Archie Lee

Beyond absurd. Of course he was. The point is to make the playoffs.

Well, I would put Dahlin, Cozens, UPL and Levi (if he is on the team) in there as well. I know you think Dahlin and Cozens are long-since graduated from this group based on experience, but I think part of this is are they ready to be the players who lead a group that is this young. Dahlin and Cozens are without question ready to play important roles on contending NHL teams, but I'm not convinced they are ready to have the pressure of being the go-to, most important players and leaders on a team that is made up of so many players less talented, less experienced and less mature than they are. The Sabres won't be asking Dahlin and Cozens to do the same as Dallas asks of Heiskanen and Hintz or as Colorado asks of Makar and Mittelstadt. We will be asking a lot more. I'm not trying to be a smart Alec with this, but I take it then that you see us as a playoff team?

Not to narrow a top 6 acquisition to the 3 players I referenced. I use them as examples only because they are all a year from UFA and their teams might not have cap space (Vancouver) or might be looking to get younger (Philadelphia) or cheaper (Winnipeg). Boeser had 40 goals and 73 points last year. Konecny 33/68. Ehlers 25/61. Benson 11/30. Benson would need to take an enormous leap in production for such a trade, in the short-term, to be deemed treading water.

I think it is one thing to have a couple of young players in the line-up who have reached the 200 game mark (give or take), and to look at those kids and say: no more excuses. I think it is quite another thing to have 6-8 such kids in your line-up.

You're right. If we traded something else for a top-6 winger, Quinn or Benson would just be bumped to line 3. But what if the barrier to a top-6 upgrade is that the team we are dealing with wants Benson or Quinn. So the cost of Ehlers, Konecny or Boeser is Benson. Should we do that? Would you do that? My answer is a qualified yes. I would trade Benson for any of those players, if we were able to get them extended first.

Doesn't some of that need to come from Thompson, Tuch and Cozens. They combined for 114 in 22-23 and then dropped to 69 last year. If they don't at least split the difference and combine for 90 this year, I don't see a path to the playoffs.

At present, I would say that four of the top-6 forward positions are filled by Thompson, Tuch, Cozens and Peterka. The remaining two wings will likely be filled by two of Quinn, Benson and Zucker. For the most part, fans seem to see Quinn as nearly a lock for one of the remaining spots, leaving Zucker or Benson for the last spot depending on preference for talent or experience. Long-shots would be Greenway, if Ruff opts to balance lines with a defensive presence, and Kulich, if he has a great camp. Regardless of the above, if we were to acquire a legit top-6 forward, it pushes at least one of Quinn or Benson to line 3 (along with Zucker). The question then is, if we really could use a top-6 upgrade, and that upgrade would mean that either Quinn or Benson (along with Zucker) would move to line 3, and considering the improved bottom 6 depth, and considering that we have a boatload of forward prospects (one or two of whom might be ready for at least a middle-six role as soon as this season), then should we trade Quinn or Benson for the top-6 upgrade?

It is not that simple in my view. You are certainly correct that as individuals, all of our young NHL players could play roles on playoff teams. Byram and McLeod fit in our young player group by age. Combined they have over 80 games of playoff experience. Dahlin, Power, Cozens, even Krebs in my view, could trade places with such players and play as important, or more important, of a role on contending teams. The question doesn’t relate to the individual though. It’s about the collective. As a team, have we reached a critical mass of talent, experience, and maturity, to reasonably be projected as a playoff team? The clear answer is: No. I’m not making excuses for our owner or GM. Mostly I am just a little disappointed that we are again going to go into a season where, for success, so much needs to go right that has not consistently gone right before. We have certainly earned our position of being projected to be bad until we are good.

