Archie Lee

Two fun games in a row. Sticking up for each other. Timely goals and saves. Would be nice to get over DeLuca .500 and then grab some cushion.

I think Adams has, in the big picture, done a real poor job managing assets. I think if the Sabres dumped UPL now though, because the journeyman backup they signed has had a good two weeks, and because the rookie they claimed on waivers had a good first NHL start, it would be some kind of next level reckless mismanagement. I’m not predicting anything, but the injuries they have do mean that they have room for 3 goalies right now. Seeing how they all perform for a couple more weeks makes sense. Now, I can see the argument that this isn’t a plan. Indeed, it is only the terrible management of Levi that has put them in this situation. Levi must be scratching his head in wonder at how he went from being a special goalie who doesn’t need AHL time, to now, apparently, not even being usable in an “in emergency, break glass” situation. I mean, chances always were that UPL or Lyon would at some point get hurt, or falter. Apparently the plan in that moment was to scramble and do anything and everything to not put Levi in the NHL.

I think with all the players on IR, recalling UPL actually puts them at a full 23 man roster. That includes Zucker, who might be going to IR also, and Geertsen.

Here’s the thing with goalies: a game, a week, a month, even a season, won’t prove much. Outside of a select battle-tested few, you won’t know what you are getting; a stud today will be a dud tomorrow. And even the good ones aren’t always good (see Swayman and Saros a year ago, as just two examples). So, trading UPL because Lyon has had a nice start to the year and Ellis looked good in his first game, might be foolish. It could also prove smart as we don’t know what UPL is going to do either. The two teams I could see having the most interest in UPL are Philadelphia and Carolina.

Best all around performance of the season so far. Fun game. Sabres still have lots of good young players with upside. Showed some willingness to mix it up too. Lots to like tonight.

Hockey media’s best known NHL Insider states “the Sabres” have discussed Pete DeBoer, who is, I think, still regarded as one of the league’s best coaches, and certainly is by far the most highly regarded coach available. Seems like something I should be more excited about.

Alex Lyon will soon be 33 and the most games he has played in a pro-season is 47 when he was an AHL rookie. The most in the NHL is 44 and he was decent that year with a .904 save % and a 21-18-5 record. He has never had an NHL season approaching UPL's 23-24 season, where UPL had 54 starts, and a .910 save %. I have no idea if UPL will get things turned around, but I'm not sure why some are so quick to give up on him.

I partly agree. Until Adams and Ruff are gone we are not making significant progress on a sustained basis. From that angle, it’s not worth fretting over. I do think that Dahlin and Thompson are definitely foundational players for a GM who has the skills to build a team. I love Tuch, but would not quite place him in that category.

I enjoy Chad D’s stuff, and he is right on Norris (in my view they should not have traded for him, let alone relied on him to be their #1C). But I think his comments on McLeod and Krebs are an overreaction. The focus should be on the GM, HC, and coaching staff. I understand the desire we have as fans to assess the skills and attributes of players, but outside of the very obvious (Geertsen, Bryson), there is just no way to properly assess what a player is in an environment so poorly constructed and so inadequately structured.

I like Kozak. But he hasn’t played more than 55 games in a season as a pro. He needs to show he is more durable. Krebs has become pretty much an 82 game player.

I think Byram is a strong candidate to be moved this offseason. His value would still be high (assuming he has a good year) and we could move Samuelsson or Timmins up in the line-up and promote one of the young d-men from Rochester. Of course, if Benson and Doan have strong years and Kesselring is what we hope, that really only creates space to sign one, maybe 1.5, of them (nevermind that we would need to be taking futures for Byram). It is similar to this past offseason. It’s possible to re-sign everyone, but not without trading existing players/contracts. We are in the unusual place of being up against the cap while having no success to show for it and while being one of the youngest teams in the league. It is not possible to overstate the level of mismanagement.

And, to the bolded, I know you aren't implying otherwise, but it is maybe important to note that we are 5 games into the season. Also, we might recall that at the end of November last season, UPL was 8-5-2 with a .908 save% (his save% in November of last season was a stellar .926). Our goaltending was not terrible all of last season. It got worse as the year went on. Yesterday was fun, though. Lyon, Doan, and Timmins have all been very good. I'm excited to see Kesselring. Benson has been a revelation in his return. But, as you point out, Lyon is on a heater.

