Archie Lee

Well, the Sabres will be out of it tomorrow morning (standings-wise) regardless. The Thanksgiving thing is really just a self-evident observation that 1/4 of the way through the season there will be clear good teams and clear bad teams. Last year at Thanksgiving, Boston, The Rangers, Calgary, and Vancouver were in playoff positions. They missed, replaced by Montreal, Ottawa, Edmonton, and St. Louis. So, it is entirely likely there will be some changeover between now and April.

I was trying to think of when the last time was that the Sabres made a mid-season trade, not trade deadline, to acquire a veteran player with the intent that the acquired player would better help them reach their goal to either make the playoffs or advance further in the playoffs that season, than the asset given up. Thankfully there is a website that tracks all trades: https://www.nhltradetracker.com/user/trade_list_by_team/Buffalo_Sabres/1 People would have different views on what qualifies, but it's a pretty rare thing. You need to go back to the 90's and then have some debate about the merits of Geoff Sanderson for Brad May and a 3rd on Feb 4, 1998. It is such a rare thing that it is a wonder that fans, me included, spend time speculating as though such a trade might actually happen.

Eerily reminiscent of last year when every roster move was attributed to Ruff’s influence, until it all fell apart.

Do you know something I don’t?

On further consideration, I agree. I can’t see Adams making such a trade.

Garland and Sherwood have no current trade protection. Garland has a long deal that won’t age well though. Forbort (injured at present) might be a good 7th D. Other than those 3, all of their vets have trade protection or injury history (Chytyl). I think Sherwood and Forbort would be good adds (I don’t know if Forbort’s injury is long-term serious).

I guess I would ask: an excuse for who? For the players? Ok, maybe. For the coaches? Much less so. For the GM? Not a chance. The reason we have Power and Byram is to provide puck-moving depth on the backend. And up front, what does it say if we are hapless without the services of a 20 year old kid and a 33 year old journeyman (no disrespect to Benson and Zucker).

They dug themselves a big hole. They have stopped digging and have pulled themselves up to NHL .500. That is a decent 1st step. Now they need to somehow drag themselves to DeLuca .500. It would be great if they won their next 4 to get there, but even if they get there by game 70, they would have a shot to make the playoffs with a strong finish. I’m generally a glass half-full guy, but I’m skeptical that they will find the level of consistency needed to do this.

Since he was activated, UPL has been the Sabres best goalie.

That’s the Quinn we all want to see.

If you look at his Elite Prospects page, pre-draft year he posted good numbers as a younger goalie. This, plus his size, are likely what had him as a higher rated goalie prospect in his draft year. He was ok last year in the Swedish 2nd league. The Sabres are moving heaven and earth to make sure Levi doesn’t get a sniff of the NHL this season. Leinonen is two full years (plus a month) younger than Levi, which means he is likely 2-3 full seasons away from being thought of for the NHL. Clearly there are reasons to be skeptical of his NHL potential, but there is still lots of runway. He should probably be in Europe or the ECHL this year though.

What did Lyon do to lose Ruff’s confidence? He certainly had a bad stretch, but why the complete removal from the rotation?

I agree that this seems like the most logical rationale for what Pegula is doing. It is perhaps a contradiction though, that they are spending to the cap this year, and were willing to give substantial two-year extensions to players like Zucker and Greenway and a one-way deal to a player like Georgiev. I'm sure that Georgiev, who Pegula may soon be paying to play in the KHL, makes as much or more than what Ellis and Wilford make combined. It is difficult to understand why Pegula pinches pennies in one area but not in others. The reality is that no NHL team fires an entire front office or coaching staff mid-season. It is also pretty rare for a GM to get fired mid-season. Those sort of truly transformational changes, happen in the off-season. What is incomprehensible to me, is that they don't replace Ruff on an interim basis with Leone or even (gag) Appert. Backfilling an AHL coach or NHL assistant for 3/4 of a season would cost less than what Pegula is paying Curtis Leschsysheynshyynsn. And, you never know, it might work. Mid-season coaching changes have positive impacts quite often. A fresh voice and outlook at the helm combined with getting healthy and, perhaps, a good trade, might position the team to get on an actual roll before it is too late. Loyalty to Ruff for doing Pegula and Adams a solid and taking this job on a two-year contract, might be preventing them from throwing Ruff under the bus. All of which just adds more to the already mountainous evidence that the Sabres are just not run like a normal NHL team. Finally, one last frightening thought: there is no requirement for an organization to announce that the GM's contract has been extended.

I agree it was the obvious pick. I disagree that the only reason Benson was on the Sabres’s radar is because they had drafted Savoie the year before. I spend maybe 3 hours reading draft previews every year and Benson was on MY radar. He was on everyone’s radar. The Sabres didn’t need to see him 10 extra times to know who he was or how good he was.

Ellis has definitely earned the starter's net to see if he can run with it. Lyon's great start to the year should not be overlooked. UPL has not been consistent. But, since the ot loss in Toronto: Ellis: 3 GP, .907sv%, -1.03 GSAx Lyon: 5 GP, .878sv%, -2.38 GSAx UPL: 3 GP, .900sv%, -0.48 GSAx