GASabresIUFAN

I'm not saying Byram is good defensively. Far from it, but unlike Power he is working to get better and is willing to hit someone. I think we can retain him at a smaller cap hit than Power and I think he's a better player right now and will be in the near future. My vision for the Sabres is to find two capable stay at home D that can skate 20-22 minutes a game. One to pair with Dahlin to form a reliable top pair and free Dahlin to activate more offensively. The second will pair with Byram to form a reasonable second pair. I envision a Tallinder type player helping to mentor Byram. After that, it won't much matter what is on the third pair as long as they are reasonable defensively and add some energy.

No. I'm not pissing away another season waiting for him to get a clue. Even if he somewhat figures out how to improve positionally, his lack of willingness to engage physically will keep him a defensively liability. We have Dahlin and we can re-sign Byram. Sometimes you just have to move on from a player regardless of their draft status.

Ultimately the key to the offseason is getting out from under Power and Samuelsson. I've been talking about the disaster that is Power for months and finally people are seeing what has been evident all-season, the guy simply can't play defense. He is Risto 2.0 except Risto was actually willing to hit someone. Risto only now is beginning to figure out how to be a defenseman. Are we really willing to wait 6 more years for Power to figure it out?

It was me. It was when the mid-season contract projections came out. My comments then were keeping Cozens, Samuelsson and Power while trying to re-up JJP, Quinn, Byram and McLeod could be a cap disaster. We’d remain a terrible team but one at or near the cap. Doesn’t sound like a smart plan. Trading Cozens for Norris did nothing to alleviate the situation. We need to buyout Samuelson and trade Power or Byram to clear the proper cap room to fix the defense.

Just when I thought the Sabres couldn’t sink any lower, they did. I watch part of the game and was so disgusted I turned it off. Samuelsson needs to be trade or bought out. Power needs to be traded this off-season as well. He is literally useless as a defender. I’d love to see bench the $8 million man. The only players I saw last night that played at all like they give a crap were Norris, TNT and Benson.

The stink.

I don’t necessarily disagree. I wrote how I think Adams views the roster. Before the Norris trade we had arguably one true center (McLeod) and two guys masquerading as centers (Cozens and TNT) with a rookie Kulich filling in at center as needed. After the Norris trade we have two real centers plus TNT and Kulich playing center as needed. Where I disagree with you is I think Kulich is best suited to play center long-term, but O wouldn’t be un-happy if we acquired another experienced top 9 center.

Adams. Tuch and TNT are under contract and are our best forwards. Adams acquired Norris and McLeod. He just re-signed Zucker and stated that JJP is a core player who isn’t on the trade market. Kulich is also one of Adams key draftees and truthfully his play this season has earned him an opportunity next year. I’d say as long as Adams remains GM those 7 will certainly (barring injury) be in the top 9 next fall.

It's kind of nice to be arguing that we have 4 possible legit centers for 3 jobs. It's kinda of a nice problem to have. This breads flexibility. The next HC (Ruff or someone else) can mix and match to see which combos are affective. Personally, I like TNT on the wing. Right now 7 of the top 9 forwards heading into next season are locked in with TNT, Tuch, JJP, Zucker, Kulich, Norris, and McLeod. Beyond them are Greenway, Quinn, Benson and possibly Rosen fighting for the last 2 jobs in the top 9.

The play last night on the game winning goal kind of sealed it for me. He is clearly a high motor player that the Sabres need more of. Cozens doesn't make that play.

Doesn't that apply to Tage (and most other NHLers)? Tage played all of 17 games in 2019/20 and spent the rest of the year on IR He was injured some in 2020-21 He missed 11 games last season to injury and missed games this season as well. Norris is on pace to play 74 games this season. Hopefully this is the beginning of a healthy trend for him.

I agree.

I already like Norris better than Cozens.

I actually don’t care if Granato was better. It doesn’t matter. The Sabres are 14 straight tears outside of the playoffs. Why is anyone arguing about which failure was better? In NJ the GM brought in Marino, Haula, and Vanacek among others to a young roster with Ruff as coach. They miraculously went from a 60 point team to an 110 point team. The next season, the key defenders got hurt and Vanacek regressed without the good D and they missed the playoffs and Ruff got fired. It’s not the coach, it’s the roster.

