Archie Lee

Kuemper is the big UFA goalie prize this off-season. He was pretty average, at best, in the playoffs, but whoever gets him is getting a true top 10 NHL goalie in my view. After Kuemper, the next big 3 are Husso, Fleury and Campbell. Husso was awful two years ago. Fleury was objectively bad last year and Campbell had a good 1st half to last season and a poor 2nd half. It will not be shocking if Reimer is as good or better than any of Campbell, Husso and Fleury this coming season. The Sabres could and likely will do worse than James Reimer.

Nobody said it was or thinks it is the Sabres’ draft board.

If that is the Sabres list then we are getting Savoie or Kulich at 9 (don’t see Slav, Wright, Cooley or Nemec dropping to 9) and likely one of the guys in 6-10 range (Kulich to Trikozov) at 16. With the Sabres having the 3 first rounders and with them being so spread out, I’ve really focused on the prospects largely projected to go top 40. Unless we go off the board (possible) we will get 4 guys who have garnered a lot of attention. Maybe it is just because our draft position this year has caused me to dig deeper, but there are few combinations for our top 4 picks that I think I would be disappointed in.

It is not lost on Adams, I'm sure, that the two teams in the Cup Finals, widely considered to be the best run teams in the league, were built through the draft. The key trade acquisitions were either young when acquired (Sergachev, Cernak in Tampa; Girard, Compher in Colorado) or were not acquired until the team was clearly ready to compete (McDonagh in Tampa; Kadri, Toews, Kuemper in Colorado). Acquiring top UFAs means overpaying, even for good franchises in desirable locations. Our path will be through the draft, nurturing our own young players and then eventually needing to trade assets for pieces that are missing.

I understand why, for some, everyday that the Sabres are not a playoff team will be viewed in the context of 11 years of losing, failure and mismanagement. This is completely understandable. We all have different outlooks and viewpoints and it is not unreasonable for a fan who invests time, money and emotion into a pro-sports team to expect that the primary goal of each season is to win. For others, it is is easier (maybe even necessary from an emotional point of view) to separate what is currently happening from prior years of futility. Adams can't undo what happened in the previous decade; all he can do is take the resources available and use them to try and build the team that he envisions. Adams has really only been fully in charge of the team's direction since they fired Krueger; thus far, acknowledging that he isn't batting 1.000%, the team has steadily moved in the right direction. I agree with you that the reasonable conclusion from the Bishop trade is that the Sabres have no intention to acquire contracts that take us much higher than the cap floor. Where I differ from you is that I don't see this as a bad thing. Acquiring higher-priced veteran contracts can only be done at the expense of giving up young and valuable assets through trades or through singing UFAs who might block younger players and/or cause cap issues in the longer term. Adams is clearly not prepared at this point to do these things. Although the plan may take longer to show results than I would like, it does seem sound. My perception is that we are no longer the league laughing stock when it comes to team management, with Chicago and Philadelphia having taken over the role. I'm going to wait and judge the results.

I agree with your overall sentiment, but it is too early to say that the Rosen selection didn't work or, for that matter, that the Quinn one did.

I think this is a good reminder that some teams, and quite possibly the Sabres, will have internal rankings that are very different than any so called consensus or consolidated ranking. My tendency is to watch the draft and hope a highly ranked player falls to us (ie: Rossi). What is at least as likely is the Sabres will think highly of a lower ranked player and we will be initially perturbed by who we select.

I think there is a near 0% chance the Sabres trade for Kane this off-season. A trade for a player with Kane’s pedigree raises the fan expectation level for immediate success far beyond what the current regime has interest in. All indications are that the organization is in the stage of wanting expectations to grow organically as the team’s young players get better. A Kane acquisition this summer changes the dynamics in ways that the hierarchy has no desire for.

I don't want to be too pessimistic, but I'm not certain that the Sabres will be in the market for any mid-higher-priced UFA's like Campbell or Subban, let alone Fleury. The Bishop trade could be Adams getting the jump on a low dollar-high cap contract of an injured player because he knows he is going to need at least two of them. If we assume the following: - that Quinn, Peterka, Fitzgerald and Luukkonen are all on the 23 man roster to start the year; and - that Olofsson and Bryson are back on reasonable contracts (under $6.5 million combined); and - that Bjork is not being waived (I know people want this, but there is no real reason to think it will happen) then that only leaves 3 roster spots: one goalie and two skaters. Those positions could be filled, for example, by Campbell, Subban and Trocheck for a total of $16 million. That would put us well above the cap floor. But those positions could also be filled by Anderson, Pysyk and Hinostroza, who, with modest raises, would still come in well under $4 million. Adams plan is likely something between those two extremes, but if it ends up being the latter, we will need another Boychuk/Bishop-like contract to get to the floor.

