Archie Lee
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Posts posted by Archie Lee
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8 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:
See, it's not easy is it? The hypothetical "Sabres should" argument is easy. A concrete actual possibility is much harder. Is Laughton really worth a low first or a second, quite possibly, but a higher first might actually get him on your team.
No offense, but that's just ridiculous. Fans are always coming up with these ideas where we toss away what we don't want and get quality players back. It's just not happening. Adams is not going to "win" these trades if he actually wants to make this team better now, but losing these trades and making this team win is a net win.
It's time for action. (Getting rid of Skinner would be a good start)
None taken. But you are not speaking for me when you conclude that Krebs, Joker and #11 (+) are unwanted.
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19 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:
I'm suggesting that he's a potential player that MIGHT be available on a team that MIGHT be enticed by a draft pick. The thread is a hypothetical idea but I didn't see anybody making a viable suggestion so I asked the question.
Is Laughton a first round pick in value? No, but it might take a first round pick to pry him away from his team. Added to the Sabres current roster we instantly become a better team as Krebs can be 4C where he belongs (if in the NHL at all).
So I ask you, trade the pick so for who? Who would want to make that deal and who will give you what you want for it? Who?
I'd offer that pick to Boston for Trent Frederic but I very much doubt Boston would be interested.
I could be wrong, but I think Laughton is a guy who maybe gets a late 1st or early 2nd, but I don’t think he is worth #11. As for who the Sabres could move the pick for, I really don’t know. It’s hard to come up with a good one for one (pick for player) example.
A lot of the ideas I come up with, seem that they might be laughable to some. Would Calgary do Andersson and Kadri (with say a $1 million retention) for Joker, Krebs and #11? Maybe we need to add something else? We would need to buyout Skinner to make it work.
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22 minutes ago, GoPuckYourself said:
I never once said anything about GM's being fired at the same rate as head coaches.
I can't understand how anyone can say we need a 5th year to see what this GM can do. Also you say Adams is "clearly" a bright guy like it's fact, I guess we just see it differently and that's cool. Not everyone agrees with my take and I get that, I just don't know what I need to see in year 5 of the Kevin Adams experience that I haven't in years 1-4? I hope he does well obviously and we turn it around . He finally gets to show what he can do with a legit HC so we'll see.
I’m not trying to convince you of anything on Adams. TW posted that GMs don’t get fired that quickly and you replied that you disagree. Sorry then, what was it about his post that you were disagreeing with?
I don’t think it takes 5 years for a GM to turn around a franchise and I would lose no sleep is Adams was fired today. For now though, I have more faith in Adams figuring this out than I have in Pegula getting it right on his 5th GM.
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22 minutes ago, dudacek said:
NHL was so easy for when I was a kid - 16 of 21 teams made it. NFL was so hard - just 10 of 30 qualified And that’s how it’s been cemented in my head.
Now the NHL is 16 of 32 and the NFL 14 of 32.
Kinda snuck up on me how much that has changed.
For much of my life I assumed I would one day see the Sabres win the Stanley Cup. That assumption was formed in the era of the 16-21 team NHL (75%+ of teams in the playoffs). Setting aside the team's ineptitude for the past 13 years, I've come to accept that it is now less than likely that they will win a Cup in my lifetime. This does not cause me any stress or frustration.
In a 32 team (50% in the playoffs) NHL, I do think it is time that we see winning a Conference Championship as the great achievement that it is. Winning a Conference Championship in the NHL today is a greater feat than winning the Cup was at anytime prior to this century (in my view). It's time for teams to pick up the Prince of Wales and Clarence Campbell trophies and skate them around the ice and pose for photos. Nothing about celebrating that level of achievement has to mean that they have lost focus on the biggest prize (the Cup).
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23 minutes ago, GoPuckYourself said:
I'll agree to disagree and 13 seasons of no playoffs is absolutely insane considering half the teams make it. I don't know what more we needed to see from Murray, Botteril and now Adams but I guess some still believe in him apparantly.
I don't think he was expressing an opinion on Adams level of success. He was pointing out that GM's don't get fired as often as people think (certainly not at the same rate as head coaches).
I've lost a lot of faith in Adams going back to July 1, 2023. I can't understand, though, how anyone would think the best option is for Pegula to pick another GM. The best option for now is to hope that Adams, who I think is clearly a bright guy, has learned from his mistakes and properly course corrects this off-season. I'm skeptical, but I prefer to see what Adams does in partnership with Ruff over having Pegula making a change.
