Archie Lee

Indications are they want a centre. I think they would want Thompson or Cozens as piece #1 (Thompson obviously worth more than Cozens).

I thought Ken Holland had retired, but he apparently is working for the NHL now. Maybe he would be interested in a POHO role. Doesn’t fit with Pegula’s hiring history though.

I always think of who Pegula replaced Regier with. In the earliest days of Regier’s tenure, he moved on from two very popular Sabre figures. The first was Ted Nolan, an immensely popular coach with (most of) the players and the fanbase, who had just won coach of the year. New to the GM role and having no history with Nolan, Regier offered a one year extension. Nolan felt betrayed and left. Ruff was brought in. I think this turned out well for the franchise, but Regier was seen as the villain by some. A few months later, Regier traded legend and fan favourite Pat Lafontaine. Lafontaine had health issues. Whether the Sabre organization and Regier were worried about the bottom-line or Lafontaine’s health is a reasonable debate I suppose, but in the end Lafontaine wanted to keep playing and the Sabres didn’t want the risk and so he was dealt to the Rangers. Lafontaine would not play beyond that season. Again, Regier was the villain to some. That cold-hearted image stuck with Regier, to some degree, through his tenure as Sabre GM. Fast forward to Regier’s firing. Who does the newish owner and long-time Sabre fan who got weepy when meeting his Sabre heroes, replace Regier with? Pat Lafontaine. And who did Lafontaine bring in to coach? Ted Nolan. It wasn’t enough for Pegula to just replace Regier, he had to symbolically poke him in the eye. If Pegula realized this, and I think he clearly did, then consider that his priority in hiring a replacement was not the most qualified person but rather a past-Sabre-hero who also symbolically represented the opposite of Regier. If Pegula was oblivious to all of this, then it draws into question his real-world social intellect. When Pegula hired Adams, I thought the best we could hope for was a happy accident. Through late 22-23, it looked like we might have gotten lucky. Today, it is clear that we have not.

Agreed. My Eastern model is the Caps and my West model is the Stars. When I look at their rosters I am convinced that a good GM, supported by a committed owner, could remake our roster in one offseason (and not dramatically) to the point where it could be a playoff team. I do think a change in coaching would also be needed. I’m not saying it would be finger-snapping easy, but it would be very doable. I don’t think it is in the cards though. The plan here is to wait on our youngest roster players to catch up to Thompson, Tuch, and Dahlin, and then to support them further with the next wave from Rochester and/or the 18 year old who we draft 6th OA and who wows everyone in camp. It seems almost as though Adams is afraid to try to win as once he fails while actually trying, then there are no more excuses.

I could be wrong, but I think that’s the point. We are wasting these talents by not surrounding them with better and more experienced players. I don’t think there is a mystery here. The team in general is far too young and inexperienced to have playoff expectations placed on them. When things got tougher and there was some adversity, we crumbled. If you are expecting to make the playoffs, your roster can’t be half made up of players who have not reached their prime. Also, I don’t think there are too many NHL teams that have more than 2 players that other teams “fear”. I think two is plenty (a little tough guy fear would be a good addition though). It looks to me like we have transitioned back to “trust the process”, “stick with the long-range plan”, “don’t over react and make a rash trade” mode. I do think that in time that philosophy may work. There is a combination of players on the team and coming up that can get into the playoffs. The two issues with this ultra-patient philosophy are: 1.) There is no need to wait. The resources existed to get there this year. There have been no better years to be a team trying to end a long playoff drought, than the last two seasons and this one in the NHL East; and 2.) We have turned losing into our trademark and culture, and we are openly accepting this. It is obvious the negative impact this has on our players. Somebody needs to break the cycle. It is highly doubtful that the GM who has overseen the longest stretch of this drought and who has miscalculated so greatly on this year’s roster, is going to be the person who leads us out of it

I agree that Power will be very good. He is already good at many things and is, in my view, already a net positive. If we trade Power (or any of our young players) for picks and prospects, as we did O’Reilly, Eichel, Reinhart, then we will again be kicking the can down the road and likely watching him go on to thrive with another team. Any trade needs to be for players who can help now. Vegas has traded multiple 1st rd picks and top prospects, including Nick Suzuki, in their short existence. It’s understood if you trade a pick or prospect, that they may go on to be very good elsewhere.

To make the playoffs would require the Sabres to be one of the league’s best teams from here out. If they do that (and to be clear, they won’t), they would go into the playoffs playing the sort of hockey that allows for a deep playoff run. You are right, good teams don’t lose 13 in a row. But bad teams don’t have 58 points in 42 games, either. If they make the playoffs (and they are not going to), it would only be because they stopped being bad and started being very good.

