Archie Lee

Interestingly, Leone in Rochester has been clear in stating his view that the development of young players is best served by winning. It is too bad that the GM did not take that attitude 2-3 seasons ago.

Every young team that finishes at the bottom of the standings for a period of time and then becomes good, at some point starts to consistently win more than it loses (stating the obvious here). My guess is that it is sometimes the case that the pendulum permanently swings late in a last losing season. Maybe this is that last losing season. Adams and Ruff have combined for only 3 winning season in their last 15 seasons in their respective roles (5 seasons for Adams, the last 10 as a HC for Ruff). They are not a pair that I would advise betting on.

I posted this in the Bruins game thread, but it is probably more relevant here. As you point out, UPL had one strong NHL season prior to this year. The plan for this season was to go to camp with UPL, Levi, and Reimer. At some point, based on no clear rationale, they opted to waive Reimer and go with UPL and Levi. Then, once Levi faltered the plan became to lean almost exclusively on UPL. Prior to March 20th, when Reimer's current streak of play began, UPL had started 50 games and Levi/Reimer a combined 15. Levi/Reimer were 4 wins and 11 losses in those 15 games. On March 19th, UPL was on pace to start 63 games; this is despite him having, on balance, a very bad season to that point. There is one goalie in the NHL this year on pace to start more than 63 games: Vasilevskiy. Hellebucyk is on pace for 62 starts. As fans, we should consider the absurdity of this for a moment. With UPL having only one season of success, the plan that Adams (and Ruff) hatched was to go with UPL and Levi and if Levi failed, to run UPL for 60+ games. The most games Ullmark played as a Sabre was 37. You have to go back to Miller's 2010-2011 for a season where a Sabre goalie played 63+ games. UPL has been bad this year. The numbers and the eye-test align. But Adams went into the season without a second goalie the team could rely on and then asked UPL to carry a larger load than practically every goalie in the NHL. UPL was not set-up for success. Ruff clearly had no faith in Reimer or Levi. We had $7ish million in cap space. Cam Talbot, Logan Thompson, MacKenzie Blackwood, Casey DeSmith, Anthony Stolarz, were all available at various points and we had assets and cap space to outbid other teams on the acquisition or free agent cost. And Adams is going to get a 6th shot at this.

I’m of this opinion now. Not so much that I think there is no way that Norris will be a positive contributor, but he has to be much healthier and perform at a much higher level (than he has in his career) to warrant his $8 million salary. Cap space being as valuable as it is, there is an argument (strong in my view), that the Sabres would have been better to take futures. But this is what happens when the GM paints himself in a corner.

No, I'm saying that Adams and Ruff are so bad at their jobs that to go through the exercise of identifying underperforming players as the reason our season has tanked, without recognizing that those players were put in positions to fail by two men who are demonstrably bad at their jobs, only serves to let Adams and Ruff off the hook for the terrible work they have done. Adams is about to join some pretty dubious company as there have only been six NHL GM's over the past 60 years who went 0 for 5 in making the playoffs over their first 5 seasons on the job. Ruff, the winning, veteran, no-nonsense, accountability and structure, coach who was going to finally infuse this organization with the missing elements, has two seasons in his last 10 as head coach where he has a better than Deluca .500 record (on the somewhat positive side, in the two winning seasons his teams had over 50 wins, so there is perhaps a 20% chance we hit big next year). To give some context to this, let's look a little deeper at the goaltending situation. UPL had one strong, if somewhat modestly successful, NHL season prior to this year. The plan for this season was to go to camp with UPL, Levi, and Reimer. At some point, based on no clear rationale, they opted to waive Reimer and go with UPL and Levi. Then, once Levi faltered the plan became to lean almost exclusively on UPL. Prior to March 20th, when Reimer's current streak of play began, UPL had started 50 games and Levi/Reimer a combined 15. Levi/Reimer were 4 and 11 in those 15 games. UPL, at March 19th, was on pace to start 63 games. This is despite UPL having, on balance, a very bad season to that point. Here is how many goalies are on pace to start more games this year than 63: one. That goalie is Vasilevskiy. Hellebucyk is on pace for 62. Consider that for a moment. With UPL having only one season of somewhat modest success under his belt, the plan that Adams and Ruff hatched was to go with UPL and Levi and then if Levi failed to run UPL into the ground regardless of how well or how poorly he performed. So, to summarize, no it is not the case that UPL, Cozens, and Quinn are what happened to this team. Adams and Ruff are what happened. And, odds are, it will happen again.

