Archie Lee

It drives me crazy that a goal can be disallowed because Greenway was offside by an inconsequential 1/2 inch, and then the linesman can miss an icing by 3 feet that directly leads to a goal, and that’s not a concern. For clarity, I would prefer that neither can be challenged, but if the missed offside can overturn a goal then it is crazy that the missed icing cannot.

I enjoyed the game. I still like the players. I don’t think they are a collection of losers. I think they have been collectively placed in a near impossible situation. So when they win a game and it is clear that they are getting to experience some joy and satisfaction, I like that.

I think it’s conjecture mostly. Adams hasn’t gone out of his comfort zone on coaching hires. He promoted Granato from within, and then replaced Granato with the one NHL coach that he knew and was available. Had the team been successful under Ruff, then Appert would likely have seemed like a reasonably logical next in line. As is, it is hard to fathom. I can’t imagine the next GM hiring Appert, unless it is someone like Forton.

Who is clamoring for any coach from the past? I've defended Granato's record. There is no denying that Granato got far more out of the team than Ruff has gotten. But, defending Granato's record isn't the same as arguing he should still be the coach. Better coaches than Granato are fired all of the time. The point is that Granato was fired after getting much more out of much less.

He has not been good enough and has flipped between average and downright bad. You can almost always find a mistake that led to the chance that led to a goal. But a goalie can also make a save. Too often, UPL has not made the save that gives the team a chance That said, there is a pall that has set over the team that goes well beyond an underachieving goalie. It is reminiscent of how the team played prior to Krueger getting fired. I recall Granato telling the team when he took over, that being on a last place NHL team is not the worst thing that will happen in your life. Then he backed that up by setting a new path for how to play. The Sabres have needed that for some time now. There were moments this year where a change in coaching might have given new life and made a difference. Pegula and Adams are intent on punting this season though.

Sure. But the team was not awful in the Granato years. Which isn’t meant as a full-throated defence of Granato. I reject that this group of players is incapable of playing better, more structured and consistent hockey. The 3rd goal last night was a great example. The lack of situational awareness and attention to detail is startling. There is 8 seconds of 5v3 to kill and we immediately get out of position and chase, leaving Huberdeau for a back door tap in. Just continuous failures to execute basic strategies. It’s not all on Ruff, but he has been truly awful for this team.

I agree on Tuch. I think a good GM would find a way to use the $10 million more wisely over the course of the 6-8 years. Of course, we don’t have a good GM. Also, I will add that a Benson extension should be relatively cheap. I love the kid, but he has 2 goals in his last 51 games and has gone 33 games without a goal. After his great start to this year, he has 5 assists in his last 13 games. Though he brings a lot of other things to the table, forwards who score like he does simply don’t get big contracts.

Thompson and Tuch have had their share of bad games this year without Greenway.

Entirely disagree with this. They are playing to a 73 point pace right now; that’s below what they played in Granato’s 1st full season when their key players were younger and the line-up was dotted with Wil Butcher, Andres Bjork, John Hayton, Aaron Dell, and Dustin Tokarski. In Granato’s next two years, with a younger core than now, they played to two games below DeLuca .500 and had a goal differential of -2. In a season and a 1/3 under Ruff, the Sabres are 17 games below DeLuca .500 and have a -35 goal differential. We act sometimes like we have been embarrassingly bad year after year. For 3 seasons under Granato we either met or exceeded reasonable expectations, based on the roster, every year. Ruff was a terrible mistake. He has had precisely the opposite impact that he was brought in to provide.

Every player on the team needs to be better. But they are as sloppy and unstructured as any Sabre team I have seen. They are playing to a 73 point pace and trending down. This is going to get very ugly.

Two sloppy plays, a turnover, Power lets his guy come right to the front of the net for a backdoor tap in, and…UPL? Good Lord.

Maybe I wasn't clear. Greenway typically fails to meet fan expectations for a player of his size and physical capabilities. He is expected to be tough and physical, and a willing combatant. It just isn't in his nature to bring that every night.

Probably. But Ruff changes lines frequently. It might click for a game or two and if it doesn’t he will change them again.

I’ve always had a soft spot for players like Greenway. Big guys who can handle themselves in a fight and who are therefore expected to engage, but who clearly don’t have fighting in their nature. I would bet that there are days where Greenway has levels of anxiety that most of us have not experienced. Knowing there is an expectation that tonight you will fight another team’s toughest player, when that is just not part of your natural make-up, can’t be a great way to go through your day. At his best Greenway is a low-end Jochen Hecht. If he is in the top 6 and he is healthy, engaged, and playing well, he can let a couple of offensive line-mates cook. Ruff’s track record for over a decade now, clearly demonstrates that he is in the lower end of current NHL head coaches. Of all the issues with Ruff’s coaching, this doesn’t register for me.

Will Adams ever address the media again as Sabre GM? What could he possibly say?

Agreed. Adams often paints himself in a corner. I’m certain his biggest fear is that the goalie he moves goes on to thrive in another environment, while the two he keeps play to middling results. Also, unless he can clear Ellis through waivers, they are one injury away from Levi having to come up, and from the American’s season being turned over to a couple of rookies.

No. The last thing the Sabres need is an older dinosaur than Ruff.

