Thorny

Not to mention going into year 4 as GM. An amount of time sizeable enough to expect results, full stop. Again, it’s a do or don’t, but fully responsible for the results situation. Improve the goalies, or don’t. But whatever the result of the goaltending output, Adams is certainly answerable for it

(just as rough comparisons, not who’d you’d rather have on our team, just rough talent tier comps) Eichel = Dahlin ? Reinhart = Cozens ? Olofsson < Mittelstadt ? Borgen < Samuelsson ? Hagel > UPL ? Asplund > Bryson ? Hagel scored 30 and had 64 points last year. He’s above UPL for me. As is Asplund over Bryson. But the bottom 2 comps matter less, so I’d give the edge to Botterill based on Casey and Samuelsson being way ahead on their matchups. But, overall it’s really not that far apart, imo now maybe you think Botterill was a bad drafter too but I think he was decent as well - - - anyways kinda fun to compare. Don’t really have a strong stance on it - - - edit Cozens honestly a level above Reinhart

Dahlin, Mittelstadt, UPL, Samuelsson, Cozens, Bryson for reference, are Botterill’s 6

Good write up. I more less agree your rankings (C should be “average” but w/e) but with Murray, like I think we can knock his ranking down a peg like you did, for factors like some of his picks being consensus picks, but in ranking the class based on strength alone not as an analysis of the skill of the GM necessarily, Id argue it’s a least a B. Eichel, Reinhart, Borgen, Olofsson, Hagel, Asplund is IMO a pretty decent haul over 3 years. What happened after/ how they were managed isn’t part of it for me, we know that part went bad for the most part

Trades were bad didn’t say otherwise.

Anecdotally I think we sometimes see 4th lines get hot and “go on runs” in the playoffs similar to goalies/how people speak of goalies

Well what do you think? I’d obviously defer to you on this. To me, Murray’s drafts at least look somewhere around average, certainly much closer to normal than that abomination some make it out to be, imo. Hagel and Olofsson are true late round hits. Asplund is a pretty good pick. Can’t fault him for Eichel and Reinhart even if they are consensus or else he has no chance to make up that value, first round is where everyone gets most of their guys. Don’t even have to “credit” Murray for those but they are still full value when looking purely at the strength of our class. It’s not common to see teams hit on 3/4 guys with consistency so to me it looks kinda normal. The eye for talent kinda shows up with those later picks, but on the other hand some of the second rounders were pretty poor. But, there’s the Tuch thing. Anyways that’s just my spin how would you grade it?

Totally agree

Don’t agree at all with your conclusion, actually. Don’t they say 2 NHL players per draft is pretty decent? For a guy who lasted 3 years total, he seemed to draft at at least a league average rate, and delving in a bit more probably slightly above that. Maybe “keen eye” was a stretch, but I was more referring to those impressive later round picks anyways. I count 8 NHLers over 3 drafts, those are B/C scores at least, and far off a “pretty bad” designation. Admittedly, the Nylander pick looks rough - - - Edit: yup, about 2 per team on average “If you want to take something simple out of this to remember for the future, it’s that an average draft class produces about 60 NHL players(between 51 and 69), and about 40 of them(between 36 and 49) will go on to play a significant career in the NHL (at least 300 games played).“ https://dobberprospects.com/2020/05/16/nhl-draft-pick-probabilities/amp/ At the end of the day, the biggest problem wasn’t poor or even mediocre drafting, it’s that a scorched earth tank requires you to draft at an ungodly rate. You aren’t supposed to look at NHL draft years and routinely see your team snag 3/4 guys, the lists look more less like the ones you posted. Botterill for reference drafted 6 NHLers so far in 3 years.