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I looked back at the last decade for trades that fit our current scenario (trading a top 15 pick from this year's draft, after the season and prior to or at the draft). I excluded from the list:
- trades that occurred prior to the end of the year where the pick occurred
- trades related to an expansion draft
- trades where more than one first was traded such as the Seth Jones trade
- the Vancouver / Arizona trade from 2021, which had as much or more to do with cap space as the players involved (if you want to include it, Van did get Connor Garland and Oliver Ekman-Larsson in that deal)
Here is the list:
- 2015 LA traded #13 (Zboril) to Boston along with Martin Jones and Colin Miller for Milan Lucic
- 2015 Cal traded #15 (Senyshyn) and two 2nd rd picks to Boston for Dougie Hamilton
- 2017 Ari trades #7 (Lias Andersson) and Tony DeAngelo to NYR for Derek Stepan and Antti Raanta
- 2020 Pit trades #15 (Amirov) and Evan Rodriguez (and 2 prospects) to Tor for Kaspari Kapanen (and 2 prospects)
- 2021 Phi trades #14 (Rosen) and a 2nd and Robert Hagg to Buf for Rasmus Ristolainen
- 2022 Ott trades #7 (Korchinski) and a 2nd and a 3rd for Alex Debrincat
- 2022 NYI trade #13 (Nazar) to Mtl for Alexander Romanov and a 4th rd pick
- 2022 Mtl then trades the above pick (Nazar) and a 3rd to Chicago for Kirby Dach
With the benefit of hindsight, only two of the acquired players would be in the category of worth getting excited about, those being Hamilton and Debrincat (add Garland if you want to include that trade). Hamilton had 3 good years in Calgary and then returned Lindholm in a trade with Carolina. We know how the Debrincat situation turned out. LA fans were no doubt excited about Lucic in the moment, but they (fortunately for them) lost him as a UFA a year later.
Also, the players drafted either did not take the league by storm (sadly, Amirov has since passed away), or are still in development.
Not sure what this all means, except that perhaps (on balance) it isn't likely that trading #11 would turn into a franchise altering move one way or the other.
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7 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:
The only one I can up with myself (possibly) is Scott Laughton. The Flyers are rebuild/compete, can't quite figure out which or trying to do both and his name was mentioned as available last year. 2way 3C. They might not want to make that deal any more.
Are you suggesting we trade #11 for Laughton? Or that he is the quality of player we could get for #11?
I would hope we could do better than that. I would prefer to give Laughton's $3 million salary to Teddy Blueger or Kevin Stenlund in free agency and keep the pick.
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One thing to remember about Briere, his first good NHL season was the year he turned 24.
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7 hours ago, Claude Balls said:
After watching tonight's Amerks game....huge failure. He has no clue, and prolly less of a clue than Botterill had. Small speedy Euros...keep em coming. Maybe we'll win someday.
When it comes to prospects there should be no rush. I don't mean that we should be absolute in not trading any. I also don't mean we should just patiently wait for this batch of prospects to be ready.
The Sabre roster has many good pieces, but also some holes and some structural deficiencies. Serious NHL teams that have cap space and assets address their holes and deficiencies, they don't leave spots open for the prospect who shows best in camp. Adams failed in not recognizing that a shift in perception had occurred by the end of 22-23 and that it was no longer going to be good enough to miss the playoffs with some young guys doing some good things. By not taking advantage of the assets he had and moving the process forward last off-season, he ultimately took the team backwards. That failure cost him his plan, and likely some agency (and a coach his job).
I think it would be a mistake though, to now over-correct and trade away their 1st rd pick and half their top prospects. The Sabres have lots of assets at their disposal and don't need to move their 1st rd pick or top prospects to enhance the roster (I'm not absolute on this, I just think if they do things correctly then holding these assets will ultimately pay-off).
The lesson from the Amerk's loss is that there need be no hurry to rush any of these kids to the NHL. They can all be back in Rochester, get a year older, a year stronger, a year more mature, support them with a bit of a different style of coach and veteran player (much like should happen in the NHL this year) and let them take a run. If things go as planned with the Sabres, there will be difficult cap decisions to make before 25-26. Then there should be 2-3 of these young guys absolutely ready to step in and help and thrive at the NHL level.
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21 hours ago, Porous Five Hole said:
That’s why arbitration makes sense. Still an RFA after next year and you will better know what you really have.
The long term answer is Levi anyway. Devon already has nothing left to prove in the AHL (.927 save percentage in his 26 games here this year—and even better so far in the playoffs).