I still think Rosen will be a useful middle six NHL player. I think his floor is Victor Olofsson. Rosen is currently 9 months younger than Olofsson was when Olofsson first played an AHL game.

The bolded is not what I would want and would be disappointing. But, right now I would probably take it, so long as: 1.) Appert was named HC on an interim basis, so that Kekalainen can bring in his own guy at year's end (if Appert doesn't pull off a miracle); and 2.) A new assistant is brought in to coach the power play. Kekalainen might make an impactful trade or two. Appert might relate better to the players on the team and adjust the system, as Granato did when he replaced Krueger, to match the skills of the players. A new assistant coach might ignite the PP. I'm reaching here.

The two words used to support the change from Granato to Ruff, were accountability and structure. Accountability starts at the top. Pegula and Adams have shown no willingness to take accountability for what is happening. As for structure. It is structure that is supposed to prevent 11 game losing streaks. It is structure that is supposed to allow you to survive a period of injuries. A team that is well-coached and has a good structure, can fall back on that structure to survive through difficult stretches where there are injuries or the puck just isn’t going in the net. Lindy Ruff simply does not coach a successful, repeatable, structured brand of hockey. Ruff being brought in to install structure, was a giant red flag. The Devils had a bad spate of injuries in 23-24, but had they been a team that played with structure they would not have gone from being one of the league’s best teams to one of the worst.

I know that Bogosian was grossly overpaid as a Sabre. But, seeing him fairly consistently be able to play a role on a playoff level team, and seeing Johansson and Hinostroza continue to play effective roles in the NHL, should be a signal to us that, generally speaking, the players aren’t the issue.

There is a great line in the final episode of season 3 of Fargo. The season 3 villain says: "You see it all of the time in nature: the smaller animal goes limp in the jaws of the large predator. On some level, food knows that it is food." Maybe it's too deep. I think this is the Sabres though. The players know this is not going to work. They know they exist to be one of the 16 teams that doesn't make the playoffs. I mean, take a minute to go back in the modern history of the NHL or of any of the other major leagues, and think of a scenario where the league's least successful owner of any particular era, hires a guy with no relevant experience to be GM, sticks with that guy into a 6th year after missing the playoffs for 5, and together they hire the oldest coach in the league who is not high on any NHL player's "coach I would love to play for" list and who has not had consistent NHL success in well over a decade, and they go with a group of assistant coaches that has never coached in an NHL playoff game (save for the goalie coach), and the senior advisor they bring in to advise the GM missed the playoffs in his last 5 years in the role and recently thought hiring a wanker like Mike Babcock was a good idea. If you pitched this as a sitcom, you would be asked to scale back on the absurdity. The Sabres are not the least talented team in the NHL. I hope we don't get to the point as fans where we forget that we have seen these players play good hockey. If Pegula waits until the off-season, or until this season is effectively over, to make changes, then we will just be starting over. If he fires Adams and Ruff soon, he can send a message that this is not acceptable and that more is expected. Maybe it won't make a difference, but it is time to try a bold in-season move that at least has the potential to change the team's fortunes immediately.

Over the last two NHL seasons there have been twelve mid-season head coaching changes. Three of those changes were done by teams in the midst of lost seasons where there was no goal of making the playoffs at the time of the change: - in 23-24 NJ fired Ruff for Green Travis late in the year - in 24-25 Chicago fired Richardson after only 26 games, but there were no illusions of them making a playoff run - also in 24-25, the Flyers fired Tortorella with only 9 games left The other nine mid-season head coaching changes in the last two seasons, were done by teams that had plans to make the playoffs and at an early enough point in the season where the change was intended to be impactful. The only one that did not result in an improved winning/points % was Boston replacing Montgomery with Sacco early last year. The other eight changes all resulted in improved performance, ranging from the modest in Ottawa going from a .423% under DJ Smith to a .500% under Jacques Martin, to the dramatic in Edmonton where the Oilers went from playing .269 hockey under Woodcroft to .702 under Knoblach. The others were: in 2023-24: - NYI went from .544 under Lambert to .608 under Roy and made the playoffs - LA went from .583 under McLellan to .632 under Hiller and made the playoffs - STL went from .482 under Berube to .601 under Drew Bannister and missed - Minn went from .368 under Evason to .587 under Hynes and missed in 2024-25: - Det went from .441 under Lalonde to .583 under McLellan and missed - STL went from .431 under Bannister to .641 under Montgomery and made the playoffs In the 14 year drought, the Sabres have not made a mid-season coaching change at a point in the season where the change could have a positive impact on that year's standings. They are crazy not to at least try.

