dudacek

Costs nothing but cap space. Lot of talk that he's made a deal with the Leafs, just waiting for another shoe to drop before they make it official.

For accuracy sake, Puckpedia has them at 13th in cap space but your point still stands. $7.3M is plenty of room to add a pretty good hockey player. ***** Separate from the Sabres, it's crazy how much cap space remains available around the league with no good free agents left to spend it on. 12 teams have $10M or more available. Six have $15M. The Ducks have $29M. The best remaining UFAs are guys like Roslovic and Olofsson. There's no point throwing an offer sheet out there for one of the restricted guys because everybody's got the space to match. It's a bizarre off-season after five years of dead cap. Plenty of room for hockey trades, it's just that GMS are so out of practice at those; they're used to sellers and buyers.

In his interview with John Scott, Connor Clifton more or less confirmed that Peterka: Did not want to be in Buffalo and his teammates knew it. The implication to me was city, not team, but that was not specified Played hard when he felt like it. He also said JJ was ridiculously talented and will tear up the league for years. The Sabres definitely did not want to trade him

It certainly doesn’t have to be Rust. Putting his name out there is fuelled primarily by the reports that he is available and someone the Sabres have engaged in serious talks about acquiring. Beyond that, he ticks the following boxes. veteran proven winner from a winning program proven top 6 production Contract that fits under the cap up-tempo pace-pushing style not afraid of contact or sacrifice responsible Track record of positive analytics I don’t agree with your concerns that he’s another Peterka defensively. I know his charts weren’t impressive defensively last year, but this is not a guy whose known to shirk his own zone. What I don’t like about Rust is the age and the potential for,drop-off or the price I hear we might have to pay. But I think it would be hard to find a better fit for this particular season’s needs and the futures that I’d like to pay

Pretty much all of this. With all the earlier rumours, and the way the summer has played out exactly in the way I would have scripted it in order to facilitate the move. You’ve got @thorny’s utterly cynical prediction of how the off-season has played out exactly like Adams planned in order to leave himself a sliver of plausible deniability while scrimping on another $5M. And you know every ounce of evidence of the past 5 years says he’s right. And then you’ve got the utterly romantic possibility that Adams actually had a plan and is one move away from pulling off a summer where he got harder to play against, insurance in goal, and deeper and more reliable on both the blueline and up front. And you know every ounce of evidence of the past 5 years says you’re a fool to even consider the possibility.

Can’t due anything about it. CBA dictates it is what it is for the duration of the contract.

Marty Biron saying hold the cap space to go get a goalie in November if ours fails (or any other holes get exposed. I say, don’t wait. You’ve got the space right now to sign Timmons and add Rust. Rust is exactly what they need: a veteran high-motor, high-character winner who just might push those qualities to critical mass. All while being capable of replacing the offence you’ve lost in Peterka. It makes them deeper, faster and harder to play against. Finish playing out the hand you’ve dealt. Make it happen.

There’s a real theme in there about respecting opponents, which might be an outgrowth of all the high-pick pedigree on the roster?

@Thorny has done a good job pointing out the lack of playmaking/passing talent on the roster and how that has handcuffed the power play. I am of the opinion the three of the 5 best talents in that area on the team are Dahlin, Power and Byram (with Tage and Tuch). Power was 9th and Byram 12th in PP TOI/GP Dahlin led the team in both ice time and PP 1st assists, with 10. Numbers 2 Thompson, 3 Peterka and 5 Tuch in ice time had 5, 2 and 4 1st PP assists respectively. Zucker was 4th in ice time and 2nd in PP 1st assists with 8. You’ve got all that cap money and draft capital invested on the blue line, why not give it a chance to make plays? Like you say, the guys you’ve been using aren’t making it happen. What do they have to lose?

The enormity of talent squandered by this organization... Pegula's influence is a perpetual raincloud and I'm reminded of the failures of Kevyn Adams every day I spend on here. But the terrible job Lindy and his crew did last year was kinda fading since they stopped playing. Thanks John Scott.

Thanks for posting. Going to have to give it a more thorough listen, but in the two minutes I heard the statement that dropped my jaw was this: Clifton called this Sabres team the most talented he's ever played for; this from a man who was a regular on a 135-point President's Trophy winner. What a damning callout of the coaching staff and/or the talent itself.

Mittlestadt didn’t work out Cozens didn’t work out Peterka forced his way out Quinn has yet to figure it out Rosen will probably never figure it out. Savoie was shown his way out. Benson is 20, Kulich and Östlund are 21, Helenius 19. Something something hatching chickens?