For this UPL negotiation, you have to consider the fact that he may be a backup before the end of next year.
I’m not down on Levi. I urge you though to have a look at the list of young AHL goalies in the last decade who have had seasons with a 920 save %. and higher. The list is pretty long. Some ended up being very good NHL goalies. Most didn’t.
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12 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:
The pick is just one more asset in a big pile of assets, but all that will matter is what's on the roster so trade this pick or a 2025 pick or a prospect in Rochester, whatever and whoever.
I think this is a succinct way of putting it. We have picks, prospects, some young roster players and cap space. I’m not too hung up on what pieces we move or don’t move. Just take advantage of the assets we have to make the team better.
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19 hours ago, Brawndo said:
Evolving Hockey’s most likely contract projection is 4 years at 5.1 AAV
The alternative is probably a one year Swayman deal ($3.5 ish). A two year deal takes UPL to UFA status. If we want some of his UFA years, then I think we will need to approach $5 million per. Lots of risk either way.
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Keep the pick. Keep all the top prospects* in Rochester (or wherever they are required to play) for another year. Buy out Skinner. Bolster the roster with veterans acquired through free agency or by trading lesser assets (Joker, 2nd rd picks or later). Make the playoffs in the NHL and compete for the Calder in the AHL. Promote 2-3 Top prospects on ELC’s to the NHL roster in 25/26 when the cap crunch comes.
*I’m ok with trading one or two top prospects, but think the roster can be effectively remade without doing so.
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13 hours ago, Thorny said:
Who’s the best centre we’ve seen brought in by Adams so far in 4 years? Actually asking
Krebs?
I’m not defending Adams with this comment, but for the past 3 seasons he has not been seriously trying to bring in veteran centres (there is a valid criticism regarding it not being a priority).
Since the Krueger firing, Adams has, more or less, executed his plan. We have just come to the 1st point in his process where the plan did not render the results he anticipated. This off-season we will learn a lot.
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1 hour ago, GoPuckYourself said:
Brutal but the Leafs owner makes a boatload of money, They could but most likely wont.
It’s not that the ownership group could not afford to buy him out but rather that there would be no point. There are virtually no cap savings.
6 minutes ago, Crusader1969 said:too old too slow isnt he like 37 now?
He is 33. He had 65 points in 80 games.
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1 hour ago, sabrefanday1 said:
Having played first without Nylander, then Mathews, probably saved a lot of jobs on the Leafs. If they had lost 4-1 heads were going to roll...coach Sheldon gone for sure, and who knows what other changes. Instead, they are now looking at it as some sort of moral victory that they battled back from down 3-1 without their superstar Mathews. Hear them talking of how coach was so proud of his team for battling back under such trying circumstances. Guess it'll be the same old same old for the Leafs and thei rfans next year as well then...
I’ll be a bit surprised if Keefe is not fired. I think he is a good coach, but the easiest change for the Leafs to make is to fire him and bring in any one of the veteran coaches available. I think their brass will look at how they played games 5-7 and target a coach who they perceive will have them play like that from the start (Berube).
There will be calls for Marner and/or Tavares to be traded, but they both have full no moves. I suppose there are ways to convince a player to accept a trade. Both are UFAs after next season, so change is coming one way or another.
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44 minutes ago, Thorny said:
Dude I know they actually aren’t frauds
I dislike all Canadian teams and root against them. My post was just message board fodder.
They are PP merchants tho
It’s all message board fodder, Dude.
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1 minute ago, Pimlach said:
I am a huge Lindy fan. He will soothe the casual fans that have left this team - fans like my daughter and my wife. Neither has watched a game in many years because this team stinks, and they have for a very long time. Fans are excited to have him back. Lindy will help on the hockey side too. We can only hope he has strong input on which NHL players to go get, because Adams needs help.
Adam’s is becoming a farce. He didn’t even talk to a Stanley Cup winning coach that took a team from last to first. Ever. He probably never interviewed Gallant either.
So the guy that gave Adams a start in the NHL becomes available, it’s a perfect opportunity for Lindy to give it one more shot. Why not hire his friend and neighbor in Clarence. It could work?
Maybe being in the right place at the right time is Adams true skill?
In my view Ruff has largely been a coach who gets as much out of his team as could reasonably be expected. That’s good. He is not a coach whose system or intellect or force of determination will push a team to be more than the sum of its parts. I don’t think that changes for the better at this point of his career.
