Archie Lee

Also not saying you are wrong, but I take it you have inside sources on the Leinonen, Benson, McLeod things? Who was Forton’s choice instead of Benson?

I wholly agree. The question is, how does Adams address this? Upgrading the top 9 doesn’t just mean bringing in better players, it also means moving players out. If we wait on Cozens, Benson, Quinn, Peterka, and Kulich, we are likely at least one more year out of the playoffs; the negativity surrounding the franchise will only grow. And there is no guarantee they reach the level we need them at. If we opt to trade some of them, then we are dealing diminished assets (only Peterka, maybe Kulich, has held or increased his trade value from draft day, in my view).

I say this every year. While it is true that trades can happen through most of the calendar year, there are two periods where there is the most opportunity to make change and improvement. Those two periods are the trade deadline and the draft-UFA window. If you are a team that needs to make changes to improve and you go through either period without doing so, then it is a lost opportunity. With the signing of Greenway, the Sabres have nine forwards who we would pencil in as top-9 players: Thompson, Peterka, Kulich, Tuch, Cozens, Quinn, Benson, McLeod, and Greenway. This doesn’t account for re-signing Zucker, or for the promotion of Rosen. It also doesn’t account for the near universal view that the Sabres need to upgrade their top 6. Some of these players could be 4th liners, but it would not be a good allocation of money to have Greenway or an extended McLeod on line 4. Benson on line 4 more permanently, would be infuriating. Quinn is not made for 4th line play. If we are going to improve our forwards, one or two have to go. This was true last off-season and it is true today. The alternative is to wait on something that may or may not ever happen (see this year’s “2nd line” of Cozens, Quinn, and to a lesser degree, Benson). One of the two big windows for change and improvement, closes tomorrow. Sadly, I’m not expecting much.

No. UPL needs to be better. Ruff isn’t at fault for UPL letting in bad goals. He is though, a coach whose system appears to be hard on goalies. I could be wrong. What’s your explanation for all of these goalies having their games collapse under Ruff? Coincidence?

You can't overlook or overestimate the negative impact that Lindy Ruff has on goalies. Since Ruff left Buffalo the first time, every high-profile goalie that has played for him as a Head Coach, has seen their save % tank by year two, if not year one. Lehtonen, Niemi, Blackwood, Vanicek, and now UPL. You could put Levi in that category too I guess, as his #'s are way down as a Sabre this year. Lindy Ruff is not a good NHL coach at this stage of his career.

I have now crossed the line and am hoping we move Zucker, Greenway, and Jokiharju for whatever we can get. I am at the point where I have zero faith in Adams. I think he and Ruff will be back for one more year and that it will be a disaster. A new GM is going to have to pick up the pieces, likely starting in 14 months. It is better for that GM to have whatever flexibility additional draft picks, prospects, and cap space, will give them.

Adams fired a popular coach, preached accountability, spoke about the importance of taking the next step, and then promptly ran a sham head coach search that was solely intended to lead to the hiring of Ruff, the one veteran coach who, because of his history with the franchise, Adams and Pegula knew would accept a two year deal and would be open to keeping the existing assistants. I’m sure our players saw this for what it was: a farce. Then we went into this make or break year with the youngest roster in the league. Then, Adams would not stop talking about how he is trying to make a big trade, letting the players know they are not good enough. Then, when things got rough during the steak, the owner tells the team that there won’t be any big trades. Frankly, our players deserve medals for what they put up with.

Yeah, that was 2 years after his draft. Misa is having an incredible year.

In his draft year, Savoie had 90 points in 65 games (35g, 55a).

I'm looking forward to Friday. Not because I expect us to do anything meaningful before the deadline, but because we will get a glimpse into the general outlook of the organization and those who cover it for a living. It won't be pretty either way. I assume Adams will be made available for questions. If not, that will be more telling than anything. If so, what is his demeanor? To what extent is the non-state-run prepared to hold his feet to the fire? Will Adams be willing to engage them honestly? Somebody needs to ask Adams how he can reconcile the expectations for this season with the outcome, and what he has to say to fans who can't fathom that he will be brought back for a 6th season. I'm not expecting any great revelation in his answers. But the questions need to be asked in order to establish the obvious: it is absurd that there is even a remote possibility that he will return as GM.

Yes we need a different mix of players, but the players as individuals (one or two maybe being the exception) ARE NHL players. Ruff is terrible. .475 winning % since he left Buffalo the first time. 6 of 9 years out of the playoffs. He has this team on pace to finish with fewer points than Granato got out of a team that included Hayton, Butcher, Tokarski, and Bjork.

Why would any team help us by taking one of the 5 worst full-time forwards in the NHL, with 5 years left at $7.1 million per, off of our hands?

Honestly, if I had my choice between Adams and Ruff staying on and making roster changes (trades, free agency signings, etc) or Karmanos taking over and hiring a new HC and coaching staff and running back the same roster, I would take the latter. I have more faith in the players than I have in Adams and Ruff at this point.

My best guess is it is up after next season. I think that Granato's extension and Ruff's 2-yr deal were both coordinated to end at the same time as Adams's deal. So, I think Adams, Ruff, and Granato are all are up after 25-26. I highly doubt Pegula has any interest in paying two GMs and 3 HCs at the same time. Adams and Ruff will get one more year.

It is incredible. We have positioned ourselves as a last place team, that can’t sell in a seller’s market. We can’t sell because we are supposed to be in win now mode, yet we are one of the league’s worst teams. We can’t sell because player after player leaves here and excels, so we can’t even trust our own evaluations of our own players. And, simultaneously we are loaded with young players and prospects and picks, but are paralyzed and can’t or won’t buy. It is impossible to imagine a circumstance that more obviously screams for a change at the top of the hockey management team.

