PerreaultForever

I just don't want Adams to try to "win the trade". Just make the deal to make the team better now.

I'm thinking forward not creating crises. If you are a good GM you can't wait for the crisis, you have to think ahead about what is coming and what you need. You know there will be extra roster players very soon. You also see you just lost your D man for "an extended time" so if you want to compete seriously you make a move. You at least try and look for opportunities. I don't want to blow a season on any sort of if only they'd................

Consistency is exactly the issue though. That's why he is garbage. You don't get that consistency or effort. Not just game to game, sometimes in the same game. If I'm the coach I want guys who I can rely on. Guys that give me whatever they give all the time and every shift.

To me I'm actually not dropping Dunne either. I'd actually move Krebs, or make him 13th guy and go Dunne, Kozak, Malentstyn as the line. I want Greenway off the roster. He is garbage.

There are too many bodies. Adams needs to make a 3 or 4 for 1 deal. Time to move UPL most of all.

Beecher is a former first rounder who underwhelmed. Lost his spot with Minten playing well. Bruins opted for the tougher, heavier guy in Viel for the 4th line. Beecher is a decent face off guy and PK guy but not much else. The Sabres equivalent move would be keeping Dunne and waiving Danforth (if healthy) or maybe Krebs. Calgary probably just wants bodies for their tear down to come.

Why? Because you want to be a playoff team and not scrub another season. You also want to assure Levi that there is a future spot up here. There's going to be a bunch of roster issues soon. You have some chemistry and success with what you have so you have to think about changes. Do you really want to send Östlund and Rosen back just because you can? Or do you want to move other bodies and keep them. This is GM do some moves time. Edmonton for example. Is there a deal there? Let them try a low risk run with UPL that still gives them time to find another later if UPL isn't their guy. I'll go wild and say could you get something big out of there like Nurse? UPL, Quinn, Greenway, ? clear the roster spots and bring in a big heavy D. I'm just throwing that out there cause I saw some stuff from Edmonton chat about trading Nurse solving their issues. It's just an illustration of how/why Adams needs to think big and think now. Build on momentum. Don't just sit back and say "see, I am a genius, we just needed time". It's currently a house of cards. Multiple assets for one good asset should be the thinking.

That's what I said in the game thread. Time to end the nonsense with too many goalies and just get rid of UPL. It's Ellis Lyon until it's Ellis Levi. I've also been saying we need to pick up waiver guys now and again in all positions. There have been some decent gambles out there in the last few years and we could have easily built a decent bottom 6 without making trades.

Didn't really surprise me that they won this one. They have a habit of winning these type of games. I really don't think it means anything but you never know, they might get on a roll. Kozak very impressive checking McJesus. That's the biggest encouraging takeaway I have from this one. If he can become a solid 2 way checker and not just a 4th liner we might just have filled a big hole. Ellis was also very solid. It's way past time for KA to make the move and ditch UPL one way or another. It should be Ellis and Lyon until it's Ellis and Levi and that's it. Get it done you piece of crap moron GM. While he's at it he can ditch Greenway as well. Absolute rubbish hockey player. Power still giving the puck away too much but when you win it doesn't matter.

I think it's more important because right now Pegula penny pinches on the Sabres. They don't do big signing bonuses. They don't retain salary on deadline deals. They don't spend to the cap. They don't like to pay people they fire. I'm just afraid they will do Appert like Granato. Name him interim head coach and then after a fake "search" name him full time head coach. He is Terry's chosen one.

Yes, like the Bruins did getting Minten from the Leafs for Carlo. Leafs blew that one big time. Sabres need a similar type deal if they do move Tuch. For sure. A high pick AND a roster player for next year.

Except for one thing. Goalies are weird and have fragile egos. Lyon carried them early. Lyon earned the top role. Lyon gets pulled early but told it's not you it's me wanting a momentum shift but then Lyon doesn't get the net. What's in Lyon's head now? It's just weird handling all around and they need to ditch one of them and say these are the two (Ellis and Lyon imo) and end the nonsense. If they can get Edmonton to play wide open (which Edmonton can fall into) they can win this but the PK better still be good to say the least.

