GASabresIUFAN

That’s 4 RHD with 2 trades and 2 draft picks Mrtka and Bedkowski in the draft and Kesselring and Timmins in trade. Adams is just a giant moron.

This is a Beck Malenstyn type trade Adams trades a 2nd for a 26 year old player who has 1 full NHL season under his belt. We also get a cap dump and a ECHL/AHL depth D. Seems like another JBD type swing on a depth D with hoped more potential. Adams throwing a cheap bowl of RD spaghetti and hopes he finds a couple who can play.

Rosen is the one obvious trade piece. Östlund is next on the trade watch.

Who are our current prospects? My general rule is as long as the player is 24 and under and is waivers exempt he is considered a prospect. In that context Benson (he is still waivers exempt despite 2 years in the NHL), Kulich, Kozak and Doan are still prospects. Kulich, Doan and Kozak all also spent time in Rochester next season. I'm also going to restrict myself to guys I think have a legit shot at the NHL or at least being AAAA players. (Bold = 2025 draft pick) Group 1: Guys likely to (or should) start the year in the NHL - Levi, Doan, Kulich and Kozak Group 2: High end picks - Rosen, Helenius, Mrtka, Östlund, Group 3: Maturing guys close to NHL ready - Novikov & Komarov Group 4: early and middle round picks showing potential - Kleber, Ziemer, Osburn, Wahlberg, Strbak, McCarthy, Neuchev, Leinonen, Sardarian, Bedkowski, Kucharcik Group 5: FA or Late round picks who have potential - Brunet, Leenders, Richard, Geary, Ratzlaff, Kopff, Meloche, Laberge, & Prokhorov I'll add guys once drafted today. Others Still in the system: Ryan Johnson (31st - 2019), Kisakov (53rd - 2021), Polatpov (33rd - 2021 - signed in RUS through 26/27), Miedema (109th in 2023), Nadeau (97th in 2021).

Not fair to compare Myers and Krupp to Power. Myers and Krupp could actually play defense.

I’m not sure Kesselring lasts past the next trade deadline.

Mrtka is a RHD and is 4 years from the NHL, but sure he can partner with Dahlin then.

Nothing wrong with the pick, but it’s guy who won’t a difference for the Sabres for 4-5 years. Snooze. Don't forget we already have Strbak. We need to move on from some of these picks and prospects to bolster the current Sabres.

Dahlin still needs a partner.

He can’t multitask.

Very exciting pick for 2030 Sabres

Snooze

ESPN’s draft coverage is awful.

Trade the darn pick.

By the way, he is still waiver exempt and can be sent down.

Although a good playmaker would help.

Atlanta Sabres 🙂

But here is the problem. It's management's job to build a winning program and create a winning culture. What has Adams and Pegula done to create that environment? We haven't had real goaltending in 5 years. We have acquired defensemen who can actually play defense. To make matters worse, most of the major guys who have left have gone to bigger and better things. Bogo, ROR, Reinhart, Montour, Eichel, and ERod have all won Cups. Ullmark a Vezina. Kane and even Jeff Skinner reached the Cup finals. Players want to win and they can't do that in Buffalo with Adams in charge.

The Sabres have been in desperate need of goaltending help for 4 years.

It's always possible. The lineup is in desperate need of a legit playmaker. Right now there are 12 forwards under contract: Norris, Thompson, Tuch, Zucker, Greenway, Quinn, Lafferty, Krebs, Malenstyn, Benson, Doan and Kulich. McLeod and Kozak are RFAs. That's 14 guys for likely 13 jobs. I'd have no problem at all moving on from Krebs and Lafferty and bringing in an actual playmaker.

It looks like the forward plan right now is to hope a mix of Norris, Benson, Quinn and Kulich replace Peterka’s production. While I hate the JJP trade in general even I will admit that the idea that it is possible for those four if the stay healthy and if the younger guys continue to improve for the offense to overcome the loss of Peterka. That said it’s a typical hope and pray from Adams especially given Quinn and Norris’ injury histories. This looks on paper like another attempt Moneypuck.

It’s less about position and more about an opportunity to replace JJPs production. That said Quinn can play either side and was drafted as a RW. JJP can play both sides as well.

Power is a defenseman who can’t play defense. It’s his friggin job to play at least decent defense. Power offense is not elite enough to make up for his horrific defense. JJP job as a top 6 forward is to score with defense a secondary consideration. In Adams world apparently it’s more important for the forwards to play defense than score while D need to score and who cares if they can play defense. How is that working so far? We had 3 D in the top 35 in scoring yet our goals against was one of the worst in the league and tanked our season.

Big opportunity for him with JJP gone.

It's very sad. They argue that he was lousy defensively. Who cares! He's only 23. Last I looked his job was to score and create offense, which he does very well. Why don't these same people criticize Power? Last I looked his job was to play defense. He can't. To make matters worse he's also on an albatross contract. Byram is basically the same, except he actually tries on defense (not successfully, but at least he tries). Our defense is one of the worst in the NHL. Maybe start fixing it, not by weakening the offense, but by clearing out the 17+ mill in bad contract being paid to Power, Samuellson and Clifton.