Archie Lee

I assume it is the Ullmark addition that has people high on a big jump for Ottawa. I don't think Perron, Amadio and Jenson (less Chychrun), is more impressive than what we did with our forward group. I like Ullmark. I don't like Travis Green all that much.

There is an argument that the Sabres should have been in on Monahan. It isn’t being cute though to point out that the major difference between the Monahan and Zucker deals is not the $500K in AAV but the 4 extra years of term. In my view, you have it backwards and it is being cute to ignore the term and focus on the AAV.

In fairness, I do think his hands are tied. When asked over the past 2-3 months about the unused cap space, he has said things like “I don’t think about the cap” or “I don’t worry about spending to the cap”, as though this is his choice. The one time a reporter pressed a little on this at a year-end presser, Adams got a little frustrated and said (I’m paraphrasing): “I’ve been given the resources I need to be successful”. To me he was clearly towing the company position (the three E’s). Adams knows who pays his salary. If the owner wanted him to spend more and give up the assets necessary to make a splash, it would be done.

Roslovic: 1x$2.8 to a team that may be the most data-driven in the league. The Hurricanes think he can help them win hockey games.

The more I think on this the more convinced I am that Zucker is the replacement for the Ehlers/Necas/top-6 forward trade. Had we made a trade before noon on July 1, we would not have signed Zucker. He was the pivot.

I admire your optimism. I think the plan was always to still come in $6-8 million under the cap. The Skinner buyout was partially to save money and partially to change the make-up a bit. When the draft ended and free agency hit, Adams pivoted from trying to trade for a player like Ehlers to filling the hole by signing a veteran middle-six player who would accept a one year deal. My view is that Zucker became the off-season mid-top-6 forward add. If we had traded for Ehlers we would not have signed Zucker. Adams couldn’t be left with nothing so he acted quickly on July 1st to add someone who could plausibly fill that role. When Adams says he is still open to acquiring a top 6 forward, I think he means: “ I am not actively pursuing this, but if something falls in my lap I will look at it “. This would be the trade equivalent to the Taylor Hall signing. A “ we didn’t plan for this, but we can’t pass it up” scenario. We have our 4 goalies. We have our top six D and four options for roles 7-8. We have 12 forwards slotted into 12 available forward roles and 3-4 AHL tweener candidates for the 13th forward. We can bump a Krebs or Greenway down if one of our prospects lights up camp. We are done for the off-season. The only miss from Adams perspective is he didn’t get a top 6 forward in trade and had to settle for Zucker in free agency.

I’m not sure what we are trying to do. Let’s say we did make the trade for Ehlers and we did get him extended. He makes $6 now. I assume any extension would be at $7 million+. CapFriendly still works. Extend Ehlers at $7+ and assume short-term bridges next year of $4-4.5 for Peterka and Quinn and a little better for Byram and the money is gone. If any of our big RFAs next year have huge breakouts and warrants a long-term big money deal, then someone would have to go. My point is that whether we trade for someone or sign them as a UFA, once we start handing out long-term money to new players, cap space gets tight and the likely outcome is that a Quinn, Peterka or Byram (or Tuch, or Samuelsson) has to go. I don’t know why we weren’t in on more guys in free agency then. There is no truer test of “wanting to be here” than actually making a conscious decision to sign a contract that binds you to being here. We could have added a couple of additional players, kept our prospects and then next year made difficult decisions on who to move and started to promote the kids on ELCs. Trading for a player like Ehlers puts us in the same spot cap-wise that a UFA signing would, but also costs us some of the prospect and draft capital that we could use to replace players who price out. We lost another opportunity by not diving in to free-agency harder.

Thinking crazy thoughts. Would never happen, but Adams did say offer sheets are an option (😃). Is Lucas Raymond going to be a Panarin or Kiprazov level star? Is he already? The Red Wings need to sign Raymond and Seider. Would they match an $11.5 million offer sheet or take the 4 firsts. Would Sabre fans do this? We would want to get UPL locked up for 3x$3.75 first as that might be a retaliation option and it would be hard for us to match anything more than that. Even if Detroit matched on Raymond, it kinda messes with them. I think I might regret posting this.

You make a valid point. Maybe a better way to put it from my perspective would be that if we are going to overpay, I would rather we trade a 1st, Savoie, Kulich and the 4th piece for a better player than Ehlers or for a player who brings an element that we don't already have. I like Ehlers, I just don't think he moves the needle on the coming season much more than adding Tarasenko would.

