Archie Lee
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Posts posted by Archie Lee
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21 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:
Let me see if I understand your post. We should trade two 1sts (or equivalent) for a less physical and less defensively aware version of Mitts and give him the same money that re-signing Mitts would have cost? If that's the case, why trade Mitts? I thought the whole point of trading Mitts was for KA to avoid another long-term big forward contract. I'm not against this move per se, but if this was the plan, why not re-sign Mitts and use the 2 1sts on a top 4 D, who adds a skill set we don't already have?
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?
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On 5/13/2024 at 3:33 PM, LGR4GM said:
Whoever wrote this is silly. Buffalo drafting another lhd would be hilarious. Like, wtf does this even mean? "They’ve got some good young ones in Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power, but adding a dynamic, two-way threat like Dickinson would be massive" ... Dickinson is good but if you draft him, you better be aggressively shopping Muel.
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.
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17 minutes ago, JohnC said:
You have a good perspective on where we were and where we are now. @dudacek demonstrates in detail that the GM decided on a major deconstruction, and then reconstruction. Based on how the GM wanted to rebuild this flattened franchise, it was never going to be a quick fix (@dudacek's central point.) There was a tsunami of bad decisions that led to Jack and multiple UFAs on this team (now thriving on cup contending teams) to be determined to get out of this wrecked franchise.
It has gotten fatiguing reprising the past and pointing out what went wrong. That's not a major challenge to do. It's like shooting at fish in a well-stocked barrel and then act as if you accomplished something challenging.
By the time the upcoming season arrives, the GM will have had enough time to show that his long-term strategy to rebuild is a success or failure. (Your point.) This has to be a constructive offseason where he adds the necessary pieces so at the minimum get this team into the playoffs. If our GM succumbs to his conservative instincts and sticks with the status-quo, then his tenure will clearly and fairly be labeled a failure.
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.
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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.
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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.
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2 minutes ago, dudacek said:
Sure, but let’s not dismiss it as a pipe dream either.
This is how good teams have stayed competitive and mediocre teams have made the jump.
You’re not going to sign Lindholm and Joshua for anywhere near that money, but you can find the next Lindholm and Joshua.
If you want to contend, you have to.
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.
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31 minutes ago, dudacek said:
They absolutely could get a bigger-name guy for $6-8 million and 2 plugs for the 4th line and call it a day.
Let’s focus on the Canucks here since they are a team whose jump we are trying to emulate.
I think the Sabres would be more than happy with a summertime haul that yields the likes of Elias Lindholm, Dakota Joshua, Sam Lafferty and Teddy Blueger.
Vancouver is paying those 4 guys $4.8M, $800K, $1.9M, and $1.1M - $8.8M total.
Lafferty was acquired for a 5th-rounder, Blueger signed July 1 to a 1-year UFA deal, Joshua was basically a Brett Murray they signed for depth.
And Lindholm was acquired for the type of deal many of us want Adams to make: a bushel of picks and prospects - roughly equivalent to Ryan Johnson, next year’s 1st and scraps - and Kuzmenko, a fat contract sitting in the press box.
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.
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15 hours ago, dudacek said:
The Sabres have the 9th most space with $23M
They have 13 NHL players signed and 10 players to re-sign or replace with that space:
Luukkonen, Jokiharju, Krebs, Bryson, Clague, Olofsson, Girgensons, Jost, Comrie, Robinson.
For sake of argument, I’m going to dedicate $10M to re-signing the first 3 and let the rest go.
Also for sake of argument, I’m going to budget $3M on the 3 guys starting in the press box.
That leaves $10M to spend on 3 top 12 forwards and a backup goalie.
That’s plenty of space for upgrades to Okposo Girgensons Olofsson and Comrie, particularly when you have a Comrie upgrade already available at $900K in Levi.
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.
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35 minutes ago, ska-T Chitown said:
You can consider me de-baffled on your original point. 🙂 And I was not so much directing at you, just using your post as a launch point for the discussion.
I still find it odd how generally (not just you) there is more sentiment of disappointment around what Benson did versus what Quinner or Peterks did the year before. I suspect it is because the season was so disappointing (an 18-yr old throwing in 30 points on a playoff team sounds better than doing it for some middling organization stumbling through the dark valley of no playoffs) and typically if an 18 year old makes an NHL team, it is because they are McDavid/Eichel/Bedard and they are scoring like first line players.
