Archie Lee

Peterka is going to a team that, per MoneyPuck, finished 5th in the NHL at expected goals, 6th in Corsi, and 6th in Fenwick, all 5v5. Kesserling and Doan are coming to a team that finished 6th last in expected goals, 16th in Corsi, and 15th in Fenwick. Kesserling and Doan both had excellent Corsi and Fenwick %'s last year, but they played on a team where nearly every player did. They are coming to a team, where more than 1/2 the roster were below 50% in these metrics. Logic suggests there are factors in these metrics that go well beyond the capabilities of individual players.

It was never going to be the case that the Sabres were going to trade Peterka and get the better player in the deal. Teams interested in Peterka were going to be teams trying to get better who were offering pieces that, to them, were expendable and redundant. I'm not saying Kesserling and Doan are bad players, but they aren't what we need to take the step towards being a playoff team this year. Kesserling, who I assume is seen as the long sought after partner for Owen Power, is 25 years old and has played 156 NHL regular season games and no playoff games. Bernard-Docker is the only d-man on our current NHL roster, who has played fewer NHL games. I expect a similar trade with Byram in the next 48 hours. And when that is done, the Sabres will, in the blink of an eye, have gone from being a team that looked like it might be up against the cap after signing their RFAs, to being a team that can easily come in around $88 million, give or take a million.

I would have to look back too. But, I thought he was just giving his opinion on what they might or should do.

I don't understand the desire to add Dobson. After a Byram trade the Sabres will still have Dahlin and Power making a combine $19.35 million. I don't think they need to add a $10 million right shot D and spend an even greater % of the cap on puck-moving d-men? No winning team in the NHL is built that way. Looking at Utah's roster and trying to be realistic, I'm hoping for Peterka and an add (hopefully not # 9), for #4 and a R-shot-D.

Fair to say Peterka has asked for a trade. I mean, if he hadn’t asked for a trade then the easiest thing in the world would have been for Adams to say “no, he hasn’t”. I imagine if Adams had been asked if Dahlin has asked for a trade, that he would not have given a word-salad reply, but would have shot it down with at least the level of conviction that he shot down the notion of a Samuelsson buyout. So this is where we are at. Year 5 of the Adams rebuild, which is based on the cultural concept of players wanting to be here, and at the top of the pre-draft trade board is a 23 year old Sabre, largely viewed in league circles as a future star, who has asked to be moved.

Over time, a leader’s predominant personality traits will come to be seen in the light of their level of success. Adams has had no success. None. So, his patient approach (“Teams are calling and it’s my job to listen. We are open to anything, but we are only going to make a move if it makes us better”), just comes across as passive and weak. I mean, does he ever make a call? Or do teams just call him? Does he ever aggressively pursue a player to improve the team? Or does he just wait for teams to call him about his players and see if they offer something that makes sense? At one point in the presser, when speaking of adding Eric Staal, Adams said (I’m paraphrasing) that he has ALWAYS thought it was important to have someone on staff who was recently in the game. He has ALWAYS thought this. So, logically he added such a person in year 6. I don’t doubt that Adams makes calls to other teams. But, he presents as a man who feels no sense of urgency and who has no clear and specific plan to make the team dramatically better. The last two seasons, you could actually see how that general sense of complacency (We will get there when we get there), has seeped into the personality of the roster. It’s simply bizarre that a man of Pegula’s wealth and stature continues to entrust the Sabres’s fortunes to Adams.

At one point the Sabres had Turgeon, Andreychuk, Housley, and Barrasso on the same team. Oldest Housley at 24. Barrasso was traded and Mogilny joined the next year. All are Hall of Famers. I’m not taking anything away from the accomplishments of these men. Great hockey players all. At least 4 cup rings in there. A part of me thinks more patience was needed. But I honestly don’t think they would have sniffed a cup together in Buffalo.