The Blackhawks gave term to Bertuzzi (4 x $5.5) and Teravainan (3 x $5.4). I doubt we offered a 3-4 year term to anyone in free agency and I'm unconvinced that "Buffalo" would have been a factor had we been willing to offer similar or slightly better term or AAV to certain well-targeted players.

By my assessment we have space for two NHL level veterans still. Could be two forwards or one forward and one D. Atkinson has signed with Tampa and I'll rule out Pavelski as retired even if not yet official. Of the other 13 on the list I would have zero interest in Hoffman, Zadina (maybe on a two-way), Okposo, and Wheeler. The rest I would be ok with, specific to a role. Schultz or Shattenkirk with Bryson on the 4th pair? Take a low-risk chance on Pacioretty on the wing with Thompson/Tuch or Cozens/Zucker? Sure. As for Roslovic and Tarasenko, I don't know why we wouldn't pursue those two unless: 1.) We are still thinking we will get a bigger fish; or 2.) We have actually reached our internal cap projection (once we get our RFAs signed).

Having just made a point that we may need to overpay and make an offer another GM can't refuse, I now state that I don't think I make that trade even with an Ehlers extension. Ehlers is a good player who I would take on the Sabres to be sure, but I think he is too much of what we already have in Quinn and Peterka to warrant paying that high of a price. Iafallo is good also, but at his salary and production I think he was worth next to nothing in the trade market pre-draft and free-agency. Had we made that trade we likely don't sign Zucker, who we got for nothing and is at least as good as Iafallo. I think it was one piece to many. Take one of the 1st, Savoie or Rosen out and assume the 4th piece was a mid-round pick for Iafallo and it would have been reasonable.

I was looking at that and wondering if they have another vet, specifically Wilson, Carlson, or Oshie, who they know is headed to LTIR. Other than those three, and assuming Ovie isn't injured, the only player they have that they can move to get under is Strome.

I can’t say I entirely disagree. But I’ll come back to an earlier point I made, if Quinn and Peterka are worth that and are bordering on untouchable in trade (barring, say, Draisaitl wanting to come to Buffalo), then do we need another top-6 forward?

Maybe the answer is that we have to make an offer that a team like Vegas would be negligent to refuse? Krebs may be a perfectly fine 3C, but we don’t know for certain and there is the added issue of us not being entirely sure we have truly role-appropriate 1 & 2 centres. In Vegas, Krebs would just be absorbed in the line-up with Eichel, Karlsson, Hertl and Howden. If we really want to get this done, offer Krebs a protected 1st and Kulich for Roy and a 4th or something like that. It’s an overpay that Vegas might not be able to say no to. And we would still have 6 potential mid to top-six forward prospects, not to mention the 4 forwards on our NHL roster not yet 24. There are commentators around the NHL with experience who will say that there are trades to be made all over the place if you are willing to pay the price.

I would say there is an obvious type of player who has more or less written Buffalo off. These are players who have agency: they have positioned themselves where they have movement clauses and/or where they have multiple suitors. There are lots of players who aren’t in that position though. Players like Clifton, Zucker, Lafferty all would have had some, likely minimal, other options but chose Buffalo because we offered some combination of opportunity and $$$ that wasn’t available elsewhere. I fear Adams has pursued “the perfect” this off-season (a big swing trade acquisition) and has passed-up opportunities that might have been good enough (Henrique, Foegele, Wennberg), and is passing up some that might still be an option (Roslovic, Tarasenko).

I would have to know what the pieces are to comment. Ehlers would be a nice add. I’ve heard him say nice things about the Sabres over the last couple of years. Maybe that’s just how he is when it comes to speaking about opponents. I’m not sure he moves the needle much though. Obviously he is a veteran player who has played in the top 6 for an NHL playoff team, but it would not shock me if Peterka, Quinn, Benson (in some combination, if not all 3), played at his level or better as early as this year. I would just as soon: - Sign Roslovic to something that resembles the Clifton deal. He is a winger who can slide to centre if needed. Gives us middle six depth. Someone is getting injured sooner or later, so no need to agonize over where he fits from a line-make-up perspective. He would simply improve our depth and would make it 5 forwards added who played playoff games 2-3 months ago: and - Trade for Rasmus Andersson. Not the perfect fit. He has a 6 team no trade so we might not be an option. He has two years left though not one. Joker, protected 1st in 2024, one of our right shot D prospects and one of our forward prospects for Andersson, Rooney and a 3rd. Gives us a playoff calibre D (arguably our 3 worst D would have playoff experience) and more depth and grit up front

My view is the top 6 isn’t solved or adequate and that we should not be limiting ourselves to only moving prospects and picks.