Once we make the playoffs I dunno if I’ll much feel like arguing about anything*, ever again. As far as I’m concerned that’s rest time after 10 years of this seemingly endless debating cycle. Game day threads or bust. *obviously a lie

Agreed also it’s annoying that whether you type defense or defence you get a red error line on your phone. At least on my phone

“Hi, Sabres fans!“

Missing the playoffs 4 straight years as a GM is inarguably unacceptable. Doesn’t matter the plan, doesn’t matter the context, it’s too high of a number for that to be reasonably plausible for someone apt, and trying to win. A plan that takes 5 years to get in isn’t a good plan, regardless of starting point. Almost everyone to a man has said playoffs are the baseline expectation in 23-24. If the narrative starts changing to “another building year” or whatever, I’m just going to show myself out lol. And that’s not me saying he should be fired if we miss. No. Merely the season be declared an abject failure with a hot seat resulting for next season

Have always said: Murray had a keen eye for talent. Team building, not so much

I really know sh*t all about the cap and if it was the right price. I’ll defer to you on that. I’m more interested in the philosophy

He’ll have to live and die by the results. If it works, it was reasonable. If it doesn’t, he made a big mistake. No wiggle room. He’s beholden to the results, now

The most charitable reading is that Adams is thinking the group gets in the playoffs through internal improvement. That’s fine. It’s reasonable. Could easily be accurate. But it does have to actually happen, then. No “hindsight is 20/20 arguments” need apply should they fall short

I have to be careful which of the Kevyn Adams being Kevyn Adams moves I get into it about. It’s Kevyn Adams’ world we are just living in it, I am aware. I take it back. It’s a great signing. No improvement needed. (I don’t care about Gus ending his drought as much as I care about me and MY drought ending, but I’ll continue rooting for the guy) (I’m also prepared to say “great idea, no improvement needed” when it comes to goaltending.)

This board sorely, sorely misses the “meh” emoji reaction. Miss it around here so much. This signing and this player is THE perfect spot for it. He’s certainly reasonable on the 4th line, and he’s also one of the sports most reasonably upgraded.. meh What do you mean “ok for one year”? Actually asking. The bare minimum expectation this year for Kevyn Adams’ squad remains playoffs, right? Just checking

Oh, ok. Seems decent. Pretty much just thinking this

8.75 feels a smidge high tbh but a couple of our other contracts make it an easier pill to swallow

Still agree. If it’s not a positive experience for you, one shouldn’t engage. I’m happy to discuss Jack’s Cup victory for those who want and enjoy the discussion, but then again for me the experience was notably different than for most

Why? Because the system is completely loaded. Even our future-loving, analytical prospects gurus don’t have time to hype up all these dudes. Time for a trade!

Ya I mean he only played 19 regular season games there, total (25 including playoffs). Not even a chance to adjust. And much too small a sample size to draw any sort of convincing statistical argument imo. That’s jumping right in to an existing system, MID season, too: Hellebuyck would have an off-season and then preseason of practice. I also haven’t seen numbers that suggest Hellebuyck is worse than average at those types of shots, just worst than some other elite goaltenders. I see a goalie that, overall, all situations considered, is statistically elite, year in and year out, that might be simply “very good” if we *didn’t* improve our defensive structure. Considering the rumours the Sabres were asking about Hellebuyck, if we can assume those can be believed, I’d imagine Adams wouldn’t be showing interest unless he thought Hellebuyck was a fit: he has all the data we have and then some In addition, Hellebuyck has played under numerous systems with multiple coaches over the course of his career and he’s been very good to great year in, year out If the argument is Saros or Hellebuyck, sure, I get it. But there isn’t a universe in which Hellebuyck isn’t a significant upgrade over what we currently have, so unless there’s some other better option, the idea that a Hellebuyck might not improve upon Comrie and UPL in *every* area by a vast degree, and merely most, doesn’t deter me from being in favour of the addition Im not signing him to a big extension as part of the deal, before ever seeing how he fits in. I’m merely very interested in the idea of adding what will likely be a great goalie for us, next season, for the risk of merely a 1st round pick. To me that’s worth it, but others have made clear they consider it a “rental” and don’t like it at that cost