Brawndo

Nope it will be Salt Lake City. Ryan Smith, the owner of the Utah Jazz, has met with Gary Bettman on multiple occasions about bringing a franchise to SLC. Friedman said this week that the many NHL higher ups, including multiple NHL Owners want Smith in the league. Salt Lake is the favorite for the one of the expansion franchises or relocation of the Coyotes The Maverk Center, has 12,600 capacity, and would be available for the start of of the 2024-25 Season for the NHL. Salt Lake City is the front runner for the 2034 Winter Olympics and Smith along with State and Local Officials have discussed a new arena for SLC as a result

Yes. The NHL has bylaws that every team must adhere with, one of these is having a suitable NHL Arena for the team to play in. Alex Meruelos has had more than enough opportunities to figure out a plan and has failed to do so. I imagine the NHL agreeing to allow the Coyotes to play at Mullet Atena came with the caveat that if a suitable arena plan did not come to fruition in a reasonable timeframe, the league would purchase the team at specified price. Jeff Marek has mentioned if this scenario comes to fruition, league would take control of the Coyotes and selling the team for the same price as an expansion franchise and the other 31 teams splitting the profit equally..

Per Sabres PR

That’s His Girlfriend

NHLPA Director Marty Walsh shared the Arizona Coyotes Ownership Group has missed two deadlines for a new arena. Hello Salt Lake City for 2024-25.

Joe Brady officially named Bills OC

Official

I doubt he wants to come back.

We are talking Terry Pegula here

Pure speculation, but I believe that Pegula views the Adams Tenure in through a pre and post Eichel Prism, next year would be year three of the post Eichel Era and have playoff expectations attached to it. Imagine if Adams gets His Holy Grail and convinced a bigger name coach to sign here, that doesn’t happen unless there is insurances from ownership that the GM is in place for the duration of his contract. I think he has 2-3 years after this one imo Not that’s its at all deserved

1. Agreed Levi should have been in Rochester in November and stayed there 2 and 8 No changes in Assistant Coaches was bad. Should have made a move here 3 and 5 Yep 4. Tried to keep the vibes from last year and signed them as a thank you for years of service, needs to be more cut throat there. Hathaway would have have been nice 6. Is a tough one. The UFAs that were looking for one year deals were hesitant as they did not know what their role would be when Quinn came and I’m not sure the front office was completely in the playoff or bust mode this year 8. Every NHL team has scouts that could see how bad VO was at the end of the season. His contract limited the number of teams that could take on his full salary to about eight, a number of those teams are rebuilding modes and would’ve required another asset to go to them in a trade. As the Sabres are not in any financial constraints, it didn’t make much sense for them to add an asset just to get rid of a player and I do not believe that salary retention was ever an option either to make a deal

Granato will probably stay until at least the end of the season to become the first head coach to actually complete three full seasons behind the bench since Pegula took over and He did lead the team to its highest point total since 2010-11. These two factors guaranteed him this entire season imo This is been the biggest barrier to the Sabres Hiring Experienced Hockey Personnel is the Pegula’s reputation for meddling and firing people too soon around the league. From various accounts Terry has taken a step back and let Adams and company run things with some exceptions. I have a sneaking suspicion that TP views the Eichel Trade as the end of an era and has adjusted His expectations based on this,(yes fans have and are entitled to a completely different perspective) This I believe has lead to an internal cap on some spending mostly in UFA. Now that being said, Granato should be let go at the end of the year along with a majority of his assistants. Mike Bales is the only member of the staff that has won a Cup as a coach. Hopefully Adams has proven to people around the league to be enough of a buffer between Pegula and Hockey Ops that more experienced coaches and players might be interested. They will probably need to pay the bad team tax though and overpay for anyone. Adams had a lot of work to do when he took the job. Starting with improving the prospect pipeline, how the develop players and most importantly building a playoff contender and an eventual Stanley Cup Contender. He has taken steps with the first two, but hasn’t come close on the final one. I would give him another chance at hiring a HC, because I’m not 100% convinced that Granato was His First Choice. The Sabres 2020-21 Season ended May 8th and Granato wasn’t officially named HC until June 29th, there were other candidates considered for the job and a few rejected interviews outright. He did realize that needed help and brought in Karmanos(who was actually Rutherford’s First Choice for GM in Vancouver) and Ventura who was a direct result of Karmanos being hired. Both of them have contributed to building SC Winners, Karmanos three times and Ventura Twice. They should have a larger role in personnel decisions. The only good thing about Adams not making a big trade or signing a UFA is he does have the assets and the cap space to make moves. He just needs to do it. Firing Adams puts either a failed retread in the GM slot or promoting Forton or Nightengale ( we don’t want this) and has Pegula telling the GM to select Alex Nylander over Charlie McAvoy all over again

I dunno maybe send him to Rochester?

Benson is out tonight, Robinson in Samuelsson out, Bryson in Levi in net

I do not see the 2024 Draft Thread right now, but here on McKenzie’s Rankings complied from 10 scouts

Comrie has much better GAA and Save Percentage in the same number of games as Levi in the AHL But as you can attest that’s fools gold when it comes to the NHL

Levi has proven that he is too inconsistent for the NHL as would be expected of a 22yo Goalie. His development pathway needs to be completely independent from the Sabres Success or more appropriately the lack there of. There are enough people around the league who are asking what the hell the Sabres are doing with Levi and this organization does not get the benefit of the doubt with their goaltending. The Seattle Game should have the final straw and he should have been sent down. The Amerks have played five games including last nights since that game, He should have played quite a few of them.

No it’s the exact wrong thing to do. Levi has played exactly three games in the month of January (2 NHL and 1 AHL) and probably gets His Fourth against the Ducks on Wednesday. UPL will most likely get LAK and the Sharks on Saturday. Which means a 22 yo goalie prospect will have averaged one start every seven days for the month of January including an 11 day stretch without any games played. Levi said himself the hardest task to accomplish this season will be going from the workload he had in the NCAAs to the Pro Level, he is on track to play less games this season than last year. Adams on multiple occasions has said the most important thing for a young goaltender is to play games. When the people in the front office, who have been part of multiple championship teams, say Levi should be in Rochester then he should be. Levi has not proven to be consistent enough to be in the NHL even as a backup, hell his save percentage was .823 last night for the Amerks. This would be the fifth time out of his last six starts that His Save Percentage was less than .900. UPL is the starter in Buffalo. Levi should be the starter in Rochester and get the practice reps that come with that. The Amerks will play a total of 10 games in the month of January, Levi should have gotten six or seven of those starts. The biggest plus for Adams has been player development. Why the organization is messing around with its most important prospect makes zero sense.

None. Krueger’s Deal expired, as did Botterill’s They have no dead money on coaches or front office types.