Archie Lee

Some GMs don’t spend much time worrying about how happy a player is.

As a qualifier, every player gets one path to the NHL (some more winding than others, but a single path nonetheless). The reality is that if a player fails to reach their potential, there is no way to know with certainty whether that failure relates to a poor development process or to the player simply not being good enough. So, I really don't think it is possible to say that Benson's offensive game has been, will be, or won't be stunted by being in the NHL; that is, unless he develops into an offensive star, in which case it can be said that being in the NHL from day-one, didn't hurt his offensive game. Benson never went back to junior and we will never know how going back to junior might have impacted his game. That said, I don't think there is any way to say that Benson being in the NHL for D1 and D2 means there is a better chance, let alone a "far better chance", of a breakout this year. There is, relatively speaking, a long list of forwards drafted between 11th and 15th overall (Benson was 13th), who did not fully make it to the NHL until D3, and who had rookie seasons that would qualify as a "breakout year" for Benson. Respectfully to my fellow Benson admirers, there is a tendency to see Benson as a different sort of Cat who was/is uniquely able to adapt to the pro-game as an 18 year old right out of junior, while also thinking that he somehow doesn't have traits that would have allowed him to develop in junior ("He's too good for junior and going back would have stunted his development"). Benson is a unique Cat. He would have developed fine either way and would, in my view, be a legit rookie of the year candidate if he was coming into the NHL this season.

I think it remains that the Sabres are collectively (not individually) too young and inexperienced. Their three best players, are not though. Dahlin, Thompson, and Tuch, are keys. I don't think they all need to have career years, but they need to be the elite players that they are. I think it is possible those three are talented enough to drag a team into the playoffs.

And the great thing about Benson is that even if these underlying offensive numbers never translate to him being a big point producer, he has so many other positive traits that he is going to be an effective player for a long-time. Someday, it will be a lot of fun to watch him in the playoffs.

I agree with this. I suppose there is an argument for not firing an assistant until you are certain you can hire a better replacement. But, the proper way to do it (my view) is to start by firing the assistant you want to replace. This accomplishes a couple of things: 1). It creates an urgency or necessity to find someone better; and 2). It serves to cast a wider net than you would by merely calling a few coaches you hope might be interested. In other words, interested coaches will contact you. I’m ambivalent on Wilford. Better is better. I imagine though that we would all swap Ruff for Brind’Amour before we would swap Wilford for Tim Gleason.

Let’s assume the following: - a team’s goal is to win now; and - salaries aren’t an issue . Given those parameters, if you polled every NHL GM and HC in the NHL and told them they could have only one of Quinn, Kulich, or Mittelstadt, I believe the vast majority would take Mittelstadt.

I don't disagree with this in theory. As you say though, it is reasonable to have a "show me" approach. Olofsson, Skinner, and Mittlelstadt, weren't Sabres last year. Malenstyn, Lafferty, and Aube-Kubel were. I'm not convinced that Doan and Danforth get 12-14 minutes per game. Our 4th line upgrades last year, came to us having received 12-14 minutes of ice time per game on their prior teams, only to have that cut to 9.5-10.5 minutes per game here.

I’m no expert on NHL coaching. My understanding though, is that generally the system or structure that a team uses is the preferred structure of the head coach and that the implementation is a shared responsibility with the assistants. Last year when Ruff spoke out about Cozens and Thompson struggling, he didn’t say that they are struggling with Wilford’s system, he said they are struggling with what he asks centres to do in his system.

I’m not sure about “60 game starter”, but I think it is abundantly clear that Adams was certain Levi would be his starting goalie by now. When asked prior to 23-24 about whether Levi needed AHL time he was rather dismissive and referred to Levi as “special”. They then gave Levi four straight, mostly ineffective, starts to begin that season; there is no question in my mind that he believed Levi was his starting goalie two years ago. I think this ties in to my point. Adams hasn’t been able to address multiple loose ends at one time. He, largely, focuses on one element and seems caught off guard when another issue inevitably rises.

