Archie Lee

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.

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.

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.

Necas' status in Carolina perhaps hinges on their intentions with Guentzel.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

For many reasons, no. That’s nothing close to the situation Carolina is in or to what I asked or proposed though.

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.

Would Joker and 11 get Necas and 28?

Dudacek can give his thoughts on whether he would prefer that we just kept Mitts. His post on Necas is firmly in the real world though, where Mitts is gone. I like the Necas idea. Carolina loves their Finns and their D is going to have some losses this off-season. Maybe Joker ++ and we can get him?

There are very few "national" writers or commentators who know a lot about the needs of individual teams. If fairness, it is a lot of work to have a great handle on the prospects and a deep understanding of the needs of the teams that are drafting. There are a couple of non-team-specific hockey podcasts I listen too that I typically enjoy when they are talking about teams other than the Sabres. When they do Sabres talk though it often seems superficial and not well-informed. I think this is the case here. If Dickinson is there at 11, I don't think the Sabres will be scared off from taking him just because of their strong depth at left-shot D. If they take him though, it won't be because then need to add a dynamic two-way D threat.

I think Dudacek was correct to point out that the precedent is for these rebuilds to take significant time to yield results. That said, we did miss by a point in 22-23 and most of us now agree that there were moves Adams could have made to get this team into the playoffs, or to more aggressively compete for the playoffs, that season and certainly in the season just past. There is a degree of incongruence in the argument that this process takes lots of time when one considers how close we were to getting in just 13 months ago.

Something to remember about the rebuild that Adams undertook in earnest after the Krueger firing, is that the Sabres were not a team that had been good for years and was crumbing due to age and the wear and tear of playoff runs. He was starting rebuild on a team that had been bad for years. While he moved out Hall, Montour, Risto, Reinhart, Eichel and (not purposely, Ullmark), he was not in a position of starting from scratch. The team that he started a rebuild with had drafted in the top 10 every year post- Eichel-draft and had also fairly recently traded Ryan O'Reilly for future assets. Adams started a rebuild with a team that already had the following assets: Thompson (2016 draft), Mitts, Joker, Luukkonen (2017 draft), Dahlin, Samuelsson (2018), Cozens, Johnson (2019) and Quinn, Peterka (2020, the first Adams draft). Then he had the luxury of a 1st OA in year one of the rebuild with Power. The base of talent that already existed when the Adams rebuild started, is why we were able to come within a point of making the playoffs in 22/23. The disaster he took over was more due to toxic culture than to being bereft of talent; this was not a rebuild that was starting from near ground zero, such as what is happening in Chicago and San Jose at present.

I will straddle the fence here. I think Adams took over a disastrous situation, did a good getting things turned in the right direction, and then messed up by not approaching last off-season with enough urgency. Now we see if he can do what he should have tried to do last off-season.

Agreed. It also helped that the Canucks were willing to buyout the guy who didn't fit anymore (OEL). They get full credit for being smart and bold.

This is a bit of a Royal Flush, isn't it? I mean, sure, we could this. We will likely try to. But most of the teams in the league will be competing to find their Lafferty, Blueger and Joshua. All 3 are free agents this off-season. If you want players like that in reality and not theoretically, it's going to cost a lot more than $3.8 million.

The above is all true. To take it a step further, let's assume Krebs is moved back to 4C. Let's also assume that Skinner and Greenway are the 3rd line wingers. And let's assume Levi is the 2nd goalie as is likely to be the case. This leaves us around $9 million to bring in a 3rd line C and two 4th line wingers. Upgrades don't need to cost more than what we paid Okposo, Girgs and Jost, but we probably have to spend at least the same, $7 million, to get better players. If this happens, we will have increased our spending to within $2 million of the cap (give or take), without upgrading or changing the make-up of our top-6 and D. It also assumes we are actually prepared to spend that much. I do think that the above scenario can render us a better team than a year ago. With development of existing players and bounce back years and better coaching, it could yield a playoff team. Unless we are moving a veteran out though (Joker, Greenway, Samuelsson, Skinner), there is little to no room for a bigger splash. Lots of fans want us to move #11 and/or one or two top prospects for veteran upgrades. Such a trade or trades would mean, I think and hope, bringing in a player with a larger contract. I'm not making excuses for management. Just pointing out that all of the hope for big acquisitions (not you, but from this thread: Pavelski, Necas, Pesce, E. Lindholm, Stephenson, Stamkos, Marchessault and Zadorov) is likely misplaced for multiple reasons, one of which is there actually isn't a lot of cap space available.

I don't see this at all. I think there is generally the opposite occurring and people are as much or more excited about Benson than they were about Quinn/Peterka. Completely agree with your last paragraph, except it wasn't just perception. I was critical of Benson being in the line-up this year, but not because Benson did not play well. I think he had as good of a rookie year, and in some ways a better rookie year, than what Peterka or Quinn had. My disappointment in his place on the team relates to this past year being a season where we needed to move forward; to move forward we needed something more in that position than a winger who would give us an uneven rookie season in the same category of the rookie seasons we got from Peterka/Quinn. Benson is great. I'm thrilled we have all 3.

I think you are looking at 23-24 year end numbers.

That is including VO’s departure and the $4.2 million cap increase. I’m not saying we have no room to manoeuvre. Unless we are going to be bold though, there isn’t as much room as some might think.

Not to put too much of a damper on your enthusiasm for possible UFA upgrades, but if the Sabres just give conservative extensions to their RFA's and promote Levi, Johnson and Rousek to back-up roles, they are left with under $10 million to fill out three bottom-6 forward positions. If the plan is to "up" spending on the bottom-6 (ie: spend more than the $8.6 million paid last year to Girgs, Okposo, Jost and Robinson), then the cap is nearly gone. That assumes the Sabres are even considering spending something close to the cap. I'm not trying to be pessimistic as I do think there are meaningful changes that can be made. But, unless they are willing to spend to the cap and/or trade a vet (Joker $$$ or higher) and/or buyout Skinner, they will just be playing with the edges of the roster.

I won’t speak for JohnC, but maybe he is not factoring Benson’s age when he says the point total was not too impressive, but rather what the Sabres needed. Benson’s play was impressive last year, particularly when you consider his age. What the Sabres didn’t need last year was an 18 year old who posted offensive # ‘s nearly as good as what Quinn posted the year before. They needed better. That’s not Benson’s issue, of course.