Of the last 10 players we acquired by trade or free agency (starting with Greenway) who are still on the roster and are likely to be regulars in their roles, 9 have played playoff games in the NHL. 269 combined. Many as recent as last season in the precise roles we are assigning to them. I’ve included Reimer as back-up to UPL and Gilbert as a 7-8 D in this (only Reimer and Zucker are 30 or older). The only other player we have who has been in the playoffs, is Tuch. The average age of the projected remaining players is under 23. That young group makes up most of our top 6 forwards and our top 4D and of course our starting goalie. The oldest to start the year will be Thompson at 26. We remain incredibly young and inexperienced at key positions. If we don’t make the playoffs this year, it is not likely going to be because the bottom of our lineup wasn’t good enough, relative to a typical NHL team.

The value might be fine, but I don’t like what it does from a roster construction standpoint. Farabee seems like more of what we have, and maybe not as good. Krebs gives us a 5th NHL centre. If we trade Krebs without bringing in a vet centre, we are an injury away from scrambling. A healthy Krebs starting the year as our 13th forward provides good depth and flexibility. Better is better, I realize. I’m not sure Farabee makes us so much better in the top 6 that it warrants the depth hit to the bottom 6. Full disclosure though, I haven’t watched Farabee a lot.

Hmmm. Never said Cozens wasn’t good or that Quinn and Benson were bad and certainly never said anyone was dragging anyone else around the ice. I did say our young-not-yet-fully-formed 2nd line centre has played the majority of the last two years with also very young-not-yet-fully-formed wingers. I think it stands to reason that he (and the wingers in question for that matter, but the topic was Cozens) would have benefited from playing with talented more experienced players. There are not a lot of playoff teams featuring 2nd lines with an average age of 20 or 21.

One winger who doesn't get mentioned as a trade option but who might fit the description for us is Boeser. Young still, one year from UFA, no trade protection. Acquisition and extension costs would be big.

Lost a little bit in the Cozens analysis is that the two players he has played by far the most with the last two seasons are Peterka and Quinn and last year when Quinn was out it was Benson. Meaning our sub-23 year old 2nd line centre spent most of the last two seasons playing with 3 players younger than him, none of whom has come close yet to reaching the player that they are projected to be. Cozens doesn't get to play with Tuch. I'm not worried about Cozens. I am worried that he will get Quinn and Benson as his wingers this year. I like both, but Cozens is ready to take the next step I think and I'm not sure Quinn and Benson are quite in that category yet (one of them sure, but both is asking a lot). Maybe it will be Zucker on one of the wings. Not sure that is a great option either. I think it if were up to me I would put Benson with Tuch and Thompson and reunite Cozens with Peterka and Quinn.

For some context, he is headed into D+5. The 3 players we brought in to play on our 4th this season (Malenstyn, Lafferty and Aube-Kubel), reached the NHL as regulars in D+7. Obviously that doesn't mean Tullio is on the same path, but perhaps he is a future bottom 6 or 4th line player for us.

I think arrogance and naivety can be mistaken for one another, much like shyness and aloofness. I think that sometimes when a person is new to something and has early success, they can be fooled into thinking the success was because it was them and because they are smart and good at this thing, whatever it is. They assume that what they do next will have the same level of success because they haven't really experienced the sort of failure that causes self-reflection. I know that some people will say that Adams never had any success and so how could he think this way, but I wouldn't agree with that. I think he started a rebuild and within 2 years had a team that was among the highest scoring in the league, was exciting and fun to watch , and that only missed by a point. In the eyes of most (not all) people, he had the team headed in the right direction. I think he was naive in thinking there was no need to consider any course correction and that he is a year late in getting to it.

I’m not sure. I think 2018 and 2019 are considered average draft classes. Krebs with 66 points is 16th in scoring in the 2019 class. McLeod with 75 points is 17th from the year earlier. That’s not a scientific evaluation, but if I would bet Krebs will have more than 75 points when this year is over.