I think it is clearly intentional. I think it does matter, but it can be hard to follow the logic. Adams seems to become focused on a certain area or trait related to asset acquisition, rather than focus on acquiring a collection of traits that will equate to a successful team. He started with acquiring picks, then the focus was on skilled forwards, an insistence on building out the pipeline, then it became tall defensemen, then upgrading the 4th line, then being tougher to play against, and now tall AND right-handed defensemen. Perhaps this is the year where he has finally put together the needed combination of skill, toughness, and experience that equates to a playoff level team. It seems there are more conventional ways to do this.

I’m not going to pound the table for Wilford. I don’t think he is responsible, though, for the team’s overall defensive structure.

This is a good point. It’s been a long time since I thought about Bylsma’s system. My very amateur evaluation is that Bylsma struggles to communicate that playing defensively responsible hockey does not mean playing passively. I think this is something we struggled with last year. Teams that play good defensively, defend with vigour, strength, aggression. It’s not a task for the meek. A less than sound structure, implemented by a coach who does not possess the best modern communication skills, on a youthful, inexperienced, and not yet physically developed team, is a bad combination.

I hope the link below works. It is to a recent Instigators podcast (Sabre fan podcast). The guest is Kevin Woodley of InGoal magazine and NHL.com. He breaks down the goalie situation in Buffalo. Woodley gets his advanced stats from Clear Sight Analytics. I believe the host is Chris Ostrander, who I think does a fine job. https://t.co/Rc1b9zrLa7 I highly recommend listening to anyone interested in understanding the impact of environment on goaltenders. To summarize, Woodley explains why the environment in Buffalo has been terrible for goalies. Last season the Sabres finished in the bottom 1/3 in pretty much all defensive areas that impact scoring chances. Further, they were 30th in the NHL in the critical area of preventing cross-ice scoring chances. Woodley references what he believes is the cumulative impact on a goaltender that comes from playing in that environment. A goalie who is being leaned on to start at a 65 game pace (UPL last year), playing in such an environment is likely to have it negatively impact his performance. A goalie can't trust what is happening in front of him and starts to cheat on cross-ice passes, which leads to disaster. Woodley has some good anecdotes on Lehner and Comrie that illustrate how the environment has been an issue in Buffalo for many years. He also explains why it has little to do with how talented your defensemen are, and everything to do with system and structure, starting with the forwards. As well, Woodley provides interesting stuff on Dustin Wolf's game and how Levi might (or might not) benefit from implementing some changes that Wolf made. And there is a brief discussion on how the Sabres might manage Ratzaff and Leinonen this season; playing in the ECHL can be a very chaotic environment for young goalies who are often sent there without the necessary coaching support (and he is clear that he thinks highly of Sabre development coach Seamus Kotyk and that he is certain Kotyk has a plan to address this). Again, a good listen for the dog days of the off-season.

Perhaps this is not a meaningful thing, but the thread being revived a bit today got me back to thinking about the salary cap and the position that Adams had put the franchise in. I did an exercise on PuckPedia of recreating last year's roster with this year's salaries (reverse the Peterka and Clifton trades; bring back Lafferty for Danforth, Reimer for Lyon). If you recreate last year's end of season roster using the current salaries of those players, the Sabre cap hit would be just over $97 million. That would be the 4th highest cap hit in the NHL. The only 3 teams with a current higher projected cap hit are Vegas, Montreal, and Florida, and unlike the Sabres they all have an obvious high-salaried LTIR candidate for the start of the season. Obviously, this didn't happen and Adams should not be criticized for something he didn't ultimately do. But, what he did do last season was ice the youngest roster in the league, that produced a 79 point season (7th worst in the NHL), and that if kept together would have had the highest LTIR-excluded cap-hit in the NHL this season. Again, perhaps not meaningful. Or perhaps, evidence of gross incompetence (as it relates to his job duties).

We just have different views on these players. I think Benson is a better all around player than Quinn or Kulich already. Indeed, when I look at our forward group, I think that Quinn and Kulich are the obvious positions where improvement could be made via trade. I would move them for Rust and Rakell without hesitation, if such a trade was available. Agreed though, that Benson should not have been in the NHL two seasons ago, not because he was ruined or because he was unable to compete at the NHL level, but because there was just no good reason to keep an 18 year old, 13th OA pick on the roster of a team with $10million+ in cap space. That was negligence on Adams's part.