GASabresIUFAN

Again, If he gets a center prospect for Jack great. Like the 2022 draft that’s a complete unknown. Eichel is still a Sabres and out injured. If he gets moved it might not be until the trade deadline or even next off-season. I’d love to see, Zegras, Rossi, or Krebs in Buffalo, but we have zero idea if that is going to happen. We all thought KA would target a forward prospect in the Reinhart trade and we got a 7th rd goalie (who I admittedly like). My stance has been and always has been that the spine is the most critical piece of a hockey team and you can’t have enough players and prospects at that position. I think wingers are a dime a dozen and excess centers can be converted tp the wing and wingers are easier to acquire in trade. The only certainty right now is our pipeline has 3 good goalies, a bunch of solid D and a pile of talented but unproven wingers. The piece missing from this picture remains centers and that could have easily been addressed with some better decision making; Rossi over Quinn, Raty over Poltapov. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not exactly sure why you are arguing with me because you actually agree with the drafting mistakes.

I agree we need forwards. Last I looked centers are forwards. I also would have drafted Eklund and Beniers over Power. I also agree next year’s draft looks deeper. The problem with saying we’ll get them next year is you have no idea how those prospects will shake out or where you are drafting. It’s a complete unknown at this point. You have to do what’s best for the organization today. My complaint is about this organization failing to draft and develop centers for the last two decades, not just KA. The last 4 GMs have mostly ignored the position outside top 10 picks and this failure has been a huge factor in getting us to where we are. KA is just another in a long line of failure. Blindly using BPA without taking organizational need into account leads to drafts like Jbots all D draft or this all winger draft. It is a poor way to build a pipeline and a team. You said you had Rosen, Lucius and Svechkov in same tier. That means your evaluation of their talent was nearly identical. If the players are nearly identical, why not use organizational need as the deciding factor?

Just make sure your trading for healthy players who aren’t locker-room cancers. That would have prevented most TM’s trades.

Centers can always be converted to wing, but rarely vice versa. Depth at center is one of keys to having a good team and now as @Thorny said we are dumping are two top centers, we need to restock the position and ignoring the position for the last two drafts doesn't help. Also who cares what 2022 brings. That's another year away and if we draft centers then great. The more the merrier. Yes, I loath the Adams Administration, but I've also applauded him when he makes the right decision (Granato, Risto trade). It also doesn't absolve him for ignoring centers in the draft for two straight years while trading away his two best centers. Quinn over Rossi and Perfetti, Poltapov over Raty. Rosen over Lucius and Svechkov. These choice just don't make sense and have left our pipeline bereft of centers.

But you are proving my point. Svechkov over Rosen, Raty over Poltapov. Those simple changed would have given us two quality centers in the pipeline and this issue melts away. and better management.

I completely missed Asplund signing at the end of July.

Again it's more then just blue chip centers. We need to draft and develop depth centers as well. Asplund is the closest example after Derek Roy. We need some of our 2nd, 3rd and even later round picks to develop into something and some of them must be centers if we are going to sustain a team beyond the initial rebuild. Again you can't develop what you don't draft.

I was talking outside the top 10. Sam's impact on the Sabres was definitely not at center except the last 25 games.

There were plenty of quality centers available when Rosen was picked and when the 2 Russians were picked in the 2nd. Svechkov, and Lucius were higher rated players and centers when we took Rosen and quality enters Raty and Pinelli were available deep into the second. You of all people like to talk about who we should of taken. At least one and maybe of our picks higher end picks after Power should have been a center(s), especially given the drafting of JJP and Quinn the year before. You can't develop what you don't draft.

https://buffalonews.com/sports/sabres/kyle-okposo-on-jack-eichel-everybody-wants-some-closure-and-some-answers/article_5337aa56-0b67-11ec-b724-070dbf205153.html He certainly isn't having surgery this week.

ask capfriendly This will end up being a huge bargain for the Sabres. @Thorny weren't you just asking when the RFAs will sign?

Big Z has mostly played wing for us, but is arguably the only impact center drafted who actually played center. That a terrible track record over 20 years.

18 prospects - 22 players of which 4 are in the NHL, thus 18 prospects and zero centers amongst them. Yes 22 has centers, however my broader point is we aren't drafting and developing any depth at center besides top ten picks. We need them in the system from beyond the 1st rd and we need some of them to become NHL players long-term. TB has Point and Cirelli drafted after the 1st and Gourde who wasn't drafted at all. That's how you sustain a great team. The last non top 10 center drafted by the Sabres who made an impact on the Sabres at center is Derek Roy (2001). If Asplund returns to the middle maybe he'll break that streak. In the last 4 drafts we have drafted 4 centers besides Cozens, one in the 5th, 1 in the 6th and 2 in the 7th. This is not the way to build an effective pipeline.

22 players were mentioned in the article. Of the 18 prospects discussed guess how many centers? Zero! That’s right we have zero centers in our pipeline worth noting. We draft high end centers, like Mitts, Cozens, Jack and Sam, but when was the last time we successfully drafted a center outside the top 10. Derek Roy? This is not the way to build or sustain an organization.