I don't have an opinion on a sale. Unless we know who Pegula is selling to, it's impossible to say if it would be good or bad. The bolded part of your post fairly describes my view. I really don't care whether the GM of the Sabres calls Pegula to tell him he has traded Jokiharju for a 3rd. I suspect there are successful teams in major league sports where the GM and owner have that sort of relationship. Some people read it as Adams needing permission to trade Jokiharju for a 3rd, where I see it as Pegula likes that part of being an owner and wants to be informed. I think there are some restraints on Adams that make it harder for him to do his job than other GMs, but I reject that the restraints leave the Sabre GM (Adams or whomever) with an insurmountable task. The Sabres are spending this year, they have a lot of good assets. Adams has failed because he is not a good GM, not because it is impossible to be a good GM with Pegula as the owner. The hiring of Ruff is an example I would use. It would not surprise me if that was Pegula's idea. Whether it was Pegula's or Adams's idea though, is besides the point to me. The real failure goes back to the prior off-season when Adams failed to give Granato the roster changes needed to take a 91 point team that missed by a point, into the playoffs. Had Adams done his job a year earlier, we don't get to the point where they are considering bringing back Lindy Ruff. Even if they had still missed the playoffs and fired Granato, a GM who understood the need to do more to improve the roster in the summer of 2023, is smart enough to not recommend Lindy Ruff as HC, or savvy enough to steer Pegula in another direction. The right GM will stack enough good decisions that he will neuter Pegula's worst impulses. Of course, that still leaves Pegula to hire the right GM...so there's that.

I understand the frustration with ownership. GMs and coaches are replaced all of the time in pro-sports, and fan dissatisfaction can even play a role in such changes. Ownership is different though, and changes at that level are comparatively quite rare. I think once I get to the point of thinking it is hopeless with Pegula as the owner, it will be time for me to take a break from following the team closely. I will always be a fan, but the Sabres are probably one more bad GM/HC hire away from that being the case. So, ownership aside, in the long-term the Sabres need a new GM and HC. While I have opinions on who the candidates for those roles should be, the reality is that when that time comes it is most likely that the new GM and HC will not be people with histories of overwhelming success. It will be people with histories of middling success (Jarmo), or a relative newcomer. I have no faith that Pegula will make the right decision, but any change will give me at least momentary hope, if only because the current GM/HC combination, based on their track records, could not realistically be worse. In the short-term, if the Sabres were a real NHL team and did not start the season with a lame-duck GM, replacing Ruff would be a no-brainer. The single thing that the Sabres could do that would potentially reverse their fortunes this season, is replace Ruff. It happens in the NHL all the time and it is often the case that such a move has at least a short-term positive impact. We should ask ourselves why Granato was fired and Ruff was hired. The rationale laid out by Adams was that the team was needing (craving) structure and accountability. The clear implication, though Adams has always been reluctant to plainly state it, was that it was time to win and Ruff was the guy who could take the team to the next step. Ruff has failed across the board. No structure. No accountability. They win less than they did under Granato. Replacing Ruff mid-season would guarantee nothing, but staying with him seems pointless. Lastly, a prediction. If Adams is fired or promoted at year-end (and I'm not certain that will be the case), the new GM will be Jarmo and the HC will be Pascal Vincent.

I think you are right, though UPL’s hold on the role still seems precarious. Arbitrary lines in the schedule can always be drawn to support that one player is currently playing better than others. In UPL’s case, there is a legit argument, I think, for drawing a line after the Toronto game, which was his first NHL game of the year, coming off an injury and brief rehab stint. He was not good in that game. Since then he has a 2.31 GAA, a .907 save%, has saved 1.54 goals over expected, and has a 4-3 record. That’s pretty similar to what he was in 2023-24. Obviously a small sample though. If UPL can be the starter and provide that over 40 of our remaining games, we might slowly crawl back in it. I think he’s the best of some not great options, only because he at least did it once before and fairly recently.

It’s always a little dubious to blame poor development for a player failing to thrive. There is just no way to know how the player would have turned out on a different development path. In Levi’s case, though it is certainly too soon to write him off as a prospect, he has not been helped by the development path that Adams has put him on. It’s incredible that Adams is still an NHL GM.

The Flyers are a team with a need for a goalie, and cap space.

Hockey is the most random of the major league sports (baseball is close). On any given night a team can get "goalied", or they can score a month's worth of lucky-bounce goals. The best teams have a base, a system, a structure, an ethos, to fall back on, that in the long-haul of a season allows them to overcome the randomness of individual shifts, periods, and games. The Sabres do not have that, and there is little reason to think or hope they are about to, because having it starts with off-ice leadership (owner, GM, coach).

I hope as a fan that I never get to the point where I’m so enamoured by a GM’s work that I would defend their every move, even when they make an obvious mistake on a player transaction. I hope the opposite is also true. I think we fans are generally too quick to want to declare winners and losers in trades. Given the ages of these players, there is a long way to go on judging this one. I was not thrilled with the trade at the time, mostly because I thought, and still think, Adams backed himself into a corner and was reacting to a negative situation of his own creation, rather than proactively making a trade to make the team better. I would not reverse the trade today though. Right now, as with the McLeod and Byram deals, I am pleased with the trade on the micro-level, but it has not proven to be very impactful on the macro-level.

https://www.nhl.com/sabres/video/kevyn-adams-4-19-23-343685944 This is Adams's season ender in 2023. Start just before the 7 minute mark. Adams makes clear that ending the drought, making the playoffs, success in the short-term, is at best a corporate stretch-target. It was the beginning of the end for Adams. The future is on hold until there is a new GM.