Adams First Season as GM was all about a last ditch effort to try team and salvage a team who’s owner foolishly thought Taylor Hall would make them a legitimate Stanley Cup Contender.
Adams understood this wouldn’t be successful and made sure that assets brought in Hall and Staal were not long term.
He quickly realized that the Hockey Operations Department needed to be rebuilt and more importantly realized the importance of having a strong analytics department.
The Serious Assets that Adams picked this offseason are Karmanos, Ventura and Galamini all of which are a huge benefit moving forward to this team. This is the only small amount of Credit I would give to the Pegulas, is agreeing for this to be built.
He signed a bunch of JAGs to one year league minimum deals, which are easily tradable or easy to send to the AHL.
Butcher was always about re acquiring a 2022 5th and possibly flipping Him at the deadline for another pick.
Bjork has been disappointing, but has a manageable contract.
Hagg was a salary cap dump, that might fetch a pick at the TDL
Alex Tuch is the only player with a higher AAV and years left and pretty much the entire league regards Him as a pretty damn good player.
This is where the Analytics Department comes in handy to target under the radar UFAs that will specifically work well with the team and Granato’s Playing Style
This season, as Mike Harrington put it is a bridge year, clear out the players who expressed a desire to be moved, develop the likes of Tage, Mitts, Cozens and Dahlin in the NHL, and allow the prospects to develop properly in Their Respective Leagues
There is a reason Karmanos has the Title Associate and not Assistant GM. It’s the same reason Why Sam Ventura, who could have picked any Front Office in the League, chose Buffalo
This is correct
Here’s the great thing about being an UFA. Just because a team makes an offer, doesn’t mean the player has to accept it. Hell if a player doesn’t think the organization is a fit at all there isn’t even a chance to make an offer.
Adams heard thanks but no thanks from a majority of the Upper Echelon of UFA Goalies Agents this year.
Look at where the Top UFAs Goalies signed this Summer, were any of them coming to Buffalo?
Grubauer put the screws to the Avs by not giving them a decision on their offer and allowing the UFA Market to dry up before He signed with Seattle.
Of the traded goalies Hill brought back a second and a goalie prospect, who are the Sabres including in that deal UPL, Portillo or Levi?
BTW Levi was acquired on July 24th, four days before UFA opened on the 28th.
Kuemper was traded for a First, Conditional Third and Connor Timmins. At this point the Sabres are not in position to make that trade.
Given Francis and Adams good relationship and the fact that Vanecek was traded for only a second makes me wonder Seattle and Washington have side deal, or more likely Francis approached Vanecek and said Buffalo is interested and He told Francis I’m not committing beyond My Two Remaining Years of Team Control.
A rebuilding team desperate for as many assets as possible cannot give up a Second Round Pick for two years of a player.
So option A of Ullmark is gone.
Option B of better UFAs or Trades is gone.
Option C of signing Anderson, Dell coupled with UPL and Tokarski was the only one left. Maybe the idea was to proceed with Anderson and who ever won the backup job between Dell and Tokarski and hope that UPL showed some improvement over 20-30 games in Rochester then He could be moved up.
Anderson gets run over by Hagg, UPL is more cold than hot and Tokarski is out with Covid for 10 days
Option D might be waiting for Dallas to make a decision on Khudobin. That depends on Bishop’s Recovery and if Khudobin is willing to come to Buffalo.
In terms of Adams not sticking to a plan, The Plan as outlined above was one last ditch effort with Eichel and Crew then a rebuild when it inevitably failed.
Adams was faced with a reality, not of His Own making, of having to Trade the Team’s Franchise Player in Eichel, A Top Player in Reinhart as well as a Swallow Prospect Pipeline realized that a rebuild was the best option for the franchise.
This time He appears to be attempting to properly build a team exactly what they should have done the first time around.
People can vehemently disagree with this plan, the last iteration failed miserably, but the management team executing this plan is completely different and appears to have a better grasp of what’s necessary to make it succeed.
Only time will tell.
I did find it interesting that Friedman mentioned on After the Whistle that the Sabres plan appears to be the best draft choice and Granato said that despite Mitts Injury The team would move forward with the veterans that are already in Buffalo and leave the prospects in Rochester, not deviating from the plan.
in terms of players being exposed to a losing culture this is where leader ship comes in and honesty from management to the players about what their expectations are for the season. Look at Krebs, who played on the worse team in the WHL The Kootenay/Winnipeg Ice and the pride He took helping to go from a terrible team to one of the WHL’s Premier Franchises, He spoke of doing the same with Buffalo.
My Expectations are the team still struggles for the first half the 2022-23 Season as Quinn and Power have been slow to adapt when they move up a level and that some on Twitter will wonder if they are busts, but once they do the team will start to dramatically improve.
Rosen on Sweden’s WJC Roster