And yet, Ottawa is 11-5 since the trade deadline and are on the cusp of potentially overtaking Florida for 3rd in the Atlantic. This is clearly not because they acquired Cozens, but evidently (small sample sizes being what they are), the Senators have found a way to utilize him that hasn't tanked their season.

Well, I can’t deny that those three players were very bad this year. But, I would still say that Adams and Ruff is what happened, not UPL, Cozens, and Quinn. Pick a team that is in the playoffs year after year. Then ask if their GM and head coach would let 2-3 players tank their season? It might be as simple as you say, but then it is an even larger indictment of Adams and Ruff. The fix was easy and those two guys couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything about it. Also, since Ottawa acquired Cozens they are playing at a 113 point pace.

I don’t think there was anything disingenuous about @Thorner’s note. He was just identifing correctly that Kulich and Kozak are rookies without a lot of NHL experience and Norris is oft-injured. I think we could get by with the centres you list. Thompson, Tuch, Peterka, and Benson, could be line-drivers on the wing. But, if we go into next year with a centre spine of Norris, McLeod, Kulich, Krebs, Kozak, no expert or model will be predicting playoffs. That doesn’t mean it can’t work, but it would be a big risk for a GM in year 6 with no playoff seasons.

Krebs is one of the few forwards that we have, along with Benson, who has high-level passing/play-making skills. As others have said, he needed to get to a point in his career where he realized he could not always make the high risk / high reward pass. It doesn't surprise me, given his age and work-ethic, that he is having a productive stretch playing with good veteran players. Krebs is 17 months and one draft year, younger than Ryan McLeod. He is having a similar season production-wise, to what McLeod was having a year ago. If Krebs played for a different team and we were looking to add another McLeod-like centre (not in style, but in age, pedigree, production), Krebs would be a good candidate. Here is the problem. Adams, completing his 5th year as GM, has built a team with 3 players who can be fully relied on to be the player we need them to be: Dahlin, Thompson, and Tuch. Peterka and Benson are maybe the closest to working their way into this group. After that we have veterans who we can't necessarily count on to be productive or healthy (Zucker, Greenway, Norris), and veterans who are 4th line, 3rd pair, back-ups (Malenstyn, Lafferty, Clifton, Reimer), and younger guys who we can't be sure are going to take another step (Quinn, Krebs, Kulich, Byram, Power, UPL. Levi). Norris, Krebs, McLeod, Kulich, and Kozak, in some combination, might be a centre spine that gets us to the playoffs. But who wants to bet year 15 on it?

I don't think it has anything to do with patience. No serious person is asking Adams, or whoever the GM is, to recklessly toss away young assets. It is simply the case that you can't keep everyone and also add an additional veteran or two who helps us get into the playoffs. The Sabres can't keep young players Quinn, Benson, Peterka, Kulich, and Kozak, stick with core players Tuch, Thompson, Greenway, Krebs, be glad they have some newer vets under contract in Zucker, McLeod, Malenstyyn and Norris, maybe add in a new kid like Rosen or Östlund, AND also add a middle-top-6 veteran or two. There will not be roster room or cap space for this. Players need to go out in order to bring in players who will make us better. It's ok to trade someone who goes on to have a great career, so long as they get back the player(s) needed to move the program forward.

100%. I would be fine if Rosen, Östlund, Johnson, played a role on the team next year. But not if Kulich, Peterka, Quinn, Benson, Power, Byram, are. Adams has done such a poor job managing his assets, that the prospects are now blocking the prospects.

Stretches like this, primarily serve to show two things in my view: 1.) We do have a lot of talent. 2.) Our GM has not a clue how to manage that talent.