I think if the Sabres had been solidly in a WC spot all year and made the playoffs, Benson's season would have been seen as an indication of how strong the lineup was (dang, they did that AND had an 18 yr old) instead of the glaring weakness it was. ("It" being the fact an 18 yr old could crack the roster, not any slight on his tenacious play, dogged determination, or satisfactory point output). The concept of Benson making the team being far worse than his actual play.
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.
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23 minutes ago, Malazan said:
I feel like this is misleading. The Sabres $8.48M in cap space is the 3rd most in the league and they are also projected to have the 3rd most. The only teams with more space are the Blackhawks and the Ducks.
I think you are looking at 23-24 year end numbers.
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5 minutes ago, Carmel Corn said:
Are you factoring in VO’s salary coming off the payroll?
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.
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2 hours ago, JoeSchmoe said:
Improving our bottom 6 is the low hanging fruit that we can most easily cover through through FA. If we upped our spending there and spread it around across 3 or 4 players that are better than Robinson, Jost, Girgensons, etc we can really improve vs previous years.
Our top 6 still needs improvement too. Let's do that by trading picks and prospects.
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.
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23 minutes ago, ska-T Chitown said:
This sorta baffles me ... he was nearly as productive (11-19-30 in 71 games) as Quinn (14-23-37 in 75) Peterka (12-20-32 in 77) when he was 18 while they were 20/21 and people (not everyone, I know) had trouble hiding their boners after the Quinn/Peterka rookie years ...
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.
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2 hours ago, LGR4GM said:
If Johnson isn't on the roster for 2024, trade him. There's no need to keep him with how many lhd we have and he'd have value to improve the forwards or get a good rhd from a team that needs some cap relief. 11 and Johnson would interest any number of teams who are looking to move an upper middle 6 forward. It's the exact type of trade you see around the nhl from real teams.
I would be fine with them trading Johnson. Of course, a potential trade of any of our top prospects and picks comes with the “for the right player” qualifier.
He was born the same year as Cozens, Krebs, Byram, Quinn and Levi. There is currently not a top-6 D-spot for him on the team. I would not have an issue with him being Clifton’s partner on the 3rd pair, but have we improved our D core/depth for the coming critical season if we trade Joker or Samuelsson (or Clifton, I guess) and replace that player with Johnson?
In a world where getting better in the short and long term is the true priority, I think we trade Joker for a bottom 6 forward upgrade, sign a UFA right shot D (Demelo, Roy, Tanev, Pesce), keep Johnson in Rochester and next off-season make the difficult decision to either trade Johnson or make room for him in the NHL by trading Byram or Samuelsson. The Russians don’t come into the NHL picture until 26-27
I know this likely isn’t that world though.
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Maybe there were bridges burned, but Chris Taylor seems a logical choice (assuming he is not back in New Jersey). He ha a history with Ruff, Rochester and, I think, Karmanos (he was an assistant for a year at Wilkes-Barre). If the head coach in the AHL is to implement the NHL head coaches systems, then Taylor makes sense.
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59 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:
Granato talked about it. The players didn't do it. Either they can't do it or won't do it. If they can't do it, Adams needs to act. If they won't do it, either Adams needs to act or Lindy needs to coach it into them.
I am bating with weighted breath to see how Lindy responds to players who won't do what he says.
I like Ruff. I think he is a good coach. I would have preferred a new direction. He is not an accountability guru.
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To me, this all goes back to last off-season and the lack of commitment and expectations established by Adams. Okposo is just stating what we all could see.
At the end of last season the players were disappointed they did not get in the playoffs and were eager to take the next step. Adams and Granato went out of their way at their year-end pressers to throw cold water on the notion that they missed an opportunity by not getting in the playoffs AND on the notion that anything short of the playoffs this year should be considered failure. They then lived up to their lack of urgency by not addressing obvious team needs in the off-season. Adams set the tone with his end of season press conference and with his off-season activity (committing to Levi, no changes to the 4th line, no replacement for Quinn, no willingness to sacrifice an asset to move off of Olofsson and replace him with a player who Granato could make better use of). Long before they started the season with a struggling Levi getting 4 straight starts and an 18 year old replacing Quinn in the middle six, the players had got the message: we aren’t serious about this.