I think you are right and it is unlikely we get "the best player in the deal". I mean, Byram and Peterka are near the top of pretty much any published "trade board". There is one player whose name has frequently come up as possibly available, who I would say is better than Peterka or Byram, and that's Jason Robertson. Some people would put Dobson in there, and I wouldn't strenuously argue against it, but I'm not fully convinced on that one. How can we get the better player in a deal, when we are the team that is apparently trading two potential star players, aged 24 and 23, that 1/2 of the league covets? Peterka and Byram are almost certainly going to be "the better player in the deal". I recognize that some folks may be sick of rants about how bad of a GM Kevyn Adams is. But, it really is impossible to overstate how ridiculous of a situation the Sabres are in. 14 years out of the playoffs and 4.5 years into a rebuild being run by a 1st time GM. Back to back years of regression during this rebuild with mountains of unused cap space. The GM's stated primary reasons for not using the cap space is that he did not want to pay the high draft/prospect cost of acquisition, and he did not want to create a scenario where he could not extend his up and coming players due to not having sufficient future cap space. And, here we are, with a 24 year old and a 23 year old who much of the rest of the league wants, and who may want out of Buffalo, and whose projected salaries at the higher end would put us right at or possibly over the cap, and we never had the benefit of winning before we had to make tough roster/cap decisions. It's incredible...in the worst way.

It really does seem like there is a top 8 of Schaefer, Misa, Frondell, Desnoyers, Martone, Hagens, O’Brien, and Martin. As usual, I have not seen much of these guys and most of what I know is just from reading scouting reports and watching some highlight videos. McKenzie’s final rankings really do align with what the building consensus seems to be for the top 8. O’Brien is perhaps the most likely to be available at 9. Re: Roger McQueen at 9; I’m not thrilled that the line between “too risky to take” and “too talented to pass on” seems to be forming right where we pick. If we do end up with McQueen, I will quickly find reason to focus on all the things I like about him. I generally root hard for Sabre players and prospects. I just would prefer we not use a top 10 on someone who might have chronic health issues. The kid who is not considered a top 10 who I’ve become enamoured with, is Cole Reschny. He has a lot of what have come to be considered, a bit unfairly, classic Sabre forward prospect traits (specifically, he isn’t big). But if we somehow end up with Vancouver’s pick at #15, or #18 via Calgary, I would be thrilled to get Reschny.

Evan Rodriguez had 32 points in 82 games. He played most of the year in Florida’s top 6. Edmonton’s 5th and 6th highest scoring forwards had 30 points. Carolina’s 5 and 6th highest scoring forwards had 39 and 36 points respectively. I wouldn’t want Benson/Kulich/Quinn as line 2, but Benson with Norris/Thompson or McLeod/Tuch, could be very effective lines.

My big issue with acquiring Dobson is that he is going to get paid around $10 million per year based on having a 70 point season where he played a role he won’t play here. Dahlin is going to play PP1. I can maybe squint hard enough for it to make sense if we traded both Byram and Power. I don’t really see the point of acquiring a R-shot version of Power if we are keeping Power.

The Wild, unfortunately, would not.

Yep. If anyone wants to torture themselves, here is the press conference to announce the Granato firing. At around the 11:00 minute mark Adams is asked, by Yerdon I think, if he could have done more to give Granato a better roster to work with. Adams points out that he does not have a crystal ball and did not know Jack Quinn would get a 2nd injury. I mean, what can the guy do without the benefit of a supernatural tool to help him plan for the season?

Well, if true, I could not have been more wrong on that.

Samuelsson's 2 most common partners, by a lot, were Dahlin and Power. And, unless I'm recalling incorrectly, he ended the season back with Dahlin (Byram with Clifton, Power with Bernard-Docker). I don't think Samuelsson is going anywhere. This might be a hot-take, but I think there are many head coaches in the league, and a few who are currently unemployed, who would look at a 6 man D of Dahlin, Byram, Power, Samuelsson, Clifton, and B-Docker, and view them as more than good enough to be in the playoffs with. Contend with? No. But wild-card and make some playoff noise? I apologize to all if my comments on Ruff are getting repetitive and boring, but he was a huge mistake.