You are right that my reply was snarky. I was sucked in by @oglethorp’s “nice try though” comment. This was my mistake. It is better to walk away from some posters on occasion. At any rate, the initial comment I was replying to was that Levi could not do worse than UPL. I simply pointed out that Levi has been worse than UPL in the NHL this season. So, it might be a stretch to conclude Levi can’t be worse than UPL when it has been demonstrated that he can be worse. I was not making any predictions about the future.

Oh, my mistake. I understand now that Levi can’t be any worse than UPL next year, even though he was worse than UPL this year. Logic checks out.

I’ve watched a lot of hockey in my years, but I wouldn’t say that I’m skilled at identifying subtle differences in team structure. I can, though, see how good teams commit to team defence. Mostly though, my take on Ruff just comes from his recent history. Most years since he left Buffalo, his teams just give up a lot of goals (near bottom of the league). Perhaps he has been unfortunate and repeatedly gets dealt the bad hand of players who can’t execute a sound D system combined with a bad goalie. At some point it seems likely though, that he is a contributor to his own demise. That said, there is no denying that since he left Buffalo he has also had two seasons where his teams topped 50 wins (these are his only 2 winning seasons since he left). He should get credit for those. But it’s worth noting that the success was not sustained in either case, and that the following year those teams were out of the playoffs and Ruff was fired. He simply does not coach a sustainable, repeatable, structured system. For a franchise looking to develop young players and achieve a stretch of longterm sustained success, Ruff was the oddest of choices. He is the oldest coach in the league and has not had sustained success with a team in a quarter century.

It’s not just goaltending. In the 13 games we played since the deadline, we are scoring on a 300 goal per 82 game pace. That’s back to where we were two seasons ago. On average in the last 5 full NHL seasons, two teams do that per year. During the 13 game losing streak, we scored at a 175 goal pace. We would not have gone 0-10-3 if we had been scoring at a 300 goal pace then. It isn’t just goaltending. Of course, there is no reason to think the post trade deadline scoring pace is sustainable.

Except, in his 9 NHL starts this year, Levi was worse than UPL. I start every new season with hope. But I am not optimistic of how Levi (or most goalies) would perform playing 40 games in Ruff’s system.

The Oilers lost Holloway, Broberg, and McLeod, in order to keep or bring in Jeff Skinner, Arvidsson, and Henrique. If I were McDavid, that might give me the final nudge I need to say to myself, l’m just gonna see what happens in free agency.

The point is that Armstrong was willing to be aggressive and act with urgency to improve his team. There are lots of moves Adams could make. When the season was still on the line, he did not make any.

Also with being willing to fire his recently hired coach because a better one was available. Montgomery is an upper tier coach.

Exactly. Or maybe Kulich is the piece that brings you the better player.

You are right, but I think you are overlooking factors that led to UPL's performance cratering. UPL's performance began to suffer during the worst stretch of the Sabre season. During the 13 game losing streak, Reimer played 3 games and was 0-3 with a .865 save %. How would Reimer's season have gone had he been required to start 52 games for this team without respite? Reimer started only 10 games for the Sabres from Oct - Feb. I'm not saying that there are no goalies who could have done better than UPL (unequivocally, UPL has been bad and needs to be better), but it is one thing to start 10 games over 4 months for a bad defensive hockey team, and quite another to start 52. We are not likely to bring in an elite netminder in the off-season. Swapping in a couple of goalies who are largely available because they have lacked consistency in their career (that is who will be available), without addressing the other root causes of why we give up so many chances and goals, will not likely result in a positive outcome.

Adams has done the same thing with goalies as he has done with other positions. We should not forget that he waived Reimer and lost him to Anaheim. There was no guarantee we would get him back. We could have Felix Sandstrom backing up UPL (that’s not a stretch). Adams rolled into the year with UPL and Levi as his goalies the same as he rolled into the year with Power/Byram/Samuelsson/Jokiharju on D and Cozens/Quinn/Benson as the 2nd line. His methods have failed multiple players. Some of those players might be just not good enough, but I think some have also been positioned to fail by a demonstrably awful GM.

You aren’t serious, are you?

I think we would all take Logan Thompson and his career .912 save %.