I'm not saying you are wrong, because I don't know what happened. I have gone back and read the articles/columns from free agency and Ullmark's departure though, and I don't find any that state the bolded. I did find one article from the Buffalo News that indicated Ullmark wanted 6x6 to stay in Buffalo, which perhaps suggests the Bruins matched the Sabres offer and that Ullmark attempted to leverage this to get more out of the Sabres. Regardless, my larger point is that there has been no definitive account in the media of what the Sabres offered Ullmark and whether it came before or after Boston's offer. With that in mind, I contend that it is at least as likely that the Bruins matched the Sabres's offer as the other way around.

I have no inside knowledge so would not say that the bolded is incorrect. But, I think it is at least as likely that the Sabres gave their best offer in advance of free agency and that Boston then matched this. In this scenario, Ullmark's agent then asked Adams if the Sabres would increase their offer to beat Boston's. Adams said no to this as they had set their value at 4x5 and were not going to go 5 years or increase the AAV. Personally, I would have gone 5x5 for Ullmark, but I don't think I have seen anything that confirms Adams was caught trying to save some cash. I think he just placed a value mark on Ullmark and was not going higher.

I'm 95% with you on Ullmark. While I would not label him a top 10 NHL goalie, the reality is there are less than 10 current NHL goalies who have shown they are consistently year over year better than he is. A year after Ullmark left the Sabres there is no prospect goalie knocking on the door. Ullmark was not blocking anyone. He would have capably filled a 1A or 1B or 2A role (take your pick from year to year) for a not ridiculous amount of money for 1/2 a decade. That said, where I differ slightly is on the bolded above. I don't think I can conclude, yet, that the loss of Ullmark is plaguing the team. For one, not having Ullmark had minimal impact on the Sabres a year ago. Sure they may have better weathered a few mid-season periods where the losses were mounting, but at best they might have been a 78-82 point team with him playing 50 games. With him we would still have been way out of the playoff picture and still picking 9-11 in the draft. On a go forward basis, well we just don't know what will happen yet. I'm on record as saying I think we will be very fortunate to find as good a goalie as Ullmark for similar $$$ (and I don't think we will even try to do so); but we don't know how this will play out just yet.

Chicago fell apart as a contender when Toews and Kane received their big extensions after their 3rd cup win in 2015. They went from making $6.3 each per year to $10.5 and with that any hope of retaining the sort of quality depth that is needed to truly contend went out the window. They still had a couple of years where they performed very well in the season (5th overall in 15/16 and 3rd overall in 16/17) but then the bottom fell-out. By giving Matthews and Marner max AAV immediately after their entry level deals expired, the Leafs skipped over the 2-3 year window where they could have been top of the list cup contenders. Instead they went directly to the part where they scramble year after year to add critical roster pieces on the cheap.

I think this is correct, though I saw a mock on nhl.com yesterday that had Jiricek falling to us (the other dude in the mock draft had us getting Savoie). This is a draft where I would not be shocked if the guy we take at 9 is a guy I was thinking of for 16. Basically after the big 5 that you mention there is a group of 20-25 players I would be fine with getting 3 of. Based on the Quinn and Rosen picks, we may be likely to take players who rank a little lower in the consolidated rankings than where we are picking.

Yeah, the focus is largely on the teams what missed the playoffs as possible destinations for Trotz. There are teams in the playoffs that could make a change too. If the Leafs lose rd 1 he could be a candidate there. Dallas seems ready made for Trotz if this is it for Bowness.

I think that looks good. The only part that I don’t think is semi-reasonable is the Fleury signing.

Comrie is intriguing. He is younger and less experienced, so perhaps a higher risk as you may not know for certain what you are getting. The flip-side is that uncertainty means he might be your long-term answer. I like that we have 3 good young goalie prospects whose rights currently belong to us; but none of the 3 have done anything in my view to warrant the organization taking a position of not wanting to "box them out". I don't disagree with Adams' philosophy of keeping a lane open for the kids, particularly as it applies to Cozens, Krebs, Quinn, Peterka, Power and Samuelsson. But none of our goaltending prospects are in a position where we can say with confidence that they are going to be a good NHL goalie, for the Sabres, in the near future. I'm not advocating anything rash like a trade for Gibson or Binnington, but I also don't see that we currently have any goalies to box-out. We have a kid in Rochester who has struggled to be consistent at that AHL level and to stay healthy and two college prospects who have yet to commit. Our goaltending prospects are good and I'm glad we have them and I'm not about to panic because Luukkonen has yet to take the next step or because Portillo and Levi have not signed. We have no goalie prospects that we can be sure to count on at the NHL level anytime soon though.

I think you are correct, though I absolutely think Boston wanted Lazar. They could just as easily have taken back Riley Sheahan or Tobias Reider, both of whom were on league minimum deals that were expiring. Lazar had another year at $800k. The Bruins had a good idea that he would be a good fit for them in a bottom six role. Lazar is a UFA. We could do worse than to have him as our 4th line centre next year. Also, I don't hate that we took back Bjork. Lazar is a better player and we came out on the wrong end, but Bjork probably did have a higher ceiling that was worth exploring.

