LGR4GM

Game experience is the most important part. Sure maybe an older player can pick things up faster and adjust quicker but without NHL game experience, this isn't going to work. We are less experienced this year compared to last. That alone doesn't matter, but we are just inexperienced overall.

I bring this up because Nazar had 12g and 26pts in 53games this past season, his first, at 21yrs old.

Here is a more in depth talk about unlimited objectives

I thought they did play Helenius at center last year

Thank you. The ceiling came down and that looks like a water pipe burst.

Here is Florida's defenders: Kulikov: 1018 Petry: 981 Jones: 860 Ekblad: 732 Forsling: 477 Mikkola: 328 Bjornfot: 134 4,530 games played (Sabres have 1,893 games played or only 41.8% of the experience of Florida's D) Here is Edmonton's defenders: Ekholm: 884 Nurse: 761 Kulak: 580 Stecher: 560 Bouchard: 347 Walman: 267 Emberson: 106 3,505 games played (Sabres have 1,893 games played or only 54% of the experience of Edmonton's D)

Dahlin: 509games, experienced veteran defender Bryson: 254games, moderately experienced defender Byram: 246games, moderately experienced defender Power: 242games, moderately experienced defender Samuelsson: 212games, moderately low experienced defender Timmins: 159games, low experienced defender Kesselring: 156games, low experienced defender Jones: 115games, barely experienced defender There is one veteran defender in that room and it is Dahlin. I would say that 350-400 games on defense makes you a veteran experienced defender. 200-250 games brings you to at least a level of "knows some stuff" and below 200 you are still somewhat unknown and still learning. The fact the Sabres are entering the year with Jacob Bryson as their 2nd most experienced defender is insane. I suppose we could argue that Byram is that because this isn't counting playoff games (273 total games). Power is right in that mix too but basically Power, Samuelsson are all 1-2 years away from getting into that veteran savvy level of player. Timmins and Kesselring are 3 years from that level of player. Also the only guys with playoff experience are Byram and Timmins. I think the defense core has talent but I think it is very raw in terms of experience and it is lead by subpar coaching. I would love to be higher on them and might be next offseason when Byram is in the 300game zone, Power is in the 300 game zone, Kesselring and Timmins are in that mid 200 zone. Samuelsson is traded to IDC where and Bryson isn't on the roster.

I'm just so confused by the outrage over converting a likert scale to meaningless grades when it still shows we finished 32nd almost universally.

So we agree, they didn't have their grade inflated.

Still the least experienced group in the league, regardless of age.

The survey was basically 1-4, that's how they get a D. This nonsense about passing isn't tethered to anything. It's not a school grade. Y'all have lost your minds. They literally received the lowest grade possible on this scale... how tf is that "inflation"?

How? They are 32nd in every category the fans of the team voted on except drafting.

Östlund (maybe Wahlberg instead?), Komarov, lottery protected 2026 1st. I starting RHD we don't have to trade. If we had kept JBD, we might have but Kesselring and Timmins aren't going and the rest of the RHDs in the system (all 8 of them) are 1-4 years away.

McTavish is a player I would try to add but I don't understand what Anaheim would want for him. They could take Byram or they could take idk some combo of RHD and other prospects to fill out their pool. I just don't know how the trade works but I would be interested in making it work. McTavish for Byram, Rosen, and a sweetener? I doubt they want Samuelsson. Ideally you would probably need to include a RHD even if they have Luneau and Warren. McTavish for Conditional 2026 1st, Östlund, Kleber? Krebs, Östlund, Rosen Kleber? Idk how to make this work or what the value is. It might be McTavish for Helenius, Kleber/Strbak, and something like Krebs or a prospect they like. I would try to figure out the trade because I like McTavish and I am confused why he isn't signed.

The Buffalo Sabres have 5,996 games of NHL experience based on their current roster on EP. https://www.eliteprospects.com/team/53/buffalo-sabres/experience/2025-2026/all?league=nhl Montreal is next closest with 6,582 games and then Chicago at 6,945. Edmonton has 10,991 and Florida 12,384 for comparison. The Sabres are not only dead last but outside of Montreal, the next team is 1,000 more games of NHL experience. This team does not have enough experience and Adams has failed in almost every trade or signing where he has tried to add experience because he is a bad gm, with a bad sales pitch. The Sabres will only have 2 players with more than 500 games played, 5 players with more than 400 games played, 12 players with at least 200 games played when they start the next season. That means that almost half the roster will have played less than 3 full NHL seasons when we start the year but somehow we will magically make the playoffs with bad coaching and the what? Shonen Anime trope of willpower and friendship?

The Sabres are most likely missing the playoffs for a 15th straight year and we will see a gutting of coaches and front office personnel again. This is an 85pt with this coaching group, a group that has failed repeatedly. Lindy Ruff doesn't change anything and in fact his team was worse last year than Granato in part because Ruff spent 3 months dithering and being like "oh I thought these guys were different than what they are". Adams is incompetent by any measure and at this point who cares if they make the playoffs by some miracle? That doesn't change 5 years of abject failure by Kevyn. He is slow to adapt, gets hyper focused on 1 problem at a time, and cannot stand getting rid of ppl he likes on a personal level. In the end, it's nice they want to improve the defensive ability of the team but they didn't improve the coaching, they didn't improve the goaltending. We are going to win a few more games but the chance of the least experienced team in hockey putting it all together are slim to none and this team actually is less experienced than it was last year. Basically I guess we should just wait 3 years for them to mature because Pegula ain't going to change. He's convinced his farts smell like roses and champagne.

Embedding this. It isn't knew info but it is condensed into 1 video versus 100 threads.

I trust Zach Benson in a top 6 role a hell of lot more than Casey Mittelstadt.

Most ppl have focused on losing Peterka's offense. The Sabres need to reduce their goals against by 17% to sniff the playoffs, that's not a small feat. They also need to have more types of offense than simply RUSH. That's why Granato crashed and burned, once teams started to deny rush chances, there was nothing else. Florida is a good example of different types of offense. They can use the rush but they can also cycle and reload in the neutral zone. Since the playoffs sees tighter checking, this works great. Clog the neutral zone, reload, chip it in, recover, reload in zone up high and then work the cycle. Now whether or not adding Timmins, Kesselring, Doan, Danforth to the mix is enough to vary how the offense can play remains to be seen. It also remains to be seen if Buffalo can actually play any type of strong checking game in their own end. They sucked at board battles, they give up the blue line ALWAYS under Wilford because they are afraid of everyone being McDavid, they allow cross ice passes because they puck watch and lose positioning. The wingers have a bad habit of not sealing walls and helping with breakouts and the Sabres don't win battle in front of their own net. Wilford should be fired. I personally expect a lot of struggling by Kesselring and Timmins because they will be like Byram at first, coming from a sound system to whatever the hell this monstrosity is.

Florida forechecks hard and reloads in the natural zone. It's very effective.

A first rate coach would have fired all the assistants and brought in better ones.