dudacek

Picking up Zegras or Kaliyev given the “Ruff overhaul” of team identity over the past week would be…interesting?

I don’t know that Kevyn Adams is finished. I think it’s clear he has been trying to add a top 6 forward and he retains the space and the ammunition to do so should circumstances change. But the McLeod trade leaves him with 13 NHL forwards, 8 NHL defensemen and 3 NHL goalies; the roster may not be set, but it is full. So I think we’ve reached a point where it’s OK to discuss the big picture of what’s been done. I think the average NHL watcher is looking at Buffalo’s off-season with a big WTF? Common perception runs something like this: this was a bad team in need of some serious upgrades to help its young talent over the top. Instead, they let one of their best goal-scorers walk for nothing and failed to replace him. They wasted a 2nd-round draft pick on a career minor-leaguer, overpaid for a fading free agent winger, signed a whole bunch of scrubs, then traded a recent top 10 pick who lit up the WHL for a bottom-six centre. I think plenty of NHL fans are shaking their heads and saying “Buffalo gonna Buffalo” and I’m honestly surprised I haven’t seen more of that on here. Sabrespace has no faith in Kevyn Adams, but I think our group is so thirsty for change, and for grit and fire that most are willfully overlooking the lack of actual fresh talent that was brought in. I also think Sabrespace is smart enough to know what last year’s team needed most and see that there was a concerted effort made to address that. This forum and Kevyn Adams both understand the team can use another talented forward. But while the forum frets about Kevyn being unable to get anything done, I think Adams himself believes it’s about the only thing he didn’t get done. I think there was a pronounced arrogance to Kevyn Adams’ offseason. He’s made a lot of bets that run counter to conventional wisdom: There’s arrogance in saying Bo Byram is the missing piece on the blue line despite being another puck-moving lefty. There’s arrogance in trading Casey Mittelstadt without having a replacement in place There’s arrogance in saying Beck Malenstyn is worth a 2nd-round pick There’s arrogance in deciding the team is better off by simply cutting Jeff Skinner There’s arrogance in giving up on Matt Savoie so early There’s arrogance in concluding Ryan McLeod is worth paying that kind of price There’s arrogance in saying Thompson/Tuch/Cozens/Quinn/Peterka can be the offensive core of a contender. And there’s arrogance in saying a hand-picked collection of the "right kind of 4th-liners" under the right kind of coach is all this team needs to get into the playoffs. That kind of arrogance sounds to me like the recipe for disaster. But if I squint, I can also see a recipe in there for success. That recipe is entirely dependent on Adams being right in his evaluations of the players he’s picked. Looking up and down this roster, how many players are you confident in saying you know exactly what they are going to bring next season? For me, it’s not many. And that means , in response to the thread question, I don't have a ***** clue.

Good points. McLeod forces them to earn that spot.

I was surprised in Lindy’s most recent presser when he mentioned Peyton on the wing; that seemed like a failed experiment and they’d invested a lot of ice developing him as 2-way centre. And then this trade happened. I like him better than a lot of you do, but he has to be wondering if he has a fit and a future here. I think people have skewed view on how many points most 3Cs actually produce around the league. 30 points is on the low end but it is in the window. Are you saying the only reason we traded Savoie was because we have no role for him? Isnt it more accurate to say we traded him because that was the price required to improve the team? And because we drafted him, we were able to pay that price? Im just not sure where the fireable offence is here: trading a prospect automatically means the pick was bad?

I’m pretty comfortable with it. He’s been 1 point for every 2 games over the past 3 years, he ranks highly on those speed charts everyone has been throwing around in addition to his obvious skating agility, and he played nearly 22 minutes a night for Colorado 2 years ago and Buffalo last year. I take comfort in the knowledge we both hope I’m right 😁 I don’t see McLeod as a stop-gap. I guess the way he plays will ultimately determine things, but his age, profile and the price they paid tells me they’re hoping he can be their 3C moving forward. 24 years old and 219 NHL games played: They’ve acquired him as he is about to enter his prime.

It think it should serve as notice that while the Sabres have a lot of good prospects, they may not have any great ones. The great prospects - Power, Quinn, Peterka, Benson, Levi - are already on the team.

Well, I did say I’d judge the trade based on what Adams did to backfill centre. To me it’s basically a crafty 60-point 2C with slick hands, and a good skilled, fast, small, forward prospect. for A puckmoving 40-point 2/3D with elite feet, and a big, fast prototypical defensive 30-point 3C Interesting hockey trade. We’ll see how well the parts match their profiles and how much the whole helps each team.