The 23-24 Sabres are maybe marginally better with Ruff than Granato, but they are not a playoff team. I would argue that the outlier from the Granato era is that he somehow dragged the 22-23 team to within a point of the playoffs; that was a greater coaching achievement than the 23-24 season was a failure.
We will be as good as the team that Ruff is provided to coach. Great roster improvement is needed for us to be in playoff contention.
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8 hours ago, Thorny said:
Oilers are *frauds*. Cannot score other than the power play and the officials are going out of their way to make it their personal mission to have them on the power play as much as possible today
Edit - and yet another. Functionally a power play goal as returning player had just stepped on
I could not disagree more. Post-pandemic, 90% of NHL fan-bases would be so lucky to have such a fraudulent team to root for.
Just looking at their roster and at who is producing for them night after night and it seems to me they have reached that point of critical mass where they have a high # of players who are either in, approaching, or just coming out of their prime performance years.
Once you get down to 8 NHL teams, the road is tough (this is not the NHL I grew up watching where 12/16 or 16/21 teams were in the playoffs).
Watching the Oilers and watching all the former Sabres who are in the playoffs, just reinforces how terribly the Sabres managed the post-tank years. It is really just the past couple of years that we should be a top 5-6 contender.
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12 hours ago, dudacek said:
I’m sure Adams wasn’t lying when he said he talked to double digit people during his coaching “search”
Im also sure those conversations weren’t serious job interviews.
Before speaking to anyone, Adams felt the team needed specific qualities and he felt Ruff - who he knows very well - was the perfect fit.
The “search” was basically confirming Ruff was the fit he thought he was and due diligence around that.
It was pretty easy to connect the dots in between the two pressers and figure out what happened.
I think it is possible that the double-digit number of people who he spoke to, were people he spoke to about the idea of hiring Ruff. In other words: he did due diligence on Ruff by having many discussions with many people about Ruff before he hired him.
Adams got a lot of praise for how he handled the press conference where he addressed firing Donnie. I’ve read that some think his demeanour on that day and on the day of the Ruff press conference was the most confident he has been since he became GM. I see the opposite. I see a guy whose plan failed and who is now scrambling. I see a guy who knows his options to move this forward with the speed needed to save his job are extremely limited.
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41 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:
So in one sentence you are actively rooting for tank fruit #1, a player who put up 50g and is one of the best pp forwards in the league. Then in the final sentence you mention a team that took tank fruit #2 and won the cup last year.
The tanked worked to perfection, the rebuild was utter trash and Kane and Bogo's nose candy loving ***** and GMTM's craptastic drafting are directly responsible. In fact the Sabres are one of the worst drafting teams from 2009-2017, when we took vaunted first round talents like... Armia, Kassian, Grigorenko, Pysyk, Nylander. In that time the only notable non first round picks taken are Foligno, Compher (traded), McNabb (traded), McCabe, Olofsson, and Hagel (didn't even f-ing sign him). It is why just now we are starting to see improvements, the 2018-2020 draft classes were better and are entering their lower primes. You got Cozens, Quinn, JJP, and Ryan Johnson from just 11 picks. In 2025 or 2026 we will see another jump depending on who we keep because of good drafting. 2021 already has Power, with Novikov making a push and Rosen at least looking like a 3rd liner or tradable asset. 2022 has Savoie, Östlund, and Kulich in it, all 3 are on track to be NHL guys and I would add in Komarov as a possible guy. What is interesting is these 2 Adams drafts, I think show some flaws which brings us to 2023... Benson, Strbak, Wahlberg all look like they have possible NHL futures which are your first 3 picks from that draft. Buffalo seems to have really figured out how to maximize the first 3 rounds (screw you Leinonen pick that should have been Warren) and if they are getting 2 useful NHL players per draft we are in good shape.
Buffalo finally is getting to the log jam, where prospects have to fight their way up through the AHL until they are 21, 22, 23 as opposed to maybe spending their 20yr old season there and then BAM! NHL guaranteed. Benson might be the last of the "well we have a spot and here's a kid with skill so..." that we see for awhile. It is why I vehemently oppose Kulich or Östlund, or even Savoie being considered for the roster in 2024, you need to add vets that make that almost impossible. The good news is that the top 6 is solidified. JJP - Tage - Tuch and Skinner/Benson - Cozens - Quinn is basically set in stone and there isn't a prospect coming to overtake any of those wingers and ftr, I love Savoie. Now anyone else we draft has to overtake them, Skinner will be the first as