Lyubushkin is not a top-4 d-man. We agree. The real point is that it is a myth that teams, even elite teams, have rosters that perfectly align with our preconceived notions of what a top-4 d-man is, or a top-6 forward, or, in some cases, a #1 goalie. Teams make the playoffs, finish high in the standings, go on deep playoff runs, every year, with players like Lyubushkin in their top-4-D or Evan Rodriguez in their top-6-forwards. We missed the playoffs by one point two seasons ago with a bottom pairing of Lyubushkin and Jacob Bryson (with Riley Stillman and Kale Clague in the mix), and a 2nd line of Cozens and rookie wingers Quinn and Peterka, and a goalie by committee situation. As fans, we, generally, seem to approach roster building from the perspective of acquiring our 4-7 D and our 9-13 forwards, with the goal of making up for glaring shortcomings, such as: below NHL-average-level-coaching, or overpaid youngsters (Power, Cozens, Samuelsson) being forced to play roles they are not ready for. If the Dallas Stars can finish 5th overall with Thomas Harley and Lyubushkin as their 2nd pair, then we should be able to compete for a WC spot with Power and Lyubushkin, or Byram and Clifton, as our 2nd pair.

I think a reasonable, if very unexciting, option to pair with Power is a guy who we had recently for a year and probably should have kept: Lyubushkin. I've long thought Dallas was the team we should emulate. Dallas's top 4-D this year, up until the Heiskanen injury, was Heiskanen, Harley, Lindell, and Lyubushkin. Except for Lyubushkin, all are lefties. I think that Harley is a close comp to Power. Harley is 23, had 50 points this year, with 33 hits and 110 blocked shots. Power is 22, had 40 points, 26 hits and 109 blocked shots. Harley played mostly with Lyubushkin 5v5, but Dallas would mix-up their top 4 based on game situation. Also, isn't Lindell a facsimile of what we want Samuelsson to be? And every Sabre fan knows that Dahlin is better than Heiskanen. Lyubushkin has 2 years left on his deal at $3.25. The Athletic ran an article today on 9 overpaid players who could be traded (OK, this is perhaps working against my argument). Here is what they wrote on Lyubushkin: "Ilya Lyubushkin was competent for the Stars this past season — he was nowhere near the liability that Matt Dumba was — but his $3.25 million cap hit is a tad pricey for what he offers. Lyubushkin is a steady stay-at-home defenseman with limited puck skills. He’d be solid on any team’s bottom pair, but clearly isn’t the answer for the Stars in the top four." Now, Lyubushkin was good enough to play in Dallas's top 4 all year, and not prevent Dallas from being a top regular season NHL team. Do you want him in your top 4 when you are contending for the Cup? No, but we can worry about that when we get there. My argument is basically this: I know we want a couple of new D-men, preferably R shot, to play with Dahlin and Power. And we want them to fit the billing (hey, I would like Dobson and Weegar too). But I look at the conference final teams this year and I see the following d-men in the top 4 for minutes played in the regular season (pre-trade deadline): Mikkola, Kulikov, Kulak, Gotsebehere, Lyubushkin. These are mostly guys who have been available for peanuts in recent years. Lyubushkin would not be my first choice, but we could and have done worse. And we could get him for next to nothing probably. Maybe even as an add-in that slightly lowers the cost on Robertson.

I agree with this. Maybe I'm missing something about Dobson's game, but isn't he a right-shot hybrid of Byram and Power? Or is he closer to a Bouchard level talent? In a perfect world, at least one of Dahlin, Byram, or Power would be a right shot. But all of them can play the right side. Of all the redundancies in their games, handedness seems like the least of them. At this point I'm 95% certain that Byram is gone. I would bet (not a lot) that we open the season with Samuelsson and Dahlin as pair #1 and that a new veteran is brought in to play with Power. Rasmus Andersson makes sense, if the Sabres aren't on his no-trade list, which is only 6 teams; maybe he hates palm-trees. The 3rd pair will be a combo of Clifton, B-Docker, Bryson, and Johnson, and it would not shock me if we re-signed Gilbert.

