Archie Lee
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Posts posted by Archie Lee
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3 minutes ago, mjd1001 said:
I agree, Tampa is good for now. Most of their key players are still in that 'peak age' before they hit a bit of a slide. Hedman? The number of minutes have to be adding up for him over his career, but this team is in or near their prime in most areas, and they do have some 'decent' youth mixed in.
Now, they will not have either a first round pick or a 2nd rounder until 2026. That will potentially hurt them 4-5 years down the road. Their prospect pool is empty of any talent that you could even consider anything but a potential fringe player. They have like NOTHING (Howard, a former 31st overall pick has a chance, but he seems more a small-ish tweener right now). Other than Howard, they have had a total of ONE top 50 pick in the past 6 drafts and that one they traded away.
But with the picks they traded away, they still have managed to keep the roster from being not 'too old'. Pittsburgh is rapidly aging out (Crosby will be 37 at the start of next season, Malkin 38, Letang 37, Karlsson 33, Rust 32, Smith 33). Tampa's key guys (Kucherov 30, Point 28, Hagel 25, Cirelli 26, Hedman 33, Sergachev 25), well, Tampa is in a lot better shape for the next year or two at least.
It's perhaps a different topic, but I do think that the struggles that Buffalo, Ottawa and Detroit have had in getting out of their death spirals and back into the playoffs, has served as a cautionary tale to teams that might otherwise opt to start a rebuild. When you purposefully decide to be a bad hockey team, the road to becoming good again can be long and dark. Teams are going to hold on and squeeze every win they can out of their aging line-ups. Nobody above us or around us in the standings, is going to concede anything.
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10 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:
That article is similar to the critiques I read about Boston, and yet somehow neither of those teams goes away.......................
I don't think Tampa is going anywhere soon, but I do think that once the slide hits they will vanish faster than the Bruins. The distinction I would make between them and the Bruins is that the Bruins have really limited the number of big contracts that they have; I think this has allowed the Bruins to have much better depth down their line-up. The Bruins currently have only 4 players with contracts higher than $6 million with Swayman possibly joining the group this offseason. Tampa has 8 players over $6 million and are still, reportedly, looking to keep Stamkos. The Bruins, to their credit, never seem to need players like Conor Sheary or Jonas Johansson to fill out their line-up. Of course, Tampa has two recent cup wins so they know what they are doing.
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2 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:
Hold up. While I understand what is being said here, this is incorrect terminology. Rasmus Dahlin is a not a RHD, he is a LHD who can play on the right side. LHD and RHD denote how a player shoots, IE. they hare left or right handed. So Dahlin playing on the right side with Power on the left looks like this
Power LHD - Dahlin LHD
You don't change his handedness because he is on the right side, he is still a left handed defender, he isn't changing on he holds the stick. Sorry it is imprecise and bugs me.
The H is often dropped today and players are either LD or RD or LD/RD. The distinction has little to do with what hand the player is and also doesn't attempt to address if they are good or bad at playing one or the other. It simply means that they almost exclusively play one side, or they play both sides frequently enough that they can be labeled as playing both. Dahlin and Power, in my view, are correctly noted as LD/RD as they play both sides and play both sides well (though, I'm sure the underlying numbers show that they are better at one side over the other).
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5 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:
This is great. Absolutely wonderful. Couldn't agree more except for one little thing.
7.5 million for your bottom pairing D? 31 million plus whatever you pay Pesce for your 6 D (it would take like 8 million to get him to come to Buffalo). It's not really sustainable.
It is possible that the big UFA RD (Pesce, DeMelo, Roy, Tanev) just won't come to Buffalo. If any would consider coming to Buffalo, and there is a Sabre tax to be paid, then the cost might be an extra year on the term as opposed to a higher AAV. So, instead of Pesce at 6.25 x 5 years maybe it is 6.5 x 6 years. Such a move is sustainable so long as they are willing to eventually move something else out. This, to me, is why you have a good prospect pool. If you sign one of the UFA d-men, then in a year you might not be able to keep all of Byram, Samuelsson, Quinn or Peterka. So you then move one or two for a pick/prospect and promote Johnson, Kulich, Savoie or Rosen.
If the team is successful, this will eventually happen regardless of whether you acquire higher end talent through free agency or trades. The upside of acquiring such talent through free agency is that you retain your prospects and can utilize their ELC's when you need to move a veteran out. The downside of acquiring such talent through free agency is it will likely cost more in AAV and/or term. In both cases, you are sacrificing a degree of flexibility in one area and keeping some flexibility in another.
Also, the thread title is "...what moves should Adams make..." not "what moves will Adams make...". So the point, I think, is to live for now in a world where anything is possible.