Do you think he'll perform to the level of a $3 mill player? or will his defensive failing make him into Miller 2.0 and ultimately spend the season in the pressbox?

If the plan is to tank, then yes they are succeeding. Putting another crop of prospects in another losing situation is a stupid plan by definition. You don't fix a losing culture with more losing. We had the cap space to make the team competitive this season without taking an ice time away from our top kids. That type of support is how you build a winning culture. Apparently the Sabres' brass never learns.

This move only makes sense if your in tank mode and are willing to "box out" a prospect or two (which is something KA said he won't do). No way we are going to pay 2.8 to someone to sit on the bench. Remember he was so bad in his own zone that a rebuilding team (NJ) wanted him gone and was willing to pay us to take him. However, lets say he plays well and you flip him at the deadline for a 3rd. How exactly does this help us become a winner sooner then later? Yes we ended up with a 3rd and 5th in 2022. The odds we find an NHL player with either pick is low, about 22% for the 3rd and 15% for the 5th and that is 3-5 years away if they make it. Since we are now clearly a budget team, KA could have instead used that money and allocated it somewhere like goaltending to help the team be competitive now. Obviously if you have pivoted to tank mode, then helping us be competitive now isn't the goal so why not bring in a defensively challenged defensemen to play in front of your AHL goaltenders. He will certainly help us lose games. I'm so excited that our management wants to teach another generation of Sabres prospect how to lose with dignity.

So KA's motto is I'm sorry I failed to support the team properly but I really really tried. Who could have guessed that a quality UFA goalie would want play for a perennial contender instead of the worst organization in sport. If his honest goal was to support the team with quality goaltending by re-signing Ullmark, then he should have had a plan B in place when Ullmark reasonably bolted. He didn't. A competent GM would have had a plan B. Going from Ullmark to Dell/Anderson to not a plan B. It not even plan X. It's a joke. It's going from helping a team to be competitive to tanking the squad before the season even begins. He deserves no credit for "trying" to re-sign Ullmark, because he failed to get him signed and failed to sign or acquire an adequate replacement. Also it's not my spin that he isn't blocking UPL, it's KA's himself. He stated to Vogl on 7/29 about his goaltending quartet that "We feel good where we're at." He further stated the following "We certainly spent a lot of time planning around where we would go, or how we would pivot,” Adams said. “I felt that we made a strong offer; when he made a decision to go a different direction, we pivoted. We looked into where the market was from certain trade scenarios, but for us, giving up assets isn’t something we were comfortable with at that point." And “We don’t want to box players out in any position,” Adams said. “We want to make sure that guys like UPL, when they’re ready, they have the opportunity, but we have competition there. It’s gonna be guys competing for a spot.” This is delusional. There is no other way to look at this situation. He made an offer to Ullmark, who knows what it was or even if it was a legit or competitive offer, and when that failed he had no real plan to get another quality goaltender in here. He basically threw up his hands, pivoted to tank mode and got some guys standing on the corner holding signs saying will goaltend for food. This is the type of terrible and short sighted decision making that got us here, thus he gets zero credit for making an offer to Ullmark.

Once Mitts, Dahlin and Joki re-sign, we'll be over the cap and I'd have rather spent 2.8 on a goalie. I'd feel better about it if he been a RHD. As with last year, I'd rather see Samuelsson and Bryson over Hagg and Butcher. What funny about KA's off-season is that he acquired mediocre vets to compete against kids who showed ok in the NHL (Samuelsson and Bryson) making it harder for them to make the team. However in goal he acquired guys who are not longer NHL players to not block a goalie (UPL) who can't stop pucks in the AHL. The strategy makes literally zero sense, but then again either do the Sabres.

and just think, they'll be better then we are.

I'm pretty much in agreement with you here. I think winning games or more generally being competitive each night would do much more for the culture that anything else. No one wants to work for a company or team going under. As to Butcher, him wanting to be here is all well and good, but why being him in at all. Bryson may not be as dynamic offensively, but he is better on defense and KA's stated goal was not to block the kids. With Miller and Dahlin already on the roster, and Bryson capable of adding some O, Butcher is a luxury that was completely unnecessary. He also isn't cheap. We are paying 2.8 mill (of his 3.7) for a guy who'll likely be a 3rd pairing guy, giving us the same value as a 750K scrap heap vet. It's a waste of money. KA should have spent the 2.8 on a goalie and at least made us a touch more competitive. Like I said this acquisition makes no sense.

I agree which is why I’ve been saying I don’t understand the Butcher acquisition. They can limit him by playing him with Pysyk for about 12 minutes a night 5 on 5 and then use him on the PP

Butcher needs a coach who knows how to utilize his offense and protect him on defense.

Hagg in goal? He can't be worse then Dell. I also like Samuelsson in the lineup over Hagg. Frankly, I'm ok with Hagg and Samuelsson in over Butcher. I won't mind 2 physical guys in the lineup each night.

If DG goes with the vets over the kids, KA's acquisitions would have blocked two kids and give us a starting 6 of Dahlin Jokiharju Hagg Miller Butcher Pysyk That's hard to look at.