dudacek

Just to clarify, you want Granato or Okposo to unleash a rant in front of a camera or a microphone about the offside call?

Gary says it’s up to the players. https://www.vancouverislandfreedaily.com/sports/bettman-nhl-continues-to-have-real-concerns-regarding-olympic-participation/

Obviously, best case scenario for a Sabre fan is that UPL is up for good and provides Buffalo with solid goaltending for the rest of the year. Because I don’t believe he (or the Sabres) are advanced enough for that to happen, I hope Subban is back today and UPL gets sent down. Success in 2 NHL games is exactly what he needs to boost his confidence for a good run on a good team in Rochester, which could set up him up in a place where the next time he gets called up, he gets called up for good. Being asked to carry the Sabres now is not going to be good for him mentally.

Glad to see people are finally starting to pay attention to the liability Olofsson has become to our offence. He can’t shoot right now. And he’s blowing the opportunities Tage and Dahlin and even Skinner - especially on the PP - are giving him because of it. Maybe it’s time to take him off the top line and reunite him with Asplund, whose offence has also completely dried up. They both played their best hockey of the year together. Not sure who would replace him with Skinner and Thompson, because he still thinks the game better than any other winger in this team, but he really needs to get healthy.

UPL made all the saves he had to make, and a number that he didn’t. Yes he could have done a better job with the rebound on goal #2, but close to the body off a quick wrister blocker side is not the easiest shot to direct. More to the point, he looked like an NHL goalie is supposed to look: big, solid and in control. Again. Pleasant surprise. Given his skittishness over this calendar year, and fact we were playing the Rangers, I fully expected him to be lit up like a Christmas tree.

Certainly that’s what Adams believes and it’s working down there. Just wanted to point out that the Amerks just won their fifth in a row and are in 7th in the AHL (13/6/0), 1st in goals for. They’ve played league-best 17/1/2 Utica 6 times already, handing them 2 of their 3 losses. They’ve won their last two without leading scoring Jack Quinn and their #1 goalie UPL. Their #2 goalie, Dell, is with the Sabres, as are top six forwards Murray and Jankowski. They are also missing top 4 defenders Davidson and Schuldt, as well as speedy rookie winger Linus Weissbach. Their best defenceman, Matthias Samuelsson, has also missed time. Veteran forward Andrew Oglevie and rookie winger Lukas Rousek have been out all season. They’ve battled CoVId, that saw games postponed and their coach quarantined. That’s a lot of adversity through a 1/4 season and they haven’t really missed a beat.

That’s a great question. Probably? I think we can agree that the majority of the hockey world ranked Dahlin as the guy and would have been shocked if Botterill had picked anyone else. Hindsight so far has shown it wasn’t the slam dunk we thought. I think we can also agree that Power was the consensus #1, just not as highly thought of, or as much of a slam dunk as Dahlin was. Time has yet to give us much perspective. What do you think?

I think you're right about the disagreement. That said I agree with you. It's not that last year doesn't count, but I don't think he fully started being a GM the way Punch was the GM, or Scotty was the GM until Krueger was fired.

One thing Adams has done significantly better than Botterill is that he has tended to invest $750,000 and no assets into one-year contracts for his JAGs like Hinostroza and Pysyk, rather than $10 million and picks into long-term deals for JAGs like Sheary and Miller. Seriously @GASabresIUFAN, how can you get upset by Butcher and ignore that?

They weren't on the NHL roster Adams inherited, which is where this conversation started. I agree Botterill did a pretty good job drafting. His track record at developing is questionable (Mitts, Tage) and his ability to acquire existing NHL talent was pitiful. So far, Adams ability acquire NHL talent has been pitiful as well.

Agree entirely with your conclusions. Think it’s ironic that keeping 3 of Botterill’s pickups (Olofsson, Asplund and Girgensons predate him) is somehow being used to defend his roster-building. 35 players played for the Sabres in Botterill’s last season. 10 of them are still with the Sabres. Joki, Tage, Casey, blind man pick Rasmus Dahlin, depth defenceman Colin Miller and Jeff Skinner and his immovable contract are the only ones Botterill brought in.