DeBoer will be back in the NHL when he wants to be.

Well, of course. If Karmanos is picked just to be the next guy who won’t rock the boat, then he wouldn’t be successful. Here’s the thing: the owner isn’t getting fired. If it is truly the case that there is no hope under Pegula, then there isn’t much point of us being here, short of habit or masochism. My opinion is that there are GM candidates out there who would simply be better at the job than Adams. Karmanos might be one such person (and might not be). It’s the known vs unknown factor. One way or the other, we are left hoping that some positive confluence of circumstances leads Pegula to hiring the right candidate next time.

Granato was an assistant under Krueger. Granato's role as an assistant was to help Krueger install his system and vision for how the team would play. You can’t be more opposite than Granato from Krueger when it comes to a philosophy on how to play hockey. I have no idea if Jason Karmanos would be a good GM. But I also have no reason to think he would simply continue on with the same plan/ideas/vision as Adams. I would prefer Rob Blake, of the experienced people available, but I would take Karmanos over Adams in a second.

A small ray of hope: three seasons ago the Devils started the year with back to back 5-2 losses and Devil fans were chanting “Fire Lindy”. Five weeks later they had won 16 of their next 17 and the fans were chanting “Sorry Lindy”. I guess there’s a chance?

After the fiasco that was Adams’s first year as GM (the Covid year), the Sabres had back to back seasons where they exceeded expectations. The Sabres went from being a disastrous 55 point team to a 75 point team to a 91 point team. Adams read this to mean that he knew what he was doing and he failed to recognize the streak of good fortune that the team had during that stretch. Then in 23-24, Granato’s last year, they regressed to the mean and were a 84 point team; while that team disappointed fans after the 91 point season prior, they played to exactly where most models were projecting. Sadly, the wrong man paid the price for the setback. Say what people will about Granato, but in his 3 full years as head coach of the Sabres, the team met or exceeded objective expectations for wins and losses - based on the roster - every year. Adams learned all the wrong lessons and rather than making real and meaningful and needed roster adjustments, he replaced Granato with Ruff - likely to extend his own window as GM - which has been a disaster. I think we are watching a group of players who subconsciously (and probably consciously) know what time it is. There is a next to zero chance that a Kevyn Adams and Lindy Ruff combo, lead them to long-term success. Adams has never done it. Ruff has made the playoff in 3 of his last 11 seasons as a head coach, and has not led a team to the playoffs in back to back years since 2011. These are not the men you task with ending the longest non-playoff streak in NHL history. On one level or another, the players know this.

I agree that Adams should be fired. He should have been fired when it was clear the Sabres would not be a playoff team a year ago. I have zero enthusiasm for a Kekalainen takeover. He was at best a mediocre GM with a preference for old-school coaches whose era is over (Torts, Babcock). We have such a coach now, and it isn't going well. I would take Karmanos over Kekalainen, not because I have any degree of certainty that Karmanos would be good, but because I'm near certain that Kekalainen is not a long-term solution.

Ellis is basically at the point in his career where Levi will be a year from now. He spent a couple of years in the ECHL, in part, because the Blues had Lindgren and Hofer in the AHL. He has not been considered at Levi's level as a prospect, but I still prefer giving him a chance to going with Georgiev. Also, at the risk of dumping on Adams for everything, just looking at all of the goalies who have hit waivers in the last 48 hours (Ellis, DiPietro, Sogaard, Primeau), it seems like Georgiev was a panic move.