Cozens can’t trade or bench himself. He can’t move himself to the wing. I’m not letting him off the hook for his failure to improve his game, but he has not been put in a position to succeed. If he is as bad as you have concluded (and at this point, I am not keen to disagree), then we will be fortunate if we can dump his contract. I doubt Adams would have the courage to do this.

I’ll just repeat other people’s points. There is a bit of mythology around what makes a 1st line winger. Most teams don’t have a Kucherov or Pasternak or Rantanen. As there are 32 teams in the NHL, there are, technically I guess, around 64 wingers with 1st line assignments. Tuch, in what has been a pretty workman-like, par for the course, type year, is around the 40th highest scoring winger in the NHL. He has played much of the year without a true top-6 center. He is good on the PK. He’s a leader. He is wanted around the league because of his speed, size, skill, smarts. He is a legit 1st line talent in my view. If the Sabres trade Cozens for futures, I could squint my eyes and vaguely imagine a scenario where in the off-season we utilize the saved cap space and the assets acquired to improve the team immediately. If we trade Tuch for futures, we are again just kicking the can down the road.

It is going to be something. It is unfathomable that Pegula, and any of the small number of people around him who might have influence at this time (his kids, Guelli, Bettman), would find trotting Adams out for a trade deadline or season-ending press conference, anything but horrifying. It is not just that this season has not met expectations or that we came up a bit short; we have been lapped by Montreal, Columbus, Detroit, and Ottawa. Adams is no longer building something, he is squandering. It is not possible to have a worse outcome to a season relative to expectations. The organization will retain zero credibility, if Adams returns in his present role.

Hutson wanted the puck on the boards. Kulich did not.

And yet, many do.

I may not fully understand how salary retention works, but I assume it is as straight forward as it sounds. Per Puckpedia, Zucker received a $1,000,000.00 signing bonus and his base salary is $4,000,000.00. The Sabres will have played 61 games as of Mar 6. If Zucker is traded on the deadline, he will be owed approximately $1,025,000.00 for the rest of the season. 50% retention would be just over $500k. If the owner won't fork-out $500k to get a 2nd rd pick instead of a 3rd, that says a lot re: what we can hope for from this organization.

All of those things are true. But they are 7th overall and we are 29th. There is a lot that Adams could have done differently and better to bridge that gap half-way. I'm not a religious person, but I heard a phrase yesterday that I think applies to Adams: "God blesses you with good-luck and then curses you by making you think you are smart." Adams was blessed by one of the largest single strokes of luck that an NHL GM has had in the past 5 years; that was Tage Thompson going from a guy who looked like he might be a bust to being one of the most dynamic offensive players in hockey. That single stroke of luck, more than anything else, bumped us from last over-all in 20-21, to being a team on the rise in 21-22, to being a young team that missed the playoffs by a point in 22-23. And Adams convinced himself that it was because he was making smart, progressive, moves, and that all he had to do was stay the course. He needed to understand, or needed somebody with more experience to explain to him, that expecting the next youngster to hit like Thompson, is not a plan.

Looking back at the losing streak, the Adams press conference was after game 4 I think. It was a low point among many low points for the franchise. I am certain that having your GM come out and say that the team’s environment is so bad (losing, geography, financial opportunity) that he can’t get good players to agree to join the team, had to be demoralizing. This was a factor in the streak lasting as long as it did, in my view. Years ago, another team that I follow in a different sport, was in a similar position of being a league doormat for years. They do not play in a destination city. They somehow convinced a veteran coach with a winning track record to take the vacant HC position. When he was asked why he took a seemingly thankless job in an undesirable location, he stated: “I’m a coach, not a tourist.” That’s what I would like a Sabre veteran to say. It would have no credibility coming from Adams. I want a player to say “I signed here because it’s a great place to live. I want to play where the game matters. I can get all the palm trees and sunshine I want in the off-season and when my career is over. If you don’t want to come here, FU. I’m sick of this loser mentality”. It’s going to take someone to stand up and change the culture. Adams had his chance.

We don’t need to trade anyone. But, just for the sake of discussion, let’s say we run it back with only minor changes: Ryan Johnson and Levi replace UFA’s Jokiharju and Reimer; Gilbert and Bryson are replaced by replacement level low cost d-men. Then lets give conservative contracts to Zucker, Greenway, and our RFA’s (Peterka, Quinn, McLeod, Byram, Levi). I can’t get that version of the team under $92 million (and that is bridging Peterka). So, if we are going to make meaningful changes, some players have to go. And not just Jokiharju, Reimer, Gilbert, and Bryson. Somebody with a bigger contract or somebody expecting a bigger contract (or multiple players in those categories) has to be on the way out, or there will be no money to bring anyone in. And that’s not even considering the possibility that there will be an internal cap well below the cap ceiling. The more I consider it, getting what we can for Zucker, Greenway, and Jokiharju and then resetting in the off-season might make the most sense. I just have no faith in Adams when it comes to the reset.

I think there is a lot of that. There will be legit contenders who will have similar games in Carolina before the season is out. Actually, Carolina has been scuffling lately before this game. In the small picture, it’s just a loss in an 82 game season. The problem with the Sabres though, is that it can be real difficult to not see any loss or setback in the context of 14 years out of the playoffs. It is why it is so important to end that streak. It is why it has been an enormous error by our owner and GM to not make ending the streak a maximum and ultimate priority. Losing will always negatively impact a culture. Winning is the answer.