We NEEDED to go on a long-scale rebuild because Jack Eichel demanded a trade, full stop. The fact that Reinhart and Risto were the only other veterans worth much and didn’t want to return either cemented that. I gotta say that what we learned from Jack post-trade cleared away my most significant concerns about Adams.

Samuelsson is a man in a man’s league. He’s physically more ready than most of our NHL roster. Krebs plays a man’s game with a boys body. He’s going to look like Cozens did last year. Peterka is faster than most of our NHL roster and can skate through checks. He’s close, physically and mentally, but he needs more time. Quinn is the hardest to project for me, because he still has a boys body, but his hands and his mental game are so far above AHL men his physical weakness doesn’t matter much. It’s hard to say whether that will be the case in the NHL. To be clear, any of the above is good enough right now to be a Sabres regular instead of some of our JAGs. The question is are they much better?

I think what’s different between Adams this year and Murray in 2014/15 is that for Adams, the development of young players already in the organization supersedes a higher draft pick. The JAGs were hand-picked to be known “good guys” and they were sold on the idea that “come in, conduct yourself like a pro and you will get a great chance to resurrect your NHL career.” Which is a heckuva lot different than “just guys” just brought in and basically given the message “zero ##### given” about you now, or in the future, or on anything other than finishing last.

Agreed. Mostly. The caveat for me is that I don’t think Adams is operating under the stark premise of “winning doesn’t matter” right now even. His premise is more “winning now doesn’t matter as much as winning in the future.” The crux of this discussion is that there is a sliding scale to that. We are fully on the “future” end of that scale right now. But we have to be moving toward the now. For me, the “how fast” has yet to be determined. But next year, it definitely has to be closer.

Personally, I think bringing in a goalie is mandatory now. But I do recognize that Adams failure was betting on Ullmark without a backup plan, because there is no obvious fair deal solution to be found in-season. Personally, in a vaccuum, I would find a 60-point season this year to be disappointing and a failure to improve at least 10 points next year disappointing. Basically, though, I want to recognize my GM’s plan, see signs that it is progressing, and see him moving to address what isn’t working. Im not really interested in worrying about whether or not, or when, I might need to fire him until it actually starts to become clear that I might need to fire him.

You think keeping Reinhart was a possibility (this summer, not 2 years ago)? Which of these deals should/could Adams have beat in free agency? https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/nhl-free-agent-tracker-1.322102

From where I sit, Adams chose not to overpay on long-term deals or sacrifice futures for veterans who may have made the team 10 points better this year, and instead see what the existing wave of kids could do in important roles while supplementing them with cheap, short-term deals and letting the second wave of kids develop away from the NHL. Strategy-wise, what would you have done differently with this season?

Adams has done this once.

This is exactly right. This franchise is still in the phase where the efforts have been focused on areas that aren't immediately measurable in wins and losses — rebuilding the hockey department, acquiring young talent, developing the young talent we have.

Every team measures itself on a formula of (wins/expectations) x circumstances. The only variable between teams is the patience of the ownership.

They matter this year. I doubt we are defining "results" the same way.

The NHL and the NHLPA's participation in the Olympics was agreed to with the caveat either party could withdraw if they felt uncomfortable with the COVID climate. This possibility isn't new, Omicron is. https://www.vancouverislandfreedaily.com/sports/olympics-top-nhl-agenda-at-board-of-governors-meeting-in-florida/

Building a team and an organization properly takes time. Firing the builder after 80 games seems premature under any circumstances. Firing one who came in saddled with Jason Botterill’s roster and Ralph Krueger’s coaching, who was forced to gut his hockey department and trade his franchise centrepiece during a pandemic seems utterly ridiculous. Especially when his only obvious egregious mis-step so far is his handling of the Ullmark situation and replacement. Not sure if the industry opinion of the Sabres could get any worse, but that might do it.

Also signed Aaron Dell and John Hayden and traded for Malcolm Subban, Peyton Krebs and Alex Tuch, while trading away Jack Eichel since adding Will Butcher's $2.8 million. Really not seeing how Butcher's contract is tying his hands in any way, shape or form. It's pretty clear the Sabres entered the season not planning on being very good, and that they don't want to spend money to be bad. That doesn't mean they have an internal cap.