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2 hours ago, shrader said:
Which brings up an interesting question. Who is the best goalie today that came out of major junior? I’m scratching my head on this one.
Edit: I’m guessing there’s a random euro I can’t think of.
I’m not sure if you are being cheeky, but it could be UPL.
Joel Hofer is coming along.
The current best may well be Binnington. Adin Hill?
Somewhat interesting is that of the last 10 cup winners, 7 had a Canadian starting goalie who came out of major junior (Crawford, Fleury, Murray, Holtby, Binnington, Kuemper and Hill).
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Hopefully:
Dahlin and Power on the 1st pair. Elite and similar to Heiskanen/Harley in Dallas. Samuelsson with either Joker or Clifton would be a fine 3rd pair. Sign Brendan Smith and he can be with Bryson on the 4th pair and serve as the 14th forward too (and fight a few guys). That leaves Joker or Clifton as the odd man out (likely Joker) as we need to get a veteran 2nd pairing partner for Byram. Hopefully we are in on DeMelo, Roy, Tanev, Pesce. Johnson can go to back to Rochester and get called up if/when there is an injury; he’s on deck if we can’t afford to keep Byram after next season. The Russians are in the hole for 2026-27.
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17 minutes ago, Taro T said:
Don't recall Adams ever stating that a goal was to not trade for a player on a LT contract. Do you recall when Adams said that?
I don't remember this either. He has expressed that he would be cautious about signing a player in free agency out of concern that it is often the case that a good player who has reached UFA status will command a higher AAV or longer term (or both) than might be reasonable based on the player's age. I don't recall him saying that he would not take a player in trade who is on a long-term deal. Of course, the unsaid is always "the right player for the right price".
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1 minute ago, LGR4GM said:
You aren't the only one but I want to say that whenever anyone on this site pencils Cozens in as a 3rd line center, you are living in fantasy land.
JJP - TNT- Tuch
Skinner/Benson - Cozens - Quinn
Those lines are basically set and I don't believe until he proves me wrong, that Adams has it in him to move a top 6 guy out or demote Cozens to the 3rd line.
I agree, but I also don’t think he should. Adams can’t completely abandon the plan. If there is a team left that we could resemble it is Dallas. The comparables aren’t perfect, but Cozens is our Roope Hintz (who was splitting time between the NHL and AHL at Cozens age). Our backend is built to be like the Stars (UPL or Levi are Oettinger, Dahlin is Heiskanen, Power is Harley, Samuelsson is Lindell). Peterka or Quinn need to become our Robertson (or a reasonable facsimile). Benson is Stankoven and maybe Savoie comes up mid-season and we have two Stankoven’s. Tuch is something between Pavelski and Benn. What we are missing are the Marchments and Tanevs and a 3rd centre (and I think a DeBoer).
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10 hours ago, LGR4GM said:
If it's not then the top of your roster isn't good enough and you need to trade someone to get something better or open space to get something better.
This is kind of the point I think. There are people making straight-faced arguments that the league was full of guys making $750-$800 K who are better than Okposo and Girgs, as though we would have been better this year with Ryan Lomberg and Steven Lorentz as 4th line wingers. The reality is that it is not players like that who make teams like FLA so much better, it’s players like Barkov, Tkachuk and Reinhart.
It’s probably worth remembering (not directed at you), that when Adams started his rebuild he had no idea that Thompson was going to become a 30-40 goal scorer and 70-90 point man (and it still isn’t clear that he will be consistently). The goal from the onset was that the prospect and draft capital acquired in the recent tear down would yield such players. The plan I’m sure was showing patience for our prospects to develop. None are close to being elite level NHL forwards at the moment and I’m not sure any actually project to be. Getting elite level forwards will require a lot of patience or a big trade (we do have elite D and possibly G, in my view).
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8 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:
I agree. I’d trade Power. This may seem extreme but what does he bring that Dahlin and Bryam don’t? He also isn’t worth 8 mill a season imho, but given his age and draft status, I think we can get some important pieces to improve this team short and long-term.
Re: Power, it is true that he needs to learn how to physically impose himself defensively. The risk I guess is that it just isn’t in his make-up and never happens. But he retrieves and moves the puck out of danger zones so effortlessly that I think we don’t even notice the positive impact he has on possession and zone time. He is much better than Byram in my view.
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3 minutes ago, Flashsabre said:
Ruff has always liked to have a guy who can drop the gloves that can be shuffled in and out of the lineup. I think one of the 4th line/13th forward roles will be filled by such a player.
Brendan Smith fits this role and can serve as both the 8th D and 14th forward.