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8 hours ago, LGR4GM said:
Im sorry but this is short sighted and doesn't view the cap ramifications over time. In 2026-2027 the cap hit for Jeff is 6.4 million and then it is 2.44million for 3 years after that if you buy him out this offseason. You do get a savings this offseason, but who cares? This is the least important offseason to have that cap savings as the Sabres A. already have the space to bring in a higher end player (which they wont) and B. don't have to worry about Quinn and JJP next contract, so having that space is superfluous. Meanwhile if you simply wait until next offseason, you save 2.4million in 2029/30. You save 445k every single other year and still save 5million on the cap for year 1 of the new Quinn/JJP deal. It makes far more logical sense to wait one year, especially when as I noted it gives you depth. Jeff Skinner isn't a bad player, he just isn't worth 9million.
Buy him out next year and spend this year trying to trade him. You can always use him on lines 1-3 and he is almost guaranteed to be better under Ruff and have a bounce back year.
We just disagree. I think it is short-sighted to be worrying about an extra $450k in cap hit from 25-26 to 28-29 and a $2.5 million hit in 29-30 when the cap could be over $100 million.
The Canucks bought out OEL last June. They saved almost $8 million in space this year. That’s JT Miller. Or Lindholm and Zadorov. For the next 7 years the buyout cap hit is 2.3, 4.7, 4.7, 2.1, 2.1, 2.1, 2.1. Few Canuck fans are lamenting the buyout right now (it will hurt at some point though).
Of course, I know that the Sabres aren’t buying out Skinner. Their recent coaching moves show they are less than courageous when it comes to bold moves. For discussion purposes though, imagine an off-season where they do the things you are hoping they do, and they clear up $7.5 million in space to add two players that are currently not accessible due to cap limitations. Dare to dream.
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I have zero concerns about the long range plan for Appert to take over as head coach (assuming that’s the plan). I don’t think this means Appert takes over in two years. If things go well, maybe Ruff wants to coach longer. If things don’t go well, then the plan is likely discarded. The only likely way that Appert becomes head coach is if things go well, in which case most fans won’t be too concerned if Appert is handed the job.
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My take is that Adams had a plan that involved keeping Wilford, Ellis and Bales and promoting Appert and he went out and got the one veteran coach who would agree to take the job under those parameters. Ruff, I think, knew that he would have limited to no NHL head coach options outside of this position, so he was willing to accept the parameters that Adams set. I suspect Ruff's position also comes with the carrot of an ongoing Advisory role that will keep him involved longer term, so long as the next couple of years go well.
I think this is, simultaneously, something that could work out fine and that is incredibly disheartening. On the one hand, I acknowledge that Wilford and Ellis may well be fine assistant coaches. That we had a bad powerplay last year does not, in itself, mean Ellis is unworthy of coaching at this level. A year ago and without any context, if you told me that our 24-25 staff would be the same (Granato back) except for Appert replacing Christie, I would not have cringed. It could workout fine. The disheartening part is that it is continued evidence that we just don't operate like a normal NHL team. There is zero chance that any of the oft-mentioned quality head coaching candidates out there (Berube, Woodcroft, Evason, Gallant, Keefe) accept this set of parameters. Ruff was chosen for a number of reasons and no small part of that was his willingness to mesh with the existing plan.
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35 minutes ago, Doohickie said:
This isn't a video game. He has three options to move Skinner off the team:
- Trade him, but who will take him and will he waive his no trade clause? The Sabres would need to retain a significant portion of his salary or accept cap dump of crappy players from another team which won't help the Sabres situation.
- Buy him out, which won't help the cap situation.
- Waive him a la Matt Moulson and let him play out his contract in the AHL, but again, that won't help the cap situation (as we saw with Matty Mo).
#3 isn’t an option as he has a full NMC.
There is absolute cap benefit to a buyout. $7.5 this year, $4.5 next year and $2.5 the year after that. The downside to the cap is the $2.5 hit in years 4-6.
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32 minutes ago, Taro T said:
He might be able to get to close to 30 on the 3rd or 4th line, but am guessing about 22 is more realistic. Which is still acceptable. (Forget what he costs in $'s, his contract won't be what's keeping Adams from making necessary moves.)
Really don't see Skinner's contract keeping Adams from making moves this off-season. And if the contract isn't limiting what Adams is going to do, then there's no pressing reason to saddle the team with reduced cap for 5 seasons beyond this next one.