It is a fact, but what is the point? What does it matter if you get your top 6 forwards from the draft or free agency or waivers or in a trade for picks and prospects or in a trade for an actual NHL player? Look around the league. There are good teams who don’t have a player in their top 6 who was acquired in a trade “for picks and prospects”. How did this become a talking point? It’s not a thing. GM’s aren’t judged by how many top 6 forwards they pick up in trades for picks and prospects. Again, not defending Adams. I just don’t care how he improves the team. If we can get better by trading an actual young NHL player like Quinn or Benson, instead of picks and prospects, then do it.

I’m not defending the sum of what Adams has done to this point, but I do find the “Adams has never traded picks and prospects for a top 6 forward” argument to be a bit of a red herring. Most of us accept Thompson, Tuch, Cozens and Peterka as top 6 forwards. We also are willing to pencil one of Quinn/Benson into a top 6 role and for many of us that seems Interchangeable. Adams did draft Peterka, Quinn, Benson. I wonder if Adams could land a top 6, under 30, winger (Ehlers, Konecny, Necas, all needing extensions of course), if he was willing to part with Benson or Quinn? Would fans want this? Depth-wise we could trade Benson or Quinn and still have Zucker and Greenway as 3rd line wingers and we also have prospects who might be ready before the year is out if not from the start. If the answer to the question is “no way would I trade Benson or Quinn for one of those players”, then maybe we don’t really need to add a top 6 winger. Also, at this point I’m unconvinced Adams even has the option/authority to add such a player. Until we spend over $81 million, I am of the opinion that we have an internal cap and that Adams is mandated to not take on long-term deals in free agency. I don’t think there is a blanket view around the league that the Sabres aren’t worth the time to deal with, but there could be a kernel of truth in that maybe teams have come to realize we aren’t really serious about trading for the big fish.

I think this is accurate. I don’t see a team out there that needs to move the kind of player we are talking about, though.

Two way or one way is kinda meaningless to me as it is Pegula’s money. If Reimer gets waived and clears, his salary won’t count against the cap. That said, this is the first move that I would say has Ruff written on it for sure. Ruff doesn’t want to risk having to rely on Levi as a back-up for 25-30 games and certainly not to carry the mail if UPL flames out entirely or gets injured. I think this means, barring injury, that Levi starts in Rochester.

Tarasenko is available for free. Would have been our 4th leading scorer a year ago. Has 119 career playoff games and 2 cup rings. Would likely take a 1x5ish deal. Would push Greenway to line 4 and Aube-Kubel to13th forward. Still not great centre depth, but better overall forward depth.

If this is our team, no further additions of consequence, then we will be projected as a bottom 10 finisher and it will be impossible for me to argue otherwise. I'm fine with the changes made to line 4, but in my view we changed the make-up and style of the 4th line more than we did the likely game to game results (goals for and against). Add in that Krebs is now our 3C and that Benson is moving up in the line-up to replace Skinner, and it is hard to argue we made the bottom 6 better. We added a physical element the team needs, to be sure, but if we have a better bottom-six today than we did going into last season, I would say it is marginally so. I was very much near the lead in arguing for a Skinner buyout, but that was always on the assumption that we would spend most of the saved money on improving our depth. We didn't do that today. Barring substantial turnaround seasons from one of our top 3 forwards, we don't have a bonafide and indisputable 1st line player, we don't have a 3rd line player who can be expected to effectively move into the top 6 for a lengthy stretch, and we don't have a 4th line player who you would want playing higher in the line-up for an extended period. We might have a prospect or two who is ready for promotion to the NHL, but that is not a certainty. We missed an opportunity today to push players down in the line-up (Greenway/Krebs) that would help prevent us from floundering when injuries hit and our depth is tested. We are not good enough in our top 6 to have no upward mobility in the bottom half of our forward group. Adams is betting that Ruff is a better coach than Granato (over the last 3 season, the Sabres averaged 83 points per season, the Devils 85), that there are major bounce back seasons coming for several players (Thompson, Tuch, Cozens, Dahlin, Samuelsson), that others are going to further emerge (Quinn, Benson, Krebs, Power, Bryson, Levi), and that there won't be significant regression in others (Peterka, Luukkonen). There is not much tangible here. I'm an optimist. From here I hope for the best. I am open to the possibility and hopeful that most of the things that have to happen for this team to take a big step forward, will indeed happen. Nobody, outside of the most optimistic Sabre fan, could reasonably predict that today though.

Barring an unexpected signing like Henrique or Wennberg, or a trade, we are going to come in $7-8 million below the cap. Still things that can happen.