the unsavory stuff. 3. Complimentary pieces are honestly a crap shoot. I didn’t feel bad about them bringing back the group wholesale. Now I certainly wish they’d of let Jost walk and picked up anyone 4th liner with an ounce of face off talent or general grit. Perhaps I’m sentimental but I really wanted Okposo to hit game 1000 and Girgs to be here for a playoff berth for his years of hard work. But frankly I’d be too sentimental to be a GM. Perhaps that is what it comes down to, maybe Adams, like myself, are just too sentimental for the position. Where you want to win but simultaneously be a good guy overall. The team has a familial relationship and that makes for a great atmosphere but it also can create problems with upgrading in order to win. You are effectively in a constant battle between team success and team cohesiveness. As much as I like Granato as a person, we likely need a bit more of hardcore coach who will tell this familial locker room that you have better play 60 min or you’ll start losing family members. (That sounded darker than it was meant but you get the idea) I frankly have no clue if Adams has it in him; he’d have to move some prospects and let some of family atmosphere go by the wayside to be replaced with some more business-feel.