Would be surprised if Skinner's 8th year doesn't get bought out, but not even convinced that the 7th year will necessarily have to be bought out. Personally expect that to be a function of what moves Adams makes next off-season provided the Sabres made the playoffs next year and Adams is still making those decisions.
Don't forget, the cap will be going up in the future pretty significantly with the players now having repaid the owners COVID clawback AND while Utah shouldn't affect the national TV contracts, it will increase overall HRR relative to what would've come in from 5k seat Mullett. Not completely convinced that they won't be able to squeeze Peterka, Quinn, Levi, and Greenway into the cap next year even with Skinner still on the books. And if the team does make the playoffs, could see where Adams does essentially run back status quo as so many pieces on the roster will be improving simply by being closer to their primes. And at least one of the "big 4" and likely 2 of them will be ready for the NHL next season and Novikov might be making one of this year's pencilled in 8 expendable too.
These are all valid points. But we don’t have as much space as some might think. Give our RFA’s the extensions predicted by Evolving Hockey and promote Levi, Johnson and Rousek to back-up roles and there is about 8 million left to acquire meaningful forward additions. Of course, you can move existing players in trades (Joker as an example) and create space. But the space available to make substantive changes is hindered to a degree (not impossible by any means) with Skinner’s hit.
Eight of this years playoff teams have dead cap extending past this season. Vancouver and Nashville have substantial dead cap hits extending 4 & 5 years respectively. Those are two teams whose leadership has been praised for addressing team needs and getting their franchises turned around and back in the playoffs in short order. The buyouts they committed to have played a big role in allowing them to make the changes they made.
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37 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:
The salary cap and his caphits. We can afford him this year without issues. Once Quinn and JJP need payment we won't be able to afford Skinner. It gives you depth this year for the top 6 and gives all the other prospects another yr development. Ik he's not in favor here, but he's a 20+ goal scorer getting you 60pts so until you have that in someone else, just buying him out seems premature. With all that in mind, next summer. 4 years of caphits that are about 500k less than this years buyout with a full extra year of dead cap at the end eliminated by waiting.
These are all good points.
Up until the end of this last season, I had never contemplated a Skinner buyout seriously. The length and cost of any buyout always seemed a bit absurd, at least until you got to year 8. Looking at it closely for the first time, I’m actually kind of convinced that it was structured to make this year the inflection point. This is the year where the debate needs to occur and management needs to weigh the value of $7.5 million in extra cap space this off-season vs the drag of an extra year’s cap hit of $2.5 million in 2029-30. There are a few points that tip me towards a buyout this June:
- I think we may have reached the point where Skinner, all things considered, does not meet the value of even half his AAV. He was never worth $9 million but at his best he was maybe worth $7 million and you could swallow hard and accept that he got to UFA status and got himself paid. I think we are now at a point where what you can get with the cap space saved with a buyout is more than what you can get from Skinner at his AAV.
- The cost of a buyout now vs next year is really only one year at approx $2.5 million. The approximate $500k extra cap hit the 4 years after this year is not immaterial, but it is also not a huge issue and it won’t ultimately be the difference between keeping Quinn and Peterka and losing them (if things go well, keeping both will be tough regardless). Critically to this argument is that the one year where it really hurts (the extra 6th year) is 2029-2030. I don’t want to get in a habit of throwing away future cap space, but a dead cap hit of $2.5 million 6 years from now should not be a huge concern relative to the importance of making the playoffs in 2024-2025.
- Which leads to the final point. We get $7.5 million in space this off-season, one of the most critical in franchise history, with a buyout now. The question should be: are we a better hockey team this year with Jeff Skinner at $9 million or are we better with whatever players we can add using the $7.5 we save with a buyout? -
2 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:
It's not that they would be totally unwanted, but you through Kadri in there and he's way above that. You want Kadri you're going to have to throw 2 1sts and more in the package.
A year ago, when it first looked like the Flames were possibly headed to a rebuild, people were wondering if a 33 year old Kadri with 6 years left at $7 million per, could be moved. He had a bounce back year, but I’m not sure his trade value is what you think it is. He has a full NMC though, so the point is likely moot anyway.
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Off-season Game Plan 2024
in The Aud Club
Posted
Would Joker and 11 get Necas and 28?