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4 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:
That's kind of a strange way of looking at it imo. Granato never got that "opportunity" because he wasn't a good enough coach to get his team to the playoffs.
Unlike many people here who believe he is this great development guy I think he was an incredibly over rated coach and somewhat clueless at the NHL level. We haven't had a good coach since Ruff, and now we are there again. Hopefully he's still a good coach.
I have no interest in carrying water for Granato. Better coaches than him get fired all the time. That said, what is strange to me is to have the view that the Sabres are poorly built and missing many elements of a playoff team (very true) while simultaneously concluding that their head coach should have somehow squeezed a playoff spot out of them. It’s not unreasonable to conclude that Granato was part of the deficient make-up of the team. It is not at all or in any way strange to say that the Sabres did not have a playoff style or calibre lineup last year.
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10 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:
After the first period I thought neither of these teams could beat any of the remaining other teams and probably couldn't beat Boston, Colorado or Carolina (or Vegas) either. I will be totally shocked if Dallas doesn't blow past Edmonton with relative ease.
I’m not sure. Dallas is my pick and I don’t see a reason to change it. But the Oilers defensive play and overall depth is underrated in my view. If Dallas had McDavid and Draisatl instead of Rintz and Robertson (two great players, but not in the “best in the world” conversation), I would guess that we would see less of the Dallas 4th line as they would lean on McDavid and Draisatl just as the Oilers do. Goal is another thing.
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13 minutes ago, JohnC said:
Granato was the right coach to take over for the system rigid Krueger. Under Granato the younger players were allowed to play a looser style that allowed them to express their talent and personally flourish. It seems to me that Granato couldn't make the next transition/adjustment from player development to team development. Individual player and team development are related but also are distinct. Granato is a good and honorable man. He is a credit to his profession. Changing the HC was the right thing to do.
I wholly agree with your 1st sentence and the last two. The middle part I’m not sure about. Granato never got an opportunity to coach a playoff style or calibre team. I’m not convinced he can’t adapt if given a team to coach that is built to win. That said, a change to the head coach position was needed to reset culture and expectations.
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On 5/17/2024 at 10:48 PM, sabremike said:
I don't think people realize just how horrible a job Granato and his staff did last season when you look at the other coaches who got sacked for poor results. All of the other guys essentially got sunk by terrible goaltending while Granato got very good goaltending with UPL playing close to Vezina level from January on. When you fail miserably with solid goaltending that's as inexcusable and awful a failure as possible. If there was an Anti-Jack Adams award he would deserve to win it unanimously.
I’m fine with Granato’s departure. I just think it is a bit unfair to point out, correctly, that other coaches were sunk by bad goaltending while not acknowledging that the Sabres were sunk by other deficiencies. Coaching was one of the deficiencies to be sure (poor starts, bad PP), but we had a very young roster that was constructed the opposite of what you see with almost every team in the playoffs (little experience, no grit or toughness). The Sabres of last season did not have a playoff calibre roster. That sunk Granato as much as his coaching. I think the outlier in Granato’s 3 full years as coach was not last year’s disappointing results, but that he somehow managed to get them to within a point the year before.
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Watching who the Oilers had on the ice late (aside from McDavid and Draisatl): Warren Foegele killing seconds in the o-zone with a great forecheck. Giant R shot D man Vincent Desharnais on for the last 90 seconds protecting the lead. Both UFA’s.
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7 minutes ago, Broken Ankles said:
Just like the thought that Necas is odd man out in Carolina (I would think he is not bc still an RFA and easier to retain vs the overwhelming number of UFA’s Brett Peche might get some desperate team to overpay and therefore not even an option in Carolina), I would hope that If Buffalo was forced into a decision of retaining RFA or UFA, the RFA’s like JJP and Quinn would be the easier decisions to keep. Not 100% apples to apples for me to use Quinn (or JJP) b/c we have an opportunity to bridge both like Necas was for two years with a modest increase. But let’s push the scenario two years down the road, where JJP or Quinn are coming off a bridge deal looking for in excess of $8m each. Both are top 6 players (like Necas) and you need to decide on one. Would not expect at least a top 15 first round pick and another top level asset or two for either? Sam got you a low mid 1st and Prospect and he was a year older, or was on a second Bridge deal.
Necas' status in Carolina perhaps hinges on their intentions with Guentzel.
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1 hour ago, Brawndo said:
I know nothing about this guy. He is obviously connected to Karmanos. Likely lost his job as his contract is up and he isn't a Dubas guy. Seems fine.