Right now he is the 13th forward.

There’s still a real possibility of this happening. My reaction to the reaction though is 🤷 No risky trade the Sabres make will get the benefit of the doubt because Buffalo. We’ve earned that. The only way to overcome it is to win.

And not piss off @Thorny while he’s having a good day, but having the bottom 6 we now have, means we can afford squeezing a kid into the lineup if he earns it (like real NHL teams do), because there will be veteran support for him.

Just seems like business. Malenstyn has been in the org less than a week, has had very little time to negotiate and has to protect his bargaining position. Luukkonen has one of the best arb cases out there. Just seems like it’s about getting a fair contract.

I think when they traded for Byram ^^^ was inevitable. They can trade him to a team that wants to extend him now, trade him as a rental at the deadline, or ride him into the playoffs. But there’s no way they can afford to keep him by paying term.

Been meaning to do the math on it, but have yet to get around to it. My thing is less about average age, and more about number of players in their prime years. Last years team started the year with Tuch, Clifton, Greenway, Olofsson and Girgensons between 25 and 30. Aube-Kubel, Lafferty and Malenstyn also fit. Thompson turned 26 last year. McLeod turns 25 in September. Jokiharju just turned 25 and Dahlin 24, but each has played a ton of NHL games. And I think Adams is on the mark when he says many of the younger players have been around long enough that “youth” needs to stop being an excuse.

As well they should.

So when Adams said his plan was to overhaul the bottom 6, he wasn’t fooling around. Our projected bottom 6 right now literally has 5 new faces, with Greenway the only holdover. Every one of the new guys is fast - extremely fast even. Every one save Zucker is big and strong. Every one takes care of his own zone. Every one save McLeod loves to hit. The past week has been identity-changing.

Value feels about right. Flexibility for both sides

He's heading into his 5th year and will be an RFA next summer.

There's that thing about knowing your players better than anyone else. There's also that thing about having too many of the same types of players. And that thing about the necessity of getting better now. I liked Savoie, but I think he was more likely to become a Tyler Ennis than a star. Not sure if McLeod can be more than what he is right now. That's consecutive trades made where Adams "lost value" to "fix his roster" It's what a lot of people wanted. As usual, time will tell.

Unless they are trying to flip him along with more futures for a top 6 wing. That would pretty much complete what's needed.

Big, fast and pretty much the definition of a 3C. Won over 50% of his faceoffs as a 3rd-year player, which makes him the go-to for the Sabres. And just 24, so he fills that 3C window, now and moving forward. Matt Savoie, we barely knew ya.

If you think it costs nothing to clean the room and feed the players, I’m not sure what to tell you. Never mind the opportunity cost of giving away a room for free (if indeed that’s what happens) as opposed to actually making money renting that room to a paying customer. Then there is flying them in, getting them to and from the airport, processing them, coaching them and teaching them. There likely are economies of scale, but there is almost certainly an additional cost. As for the “fantasy” of Terry being cheap, the Sabres have been among the lowest-spending teams in the league for 3 consecutive seasons - closer to the floor than the cap and are showing no signs of changing that trend. They just pocketed $7M cutting Jeff Skinner and have not spend a cent of the resulting cap space on replacement players. They are currently $19M under the cap. What does an owner have to do to be considered “cheap?”

D+3, so pretty much. Costantini was a D+4 and I think van Barnekow was there (D+3 as well)) There was something really weird going on with development camp invitations this year and Adams slid past the question. My first conspiracy theory is that the upper tier prospects are all being dangled right now and what they'd get out of camp was not worth the risk. My 2nd is that with the late arrival of Leone and the compressed draft/UFA situation, a scaled-down camp was easier to execute. And my final one is that Terry saved a considerable amount of cash by bringing in half the prospects who could have been there.

This is a much different argument than whether or not Zucker's contract and Monahan's are similar.

Leino, Ehrhoff, Okposo, Skinner — how did those long-term UFA contracts work out for you? Term matters. A lot. Especially when you are signing a guy who is about to turn 30 and has had exactly one healthy season in his last 5.

This is incredibly misleading. The Sabres committed $5M to Zucker. The Jackets committed $27.5M — more than 5 time that total — to Monahan The difference is enormous