I’m pretty sure Peterka, Clifton, Lafferty and Cozens weren’t good without the puck. Im told Kesselring, Doan, Timmins Danforth and Norris are better in that area than the guys they are replacing. We shall see.

You get the concept that the Power and Dahlin contracts are specifically designed to be overpays in the early years and bargains at the ends? With that in mind, simple math says 7D, 23 roster spots equals about 30% of the cap on blueliners. So with a cap of $95.5M, the median would be around $29M on your D corps this year. The Sabres are currently spending $33M, which will jump a bit (probably less than a million) when Timmins signs and Jones gets sent down. Would agree that they are probably close to the high-end in terms of top 3, which shouldn’t be a surprise given that all 3 signed relatively recently, all 3 carry the pedigree of being the 1st defencemen taken in their draft year, and 2 of the 3 are getting paid for UFA years.

The Montour comp has been one I've been touting for a while. Pretty similar play style, pretty similar strengths and weaknesses to his game. He's still learning the NHL game and his limitations in it but his likely role is competent offence-first #3D and with the right focus and a little luck he could become the Toews to Dahlin's Makar. if he gets some PP time while playing a regular shift with Dahlin — which should be the obvious choice — he's probably going to have himself a good year and start convincing GMs to pay his price.

Conor Timmins has played more than 40 NHL games in a season once in his career, and averaged less than 16 minutes a night for his career. He doesn't have any counting stats of any type to support his case. His career underlyings are solid, but in a bottom-of-the-roster kinda way. I doubt he will get to arbitration because I can't imagine his agent thinking he's got a good case. He made $1.1M last year and i'm not sure how he justifies a raise. I'm kinda expecting the Sabres to buy a year free agency and he signs for 2 years at a $1.5M AAV. .

He really has a ton of potential if he is developed right, but he so much needs to be developed right.

To me, all the noise about Byram was just that: noise. Adams didn't really want to trade him. Byram didn't really want to be traded Byram's agent worked the system real hard to create a market for a big, long-term deal for him somewhere. it didn't work.mostly because he hasn't earned it — the contract, or the acquisition price — in the eyes of NHL GMs. So he took option B, which was getting him to UFA as quickly as possible for another shot at a big payday. Nothing to really see here except an agent doing his job.

Is there a popular opinion floating around that the Sabres were better off trading Byram for an equivalent forward? The thought of Samuelsson in the top 4 and Bryson in the starting 6 is far more frightening to me than Zucker or Kulich in the top 6 and Justin Danforth on the 4th line. Does Byram as an NHL/AHL tweener ring true to you?

It’s surprising how much this team has actually changed. Half the roster has played less than 80 games in blue and gold. Peyton Krebs has the 3rd-most experience as a Sabre. Games played for Buffalo: Lyon 0 Timmins 0 Kesselring 0 Doan 0 Danforth 0 Norris 3 Kulich 63 Zucker 73 Malenstyn 76 McLeod 79 Byram 100 Greenway 118 Benson 146 Luukkonen 155 Quinn 178 Samuelsson 212 Power 242 Bryson 254 Tuch 281 Krebs 283 Thompson 407 Dahlin 509 We talk about the culture being bad. I don’t think many of us include Thompson, Tuch and Dahlin in that, but those are the guys who logic dictates are the ones setting the culture. Setting talent aside, who are the personalities setting the wrong tone in the room and how? Specifically, on a culture level, who and how many need to be pruned?

Never been strong in my J Fresh. Is this card legit saying that based on whatever model they use Byram’s game has been worse than all but 3% of NHL defencemen? Basically, he’s among the worst half-dozen blueliners in the league? That shouldn’t pass anyone’s sniff test. What players on this roster do people expect to show up when the going gets tough? Who are the softies holding us back who need to be purged?

Rather have the player than the lesser player and pick we would have got in a trade. Contract seems in line with what I would have expected from arbitration. Player should be highly motivated and has more to give. Just like with the Peterka deal, Kevyn Adams survives the battle but is no closer to winning the war. Now surprise us and go get a real forward.

I actually thought I pretty much had a trademark on the phrase over the past couple pages. If others picked it up, I apologize.

This is disingenuous. Go back and read my initial post. For me, your entire line of discussion has become "you can't really blame anyone else for anything Sabre-related as long as the evil empire is in charge." Yes I can, and I will. ***** JJ Peterka.

There is nothing illogical about saying JJ Peterka is selfish. His actions in this instance are a textbook example of this: he put his own interests first. There is nothing illogical within the context of fandom to dislike a player who puts his own interests above that of the team. It is entirely possible to both understand something and dislike it at the same time.