To put it in further perspective, they would basically need to have a 2nd half equivalent to the 1st half that Washington, currently in 1st place, had (56 points). And that probably wouldn’t do it.

Great post. My preferred parings since the off-season have been: Dahlin/Power Byram/Clifton Sammuelsson/Jokiharju For the life of me I don't see how this is worse that what Dallas puts on the ice: Heiskanen/Lyubushkin Harley/Dumba Lindell/Lundkvist Goaltending, forward experience, coaching are the factors I guess. Our D-corps is still too young, but they should be better than they have performed.

They are out of the picture. It's not happening. I'm not falling for it in any way. But (heaven help me), they don't need to win 10 in a row. Montreal is currently in WC2; they are 2 games below DeLuca .500. Pittsburgh is in WC3; they are 7 games below DeLuca .500. Ottawa sits at DeLuca .500. We are 11 games below DeLuca .500. It is possible that DeLuca .500 gets you in this year. The Sabres need to win 26 of their last 41 to get to DeLuca .500. With 3-4 OTL's, that's a 110 point pace. At the end of 22-23, I could have bought that the Sabres were on verge of being a team that could do that. Right now, I say that there is a near zero chance. Anyway, my point is you don't need to get there by winning 10 in a row over 3 weeks. You can get there by picking up 9-10 points every 7 games. Again though, there is no reason to think they will do this. It perhaps highlights though, how very shameful it is that Adams has done nothing to try to improve the team since July.

I thought the Sabres played an excellent game against a good veteran team. Giving up the lead late, was a bit of a “seen this act before” moment, but in the context of a more normal season, I don’t think it was a big deal; it didn’t feel anything like the Avalanche blown leads. The Sabres were feisty and went hard to the net. The Caps, in my view, do not have top-end talent. What they are though is a well constructed veteran team that plays a solid system and doesn’t panic.

We disagree on this. Thanks for the good discussion though. Regardless of what McLeod is or isn’t, our GM needed to do more. Starting the year with a top 6 forward group, a six-man D corps, and a goalie tandem, with an average age under 24, in a must make the playoffs season, has had disastrous results. If we assume Adams was sincere in believing this group, with Ruff as HC, was a playoff calibre team, then it is fair to say that he could not have more significantly misjudged the winning potential of the group that he assembled. In the real world of major league sports, GMs simply do not keep their jobs under such circumstances. Adams isn’t Barry Trotz, who is trying to squeeze another year or two out of an aging Predator roster backed by an all-world goalie. Adams is in year 5 as GM and year 4 of a rebuild and the team that he has assembled has backslid in devastating fashion.

It happens. The 74-75 Capitals somehow won 8 games. The 76-77 Canadians somehow lost 8. I would rather be a 1st place team that scuffled against a basement dweller than the opposite.

McLeod is as advertised. A fast, defensively responsible, middle-6 C. He can take a draw, kill a penalty, and chip in offensively. He will leave you wishing he was more physical and that he was a better finisher, but he is not those things. At 25, he can be a useful player for us for a long time. Extending him should not prove too costly. Given the depth of our prospect pool and our immediate needs, Savoie will need to become a very good NHL winger for this to be a bad trade, in my view. We needed 2-3 more acquisitions of this level (different positions and skill sets) in the off-season. If that had occurred we would not be in this mess; we would not be a sure playoff team either, but we would be in the mix instead of out of it by Christmas.

Ruff is quite the Cuck, letting Adams walk all over him.

Maybe. I doubt that Adams is telling Ruff who to play, though. I think Ruff just tinkers, sometimes to the point of detriment. McLeod and Tuch make a solid pairing in my view. With a scoring winger like Peterka, I think they can be a good two-way 2nd line. McLeod is not a conventional 2C, and wouldn’t be if we had actual centres, but I think we could survive him playing there. Petterson at centre with Thompson and Zucker could be a good line 1.

Always good to win. You can see glimpses of what they can be. McLeod elevated in the line-up helped I think. Not sure why he was ever demoted. I thought Joker looked good with Samuelsson. Not sure what the advanced stats say on that. I don’t think Lafferty or Aubé-Kubel saw the ice in the 3rd, as we went to 3 lines with Kulich out. I don’t mean to be negative, but when the 4th line changes were touted in the off-season, i don’t think any of us imagined they would be stapled to the bench in the 3rd with a one goal lead.

A few things. 1.) I didn’t argue against our draft strategy, I am arguing against our post-draft strategy. 2.) We will need to agree to disagree on how well Marjala, Sardarian, Miedema, and Richard are performing. By no means am I predicting an NHL future for any of them. I just want them to not be totally lost in the shuffle because we have no room. 3.) I am not saying we should trade any of our top prospects to make space for our long-shot prospects. I am saying we should trade some of our top prospects (and a couple of our youngest NHL players) for veteran NHL players who can help us win now, or next year. The secondary benefit would be the creation of some space to make room for some of our lesser prospects who are currently afterthoughts. 4.) I don’t call Miedema an overager for one reason: he is not an overager. There are several CHL players drafted ahead of him in his draft year who he is outperforming stat-wise, including 18th OA Colby Barlow. Regardless, it isn’t my intent to pound the table for Miedema.

A reminder that just 20 months ago an aged Capitals team finished 11 points behind the Sabres in the standings. They then went out and did an actual search for a head coach and selected the best young assistant they could identify. Then they went about revamping their line-up by adding veterans through trade and free agency (Dubois, Chychrun, Mangiapane, Vrana, Roy, Thompson). Today they sit on top the NHL East standings. In the same time we strengthened the blue line by adding Johnson and Clifton, made a lateral trade for a redundant piece (Mitts for Byram), did not do an actual search for a new head coach, and shuffled the deck chairs on our 4th line. Today we sit on the bottom of the NHL East standings. Tune in to see what an actual NHL team, run by people who care and are qualified, looks like.

You missed the part where I said I largely agree with you. I was just trying to provide some nuance to the discussion. I'm not arguing against a BPA strategy, but rather that the Sabres would be better to move some of these players before their value diminishes to nothing. The urgency for moving some of these players is made greater, in my opinion, by so many being of similar (not identical) skillsets. I'm also not arguing that any of the secondary prospects are going to hit, but rather that none of them will hit with us if there is no place for them to develop with us. Several of them are performing at a better-than-could-be-hoped-for level given their draft position. Also, Meidema is not an overage (defined as a 20 year old by the CHL). He is in his 19 year old season and has the same birth year of Benson and Wahlberg. Finally, I thought you agreed that it was time to move off of some prospects.

I largely agree. When you consider though that they already had Tuch, Thompson, Mittelstadt, and Cozens in the NHL and that they had already used high picks on Quinn, Peterka, Rosen, Poltapov, and Kisakov, the logic starts to breakdown. Obviously not all picks are going to hit, but if you are using that many top picks on skilled forwards, at some point you need to move some of them to fill roster holes. Adams would argue, I’m sure, that he has done this with the Byram and McLeod trades (I’m fine with the value in each case, but still don’t like the logic on the Mittelstadt deal). He has not begun to scratch the surface though of the deals he needs to make. In my opinion, 3-4 of the forwards we drafted in rounds 1-2 after 2019, need to be dealt to fill existing roster holes. We are 1-2 years late on this actually. Such trades would also create some oxygen for our later rd picks like Sardarian, Marjala, Neuchev, Richard, and Miedema, all who are thriving but are mere afterthoughts. Better to risk trading a kid who goes on to be a star, than to let 7-8 rot on the vine.

There may be a natural date in this season for a change. The Sabres play their last game before the Four Nations on Feb 8. The Super Bowl is the next day. If things don’t improve before then, perhaps that week is a natural point for a change. I think Pegula will be preoccupied with the Bills for a bit. Hopefully through Feb 9th.

At the start of the year, the Atlantic ranked the league's top 150 players. Pettersson was in tier-two, 23red overall, as a "Franchise" player. Defined as: "Someone who is the best player on a contending team or second best on a championship-caliber team. An unquestionably elite player." Power and Cozens were in tier 5, "Support" players. They were both top 150 in the league, defined as "Someone who would offer strong support to a contending or championship core, but who wouldn’t be an integral piece within it. A below average first-line forward or a strong No. 2 defenseman". Dahlin and Thompson were in tier 3. Byram was not in the top 150 I think that these rankings were the Athletic staff's view of these players as they currently are, and not projections of what they will be when they reach their true prime. Later, in November they published trade tiers where they ranked the league's top 100 players by trade value. Pettersson was 38th. Power, Cozens, Thompson were 57, 58 and 69 respectively. Dahlin was 17th. Byram was not listed. Sorry if this was a waste of time. I don't know what it means re: your question. I don't think there is a team that's going to swap a different top 30 player for Pettersson. If you are trading a player regarded that highly, you are getting pieces that you hope will equal or better the singular piece you are giving up.

I will add, if we have an internal cap and will continue to (and all indications are we do and will), then I'm not sure it makes sense to dedicate $11 million each in cap space to two players. It is possible to work with an internal cap and be successful. It might be difficult to do if we are spreading the available money even thinner.

Still shows the sway Ruff has over some, including Harrington. The Sabres are on pace to drop from 84 to 68 points. Yes the roster is not good enough (it is more too young and inexperienced than lacking talent, but that is another topic). The team has regressed across the board under Ruff. He will get a pass from many though and the players and Adams will get most of the blame (Pegula/Adams should get almost all of the blame).