I would suggest it's more important these days to see who is on the last year of a deal and I think that is both Ruff and Adams. I also think it's obvious that Pegula kept Adams around because he is a yes man that defers final decisions to the big boss and Terry wants it that way. He doesn't trust the "hockey people" and he thinks he knows better. It's just that simple.

No, I don't see that. It requires a competent GM and a new philosophy but you can rebuild a different way. What it requires though is Pegula stepping away and letting that competent GM ruthlessly do his thing.

He will get a lot if he goes to free agency and if you were him wouldn't you go to free agency, get paid and get out of here? I would. I think the Kempe contract is a bad one. Did they have a choice to stay competitive? Probably not but the last few years of that deal won't look good. If we were winning with Tuch I'd feel different, but he's simply not that sort of impact player and thus I think sell high serves you better.

Zucker and Norris are injury plagued players who are injured every year. As is Greenway. Kesselring I know nothing about from before. Kulich is an odd one for sure and yes, Benson blocked a shot. Now back to you, are you going to accept this year's excuse "if not for injuries" cause you know it's coming.

But if you reward him and we don't get any better then every other shlub demands the same reward and that's unsustainable and you still get nowhere.

Ummm, so you are going to just pay him whatever? You really want to pay him over 10 for 8? It's not a crap draft by the way. It's a very deep one as I understand it. Now as far as selling it to others on the team, obviously this implies that they are not a playoff team at the deadline and we are headed for a new GM and a new rebuild. Unless they want to endure that it might mean trading a lot more, like Tage and Dahlin too. This would not have been my preferred plan but it's what KA leaves us with. You can't just keep trying the same thing and expecting different results and if big change doesn't come that is what will happen until eventually those guys lose their love and want out anyway and if enough years go by you start to lose some of the younger guys as well. I mean the change should have come when Adams went to trade Cozens. Not to suggest I want Cozens back but this was the first young guy Adams rewarded early and was going to build around and he misjudged that entirely so out the door he should have gone. Instead he got to early reward Power as well. Still doing it to a lesser extent with Quinn. This GM has been an absolute clown show disaster and we need to stop pretending he isn't the worst GM in Sabres, if not NHL history.

I didn't really suggest that. I was merely responding to the notion that the new strength coach was failing at his job. I was saying he can't change things over night. As far as the injury correlation goes is it bad luck? If so, ask yourself how I predicted this in August? Am I just lucky at guessing they are unlucky? The one thing we can surely agree on is there are quite a few young light weights with bodies not fully developed and some lacking muscle mass and size. Constant work on adding muscle to these guys would be a good idea.

At Tuch's age 8 years for that kind of money would be a big mistake. Deadline deal him. He should get you a lot. Then if he really wants to be a Sabre he can come back in free agency. If he doesn't whatever. It's not like this roster is close or something.

I saw that on twitter. Implied it was a knee but with the walking boot the foot seems more likely.

Ya, but he'd be a stud and worth way more. You saw tonight what a beast Thompson can be when he decides to play physical. He played angry and had the fight in him and thus dominated. If he brought that every night and dragged others into the same style this team might be something. A player with Quinn's speed and skill plus Greenway's physicality would be the perfect power forward. Quinn unfortunately is a total wuss.

I'd also add a strength coach can't change players who need one in a few months. It takes years of dedicated work and effort.

Is that what it was? Blocked a shot off the foot sort of thing? Maybe broke a bone?

Oh well I don't think they have any hope of making it. There are more teams in the mix currently than expected before the season started. Before the season started we thought they'd be competing with Detroit, Ottawa. Montreal, maybe the Rags, Tampa or Columbus for a wild card. Teams like Boston and Pittsburgh were being counted out and in the McKenna sweepstakes. But look at the standings. You have to get ahead of the expected playoff teams like Florida, Toronto and Washington just to get back in the conversation and then you still need several others to fall. Did you see any of that Boston Montreal game? That was vintage Bruins Habs rivalry stuff and Sabres are nowhere near the level of intensity either of those teams brought. It was almost playoff hockey. Sabres could go on a 10 game win streak and still be on the outside.