It's was the basically the same team and guess what who cares. Did Granato get them to the playoffs? No. Was the defense good under Granato? No. Was offense any good outside the season when 5 guys had career years? No. Again, the coaches don't make a difference unless they have the right players to coach. The Sabres have only one blueliner who plays adequate to good defense and his name is Dahlin. The rest are crap. No coach succeeds with the steaming smelly pile of crap that is our D group. Y'all are arguing over which lousy crappy coaching staff smelled worse. IMHO fire them all and start again, I really don't care who coaches this team. Until we have a properly constructed roster it really doesn't matter who "coaches" them. To quote Bill Murray in Meatballs: "It just doesn't matter!"

The Sabres need 2 top 4 stay at home D. A LHD works with Dahlin as he prefers to play RD anyway. We then need a RHD stay at home D to play with Byram or Power as one of them is likely to be traded this offseason to save cap space and to remove one expensive piss poor blueliner who can't play defense.

The Sabres are 14 years and counting. I believe the Bills were 17 years between playoff appearances (2000-2017). Anyway! I don't think the trade told us anything this board didn't already know. We all know in our hearts Adams will be returning as GM for next season. We all hope he'll be fired along with the terrible coaching staff, but that's unlikely to happen. Adams has a contract and TP loathes paying two GMs or coaches at once anymore. So we have to pray the Adams somehow gets a clue and fixes the holes on the roster he created.

Even with the improvements under Granato, the defense and goaltending were terrible and the team never got over the hump and made the playoffs. Even in Granato’s best year, the team still had a negative differential despite finished 3rd in the NHL in goals scored. In fact they allowed 300 goals that season. The team’s offense has rebounded under Lindy this year going from 23rd to 12th overall in the NHL. Unfortunately, GA has backslide worse from 11th best to 28th allowing 3.5 goals a game. I remarked last season that the underlying stats such as HDCA were still terrible despite the improved GA and this season with UPL back to playing like he did in 22/23, the GA has increased significantly but the underlying terrible D stats remain about the same. The terrible defense is on Adams and Adams alone. He built the roster and he hired and kept Wilford as the D coach. Until someone fixes the defense, no HC is going to succeed in Buffalo.

A real GM would keep Dahlin and one of Byram or Power and flush the rest. Truthfully, all but Dahlin stink, but KA invested to much in Power and Byram. I suspect both will return. IMHO Power will never even become even adequate defensively and he should be dealt.

No coach, as we have seen, gets a positive result from this terrible lineup. Did Lindy fail to move the needle on this group? Sure, but Scotty Bowman couldn’t win with the defense Adams gave Lindy. I’m all for clearing the coaching staff and starting again for the 40th time, but until the roster is fixed, no coach is winning in Buffalo.

We did get the better player when healthy. He is a better scorer, he’s better defensively, he’s better in the FO circle and plays both special teams. Cozens was a disaster on the PP, struggled defensively and didn’t kill penalties. Cozens is also an 8% shooter. The only reason Norris was available was his injury history.

Besides Cozens, Samuelsson, Power and ultimately Benson who should have gone back to Jrs and then to the AHL to physically develop and frankly to save his ELC.

Makes the strategy of not blocking prospects look pretty stupid. Kulich spent 100 games in the AHL, maybe a bunch of others should have as well.

I just watched the entire video. The media members failed to ask the right questions. Adams admitted that Power needs a partner and the defense stinks. If he "knows" these things, why didn't the media members ask the follow up questions of that these issues are nothing new and why haven't they been addressed previously and what are you going to do about fixing them now? I thought I disliked Adams before watching this video, but I loath him now. He is so smug. The losing is on me he says and he needs to be better, yet he consistently does nothing but tinker with the bottom of the roster or trade one flawed player for another. None of his moves have actually made the team better. How does this clown still have a job.

...and he didn't know that last off-season, the prior deadline or the off-season before that? Is he just recognizing the need now? I always thought Mike Milbury or Craig Button were the worst GM'sin hockey history, but Adams is taking the cake.