I think there has been an obvious concerted effort by most pro-sports teams to homogenize the game-day experience so that a typical fan can say they had a good time, regardless of the outcome. Teams want you buying merch and $12 popcorn and $14 beers. And at the last TV timeout they want to run a promotion and to then play the latest pop-hit and show people in the crowd smiling and dancing, regardless of the score. I don’t live near an NHL city. In the last couple of years I saw a game in Edmonton and in Calgary. Night and day experiences (in part because of the actual teams on the ice). The Oiler game was a complete and non-stop assault on one’s senses. Not a moment of time between whistles that was not filled with a fan promotion or loud music and shots of happy fans on the video screens. You could not have a meaningful discussion with the person beside you. The Flames game was more sedate. Still a lot of promotions and music, but toned down a bit. The crowd seemed a little older. For a single game experience, the Oiler game was a ton of fun, but I don’t think I would enjoy it 40 times a year. The Flames game was more to my liking and seemed like fan engagement in the game would be a bit more organic, if the team was actually good. Anyway, back to the initial post. The Oilers are certainly committed to winning. No team does up the game day stuff more than Vegas. If there is a connection between the game day experience and a commitment to winning, then I think that the more a franchise commits to the game day experience probably also reflects a greater commitment to the on ice product, rather than the other way around. If they are cheaping-out on one, they are more likely to be cheaping-out on the other.

Maybe they will shed enough cap to keep him. But they likely traded for Rantanen as they think he is a more dynamic player. Rantanen has 123 points in 99 playoff games and has extended at $12 million per season. Robertson has 44 points in 56 career playoff games and will demand $10 plus per year.

I acknowledge a degree of hypocrisy on this. As a long-time attendee of Major Junior Hockey in Canada, I admit that a fight still pulls me to the edge of my seat. But, I have become increasingly uncomfortable with teenagers fighting for the entertainment of others. When I watch a junior hockey fight, I now typically think that there are at least 10 responsible adults present (the refs, coaches and athletic trainers), and it is mystifying to me that they are collectively not committed to stopping the fight, and more often are to some degree encouraging it. It's time. Get rid of it.

What are you referring to? His half-season as an interim head coach in pre-McDavid Edm? Or his career minor league winning % of .600, with 5 championships?

I would take Nelson as our HC. Also, he would have been a great add to our coaching staff as an assitant. He would have been a natural to replace Ruff as head coach at Thanksgiving (if things don't do well).

I stand by my view that Benson should have gone back to junior for at least one and probably two years. My reasoning has almost nothing to do with Benson and almost everything to do with my view that Benson making the team two years ago was, for me, the beginning signs that Adams was in way over his head. That said, I love Benson. When I look at our current roster, I see him on the wing with Norris and Thompson. A healthy Norris is kind of a veteran Kulich: a shoot-first, defensively responsible, two way centre. Thompson is an elite scorer who is also a good playmaker, and who has improved his defensive game. Benson is a very good defensive player with a growing offensive game and some elite playmaking skills. He is also a rat who will drag Norris and Thompson into the fight on January nights in random NHL cities. I think they can realistically combine for 75-90 goals and rarely get dominated by top lines. The big question mark on this line is not Benson (or Thompson).

The Athletic ran a story today on the Stars and trading Robertson. A lot to chew on, but my summary is: - his next contract likely pays him $10.5-11 million per over 7-8 years - given his young age and the increasing cap, it will likely be worth it - lots of teams will, and should, be interested - there’s lots to like in his game, but also a few red flags: what impact does playing with Hintz have on his game? and, the reason he is available might be because his playoff performances over the years have not been great and the Stars may have decided they need more (ie: Rantanen)