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1 hour ago, Taro T said:
And yet, Adams has flat out stated, ever since the trade deadline passed and apparently on several occassions that he wants to add a top 9 (top 6?) W and also a bottom 6C that is good on the PK and at the dot. Considering Krebs has continued to be underwhelming am really hoping that bottom 6C is another top 9 guy.
Then, there could be 1 or 2 other additions to recreate the 4th line to have "an identity" though am not as convinced as others are that 1 of those 2 isn't Girgensons.
Expect that he will bring in those pieces, though they may be underwhelming. Am not convinced he makes any changes to the D unless sending out Johnson or Jokiharju is necessitated to bring in one of those 1st 2 pieces. And am not convinced a vet NHL netminder gets brought in to compete with Levi &/or UPL. But do expect to see some changes in the F ranks.
I’m not disputing this, but don’t recall him saying he wants to add a top 9 wing. I hope he does. If he does, though, it will mean demoting Greenway to line 4, or trading Skinner, Tuch, Benson, Quinn or Peterka (none of whom are being demoted to line 4), or buying out Skinner. I guess they could “Krueger” Skinner again, or trade Greenway, but I can’t imagine those options are in the plans. I’m still holding out slim hope (5% chance, maybe?) for a Skinner buyout. It’s a bit of a litmus test for me re: just how serious they are about making the playoffs this season. Though I’m holding out slim hope, I don’t think they are as serious as I would prefer.
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6 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:
I don't agree with this line at all. It was very clear that after the failed Kruger/Hall fiasco season that Adams came up with the rebuild plan and sold it to Terry.
We aren't trading for Necas IMPO. As you say, Adams is reactive and he will leave the top 6 in place and react later if they suck again under Ruff.
Also, unless we are trading someone, or demoting Greenway to line 4, or buying out Skinner, there is no room in the top 9 (at least, not for a winger).
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14 hours ago, Broken Ankles said:
What’s the difference? Liljegren is a young RFA Defenseman who is a former first rounder slotted as 4-5. The net difference between 11 and 28 is about 700 points in the NHL trade value chart, or what the Leafs first round selection represents in and of itself. That’s equivalent to your offer. And the value of Necas to Quinn is similar. The offer is too low. I saw a proposal with the Wild for Rossi, Spurgean, plus to get Necas. The Hurricanes have $27m in cap space so they aren’t hamstrung like other clubs might be. It’s #11, Joki , plus something. Not intending to be rude, just provided a different angle of an offer for perspective.
Back to the comparable Quinn trade, my primary reasons for rejecting such a trade right now, are that we have no need to move Quinn, and we don't have any particular need for the 23rd overall pick and/or Liljegren. Flash forward a year and lets say that we are in a position similar to Carolina is now, and we have made roster moves that make it impossible to re-sign Peterka, Quinn, Byram, Levi and Greenway and the decision is that Quinn is the odd man out. In that scenario (assuming Quinn stays on a steady positive trajectory and he is the best piece in the trade), would Quinn return greater value than #23 OA and a youngish right-shot 4-5 d-man?
I'm genuinely not sure. I'm neither trying to over or under value any of these assets. Just asking.
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15 hours ago, Broken Ankles said:
What’s the difference? Liljegren is a young RFA Defenseman who is a former first rounder slotted as 4-5. The net difference between 11 and 28 is about 700 points in the NHL trade value chart, or what the Leafs first round selection represents in and of itself. That’s equivalent to your offer. And the value of Necas to Quinn is similar. The offer is too low. I saw a proposal with the Wild for Rossi, Spurgean, plus to get Necas. The Hurricanes have $27m in cap space so they aren’t hamstrung like other clubs might be. It’s #11, Joki , plus something. Not intending to be rude, just provided a different angle of an offer for perspective.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. To summarize, your view is that a trade of Joker + #11 for Necas + #28 is not something Carolina would entertain because there is not a significant enough value gain in moving up to pick 11 from 28 to bridge the value gap between Joker and Necas. I think that is likely correct.
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25 minutes ago, Broken Ankles said:
Would you trade Jack Quinn for Timothy Liljegren and the Leafs late first round ?
For many reasons, no. That’s nothing close to the situation Carolina is in or to what I asked or proposed though.
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Every year I fall into the trap of thinking maybe the Sabres could trade for the guy who looks good playing with “insert Sabre player here”. Mangiapane looks good with Cozens.
Sabres Defense - Current Pairing Ideas and What Moves Should Adams Make to Enhance the Group
in The Aud Club
Posted
I don't think we have any idea the degree to which they do or don't listen to the analytics department. Every team, it seems, now has their own models that they use that are different from the public models (why have an analytics department if you can just subscribe to a few websites). Maybe we did largely follow what our analytics department recommended. How would we know?