Some re-draft thoughts re: McLeod and Savoie. McLeod went 40th in 2018. He is 17th in games played and points from that class. If 2018 was redrafted he is most definitely a 1st rd pick, maybe top 25. Savoie went 9th. I think his injury history and his failure to rise to the occasion on the biggest stages since (underwhelming performances in the World Juniors and Mem Cup) have lowered his stock. He’s still a first rounder on redraft, but might go late teens or maybe low 20’s I’ve seen some twitter stuff about the Oilers getting a 9th oa for a 40th oa. This is quite misleading, though Savoie still has the much higher ceiling if he hits. Also, a player who is linked to this trade by the impact it has on his roster position is Krebs. He was 17th in the 2019 draft he is 6th in GP and 16th in points in the class. Way too soon to call him a bust, though perhaps not too soon to say he isn’t likely to hit as high as what we hoped when considering he was a centre-piece of the Eichel trade.

Well, that's why I included the sentence re: the intent of the question. I'm not interested in being the "semantics cop" on this, but I don't consider McLeod to be a 2/3C.

I agree with this. And, what makes it frustrating to me (and what some might interpret as arrogance) is that had Adams acted to address the structural imbalance and forward depth last off-season, it would not have required him to disrupt or dramatically alter the script/roadmap. If we had made the equivalent moves last off-season, we still would have been one of the league's youngest teams (younger actually) and kept one of the top 3-5 prospect pools, as remains the case on both points at the moment.

If the initial intent of the questions were not to be specific about a top 6 forward or a 2/3C, but rather to just ask "will Adams do anything else?", then I guess the no's were wrong. But, looking at the actual question ("Will Adams add a 2/3C...?"), I would say that the "no's" were correct. Adams did not add a 2/3C, he added a 3/4C. Also, a lot of (most of?) McLeod's offensive production last year came when he was playing wing on a line with Draisatl. Barring a quite significant and unexpected surge offensively, McLeod is closer to a 4C or bottom-6 winger, who can play-up if needed, than he is to a 2C. My opinion, on reflection, is that depending on who thrives in camp and how the season goes, we could see our current bottom-6 level centres (McLeod, Krebs and Lafferty), move up and down the line-up and from centre to wing based on need. That is a bit of an obvious statement. But it wouldn't surprise me if McLeod was targeted as much with that in mind (roster flexibility), as it was with the idea of him being cemented as our 3C. On the topic of whether we will add a top 6 forward, my answer on this is still "no". I acknowledge that I could be completely off-base, but until proven otherwise I think the evidence supports we are operating under an internal cap of around 90% of the cap ceiling. We were one of the lowest spending teams each of the last 3 seasons and coming out of the biggest spending period of the off-season we are still one of the lowest spending teams. Based on UPL opting for arbitration, I think it is clear that the Sabres are not offering anything like a 5x5, which is not an unreasonable position for them to take, but I think shows we are not throwing around money. I suspect our 3 RFA's will come in under $7 million total and that will take us to around $80 million. I maintain that Zucker was a Canada Day pivot when it became clear an Ehlers deal was not going to get done; had we made the Ehlers deal we would not have signed Zucker. Of course, I could be very wrong.

I don't doubt this and am not of the view that Ruff has no input into the roster build that is occurring. There is a pretty clear narrative forming though, that if this is successful the credit will go to Ruff and if it fails the blame will go to Adams.

I’m sceptical. Indications seem to be that these moves have been analytics driven (speed, speed, speed). I’m not saying Ruff hasn’t had input, but I don’t see these as Ruff moves. Put another way, if these roster moves fail, I doubt many will be blaming Ruff.

I don’t think it is necessary to poke holes in Savoie’s game and progress to be good with this trade. We have a lot of prospects and can’t play them all. We have a need for a bottom six centre who can win draws and kill penalties and we got one who is young and can fly and has playoff experience. If Savoie turns into a stud, the trade is still easily justified. Also, I have no idea what this means for Krebs, but provided he is not traded I don’t think this automatically relegates him to the 4th line or bench. I think Krebs’s upside is being way undersold. We aren’t getting through the year with 12 forwards. If he is here, he will be an important part of what we do.

I can’t say I have ever viewed a player opting for arbitration as a negative as it relates to team’s reputation.

Very happy with this trade. Likely slots Krebs to line 4 and now we have 13 NHL forwards. Not earth shattering, but a solid move.