Archie Lee

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

A win tonight and they have stopped the bleeding, and positioned themselves to stay in the race if they can just have a stretch of modest, DeLuca .500 level play.

I largely agree. But, the Sabres could also get a head coach and staff that do a better job of putting their players in a position to be successful.

I've been a UPL supporter, but even I don't think it is possible to be "taken to the cleaners" on a UPL trade right now. The combination of his play over the past 12 months and his contract mean if you could move him for future considerations you are getting out of what currently looks like a bad contract. Of course, UPL could find his game on another team with a better coaching staff and D structure. Samuelsson's contract looked bad 2 months ago.

Just some added context. Per Dobber lines, at 5v5 Byram has played 104 minutes this year with Dahlin and Power 28. Byram has played 6 minutes with Bryson and Power 23.

I was hoping we would put in a claim for Stecher. Right shot, 31 year old veteran, D, makes under $800k, has been a stabilizer for some young players, including Power at the World’s back before Power was drafted. Hard to imagine he would not have been a better depth piece than Geertsen, who despite the Sabres having catastrophic levels of man-games lost, can’t get into a game.

There is still lots on this team to be excited about from a player talent standpoint. Thompson played at a level we don’t quite see enough, but I think we got a sense of what playoff-Thompson would look like. I also really liked the way Ellis battled in net, Kozak with the painful shot block, Krebs running over Sandin-Pelika, McLeod’s speed, Sammuelsson, ot heroics aside, looks like a player well worth his contract. At the risk of being unnecessarily negative after a rare positive performance and outcome, all the same issues were present and led to the 4-1 deficit. It wasn’t structure or system or coach-imposed accountability, that dug them out of the 3 goal deficit. The players clearly still have pride and some commitment to one another. I think there is a team here that could get on a roll, with the right couple of changes.

I recall reading that Lehner was grateful for the support Botterill showed, even after Lehner was no longer with the Sabres.

With so many real things to be critical of Sabre management for, I guess I just struggle with finding reasons to be critical of the things they got right. I mean, we want them to consider the opinions of their development staff, right?

There is lots to be critical of Sabres management for. But, Zach Benson was a top 10 ranked pick. He was on every team’s radar. I’m sure the Sabres got some extra looks with Savoie being on the same team, but it was completely consistent with their draft history under Adams for them to take Benson where they did.

I agree that changes, even big player changes, should be on the table. Maybe I quoted the wrong part of your post and should have included where you stated you are "ready for another multi-year teardown run by a new front office". I understand that some fans enjoy the rebuild process (I can get behind a good rebuild), but I can't imagine selling it to the larger fanbase at this point.

I’m with you up until “Entire roster up for auction”. Just my opinion, but it would be some kind of next level negligent mismanagement to “blow-up” a team that is the 2nd youngest in the NHL by age, and the least experienced by games played. If that happens, the NHL should immediately confiscate the keys to the franchise from Pegula. I get your larger point though. I enjoyed watching, for the most part, the 2021-2022 Sabres, who finished with 75 points. That was Granato’s first full year. There were definitely some very rough spots through that season, but generally they were a young developing team that played with energy and heart and with some genuine joy for the game. That is long gone. But we don’t need blow-up the roster, we need to bring in a new GM and Head Coach who start stacking competent moves on top of competent moves (some player movement will be part of that, of course). The energy, heart, and joy will follow, once you have people in charge doing things right.

Interesting to me, to see Dave Hakstol (two-time NHL HC, with 3 playoff seasons) as an assistant behind the Colorado bench. Hakstol did not coach last year after being fired by the Kraken. The Avalanche, coming off a one hundred point season, decided to upgrade their coaching staff. It’s not any one thing and it certainly isn’t the players in general. It’s the cumulative effect of dozens of poor decisions and choices that put the Sabres where they are. Competence is the only path out.

Leone also said last year that he believes winning and development go together. I'm paraphrasing, but essentially he expressed the idea that the best environment for developing players is one where they are winning. When he said it, I was a little taken aback as it seemed (much like this comment on Levi) to not exactly be the company line.

To me it says business as usual. Why would the GM be watching the AHL team if he thought his job was in jeopardy? Seems like he still has his eyes on the future. I’m not endorsing Adams, but I don’t see this as a sign of incoming changes.

I think last night was a microcosmic example of what it has been like to play goal on a Lindy Ruff coached team for the last 10-11 years of his time as a HC. You can only hold the team in for so long. Eventually the breakdowns and lack of structure will wear the goalie down. That Ruff was brought in to bring structure and accountability to the on-ice portion of the organization, is clear evidence that Pegula/Adams do not know what they are doing.

On a somewhat related note, the league average save % so far this season is .896. The Sabres goalies are at .908, so they are greatly outperforming league average (thanks mostly to Lyon). Despite this, the Sabres are currently playing to a 76 point pace and are last in the East. The Bruins are 10-7 with a team save % of .893. So, go figure. Also, since Lindy Ruff left Buffalo, in his 9 seasons as a head coach prior to this year, his goalies out-performed league average in save % on only one occasion, that was 22/23 when the Devils had a great year and Ruff was a coach of the year nominee. They under-performed league average in all other years, most of them dramatically; his teams have been bottom 3 league-wide in 5 of those 8 seasons. This perhaps is meaningless. But, I would probably bet on our goaltending performance getting worse as this season continues, which is a bit frightening considering where we already are in the standings.

Lehner out-performed the league average in save %, by around .0075 in his first two seasons. In the 3rd season when he was at .908, league average was .912. That was year one of Housley and the season that caused O'Reilly to lose his love of the game, so I'll cut Lehner some slack. UPL's good season was similar to Lehner's two good years. In 23-24 UPL outplayed the league average save % by .007 (.910 to .0903). I'm beginning to lose patience with UPL. It doesn't surprise me though that Adams, who has struggled to nail down goaltending over now 6 seasons, and who is so indecisive that he has 7 goalies in the system who are playing pro-hockey in North America with 6 of them being under contract beyond this season, is not anxious to move on from the goalie he gave a big contract to. Something needs to give though. Ratzlaff and Leinonen need playing time and would both ideally be in the AHL next season. Frankly, the goaltending situation is a microcosm of the larger roster. I was looking at PuckPedia earlier today and I defy anyone to look at the players we hold the rights to beyond this season (under contract or pending RFA) and try to sort out what might even resemble an actual plan. Ray Ferrero still said it best a year or so ago (not quite a direct quote at this point): The Sabres are just a collection of stuff.