This seems a bit premature. There are 3 teams in the playoffs currently forced into using their 3rd string goalies. All 3 have had good moments, but lots of goalies will look good for a game or two. A few years ago Carey Price was injured and a young Dustin Tokarski went in and stole the show for a bit. Kochetkov and Ingram are interesting goalie prospects, but one strong playoff game from each is perhaps not yet an indication that their respective franchises have goaltending factories. What those franchises do though, particularly Carolina, is identify a weakness and address it.

I will own up to that. I thought it was wrong for a team that was weak in goal to trade a young goalie for such a slight return. In reality the Sabres staff knew far better than me what they had in Johansson. I was wrong on this one.

I agree with you. The frustrating part is that the only cost to retain Ullmark was the value of his contract. To obtain an Ullmark-level goalie this off-season will cost assets (prospects / picks). It is unlikely we get an Ullmark-level goalie in free agency.

I mostly agree on Ullmark. I thought last year that the bar was set with the Demko contract. I would have given Ullmark 5 x 5 or 5 x 5.25 and been happy to lock up 1/2 of a 1A/1B tandem for the next half decade. I recognize though that Ullmark has had durability issues and has yet to show he can be an effective 50+ game starter and playoff performer. Also, I do understand that a GM needs to set a value on a player and stick to it. Adams and his front-office team likely valued Ullmark at closer to 3 x 5 or 4 x 4.5. With that in mind I appreciate that you can't always give a player a bit more than what you value them at; overpaying players is not a path to get a franchise to a position where they no longer need to do so. I personally think Adams undervalued Ullmark and that it was a mistake to let him go. There will likely come a time where we really have no choice but to make such a commitment to a goalie whose #'s are not better than Ullmark's. That said, I respect that Adams stuck to his position on where he valued the player.

I agree with the central point you are making. The Sabres have a gap to close between them and the playoff teams in the Eastern Conference. It will not be easy to close that gap and much will need to go right in order for the Sabres to become contenders for a playoff position. I also agree that we have the cap space, and prospect/draft capital, to narrow the gap. I think it can be done without giving away too much of the future. That said, I think there are some flaws in the evidence you are using to support your conclusion. First, it's a good thing that all 9 regulation losses were against playoff teams. Getting to the playoffs is as much about separating yourself from the bottom tiers of the league as it is about joining the top tier. It is very much a good thing that we did not lose a game in regulation against a non-playoff team in March and April. Second, as mjd1001 has pointed out, it is not as though we feasted entirely on non-playoff teams over the past two months. 8 of our 16 wins came against Toronto (3 times), Minnesota, Calgary, Pittsburgh, Nashville, and Carolina. I would add that two additional wins were against Vegas and Vancouver, teams that were feverishly trying to get into playoff contention. The Sabres had a tougher than average schedule in the last two months and played at a 102-103 point pace. While that is not a clear indication we are now playoff bound, it's definitely a good thing. Finally, I think there is a flaw in isolating that we were outscored by 32 goals (45-13) in our last 9 regulation losses. In hockey, too much is sometimes read into a 5-0 or 6-1 loss. They play 82 of these and even good teams will have several games over the course of a year that just get away from them. Regulation losses in hockey, even for good teams, often turn lopsided. For comparison, Toronto's negative goal differential over their last 9 regulation losses is -30. Calgary's is -25. Washington's is -27. Edmonton's -25. Nashville's -29. Dallas -26. Los Angelas -29. Those are all playoff teams. None of those are quite as bad as the Sabres's -32, but if you take any team's last 9 regulation losses, the negative goal differential will likely be bad.

I rarely make a point of strongly disagreeing with a post as we are all just offering opinions here. Your view of Ullmark is just wrong though. We will be incredibly fortunate if we find a goalie this off-season who comes close to posting a .917 save % (as Ullmark has done the past two years) or a .913 save % as Ullmark has done over his career. If we do get someone that good who is around Ullmark’s age, or if one of our prospects turns out to be that good, then locking that player up long-term at around $5 million per year should be a priority. Having a good goalie like Ullmark locked up long term does not prevent a team from finding and developing a Shesterkin. These can occur independently.

Eichel wasn’t “the” problem here and he isn’t “the” problem in Vegas. What the Sabres had wrong and what the Knights now have wrong is the belief that Eichel was/is “the” solution. He isn’t. When fully healthy he is really good. What he isn’t is a generational talent who will lift a moribund franchise out of the darkness. What he isn’t Is an elite “top-five centre in the world” who is the missing piece for a championship team. It’s unfortunate for him that he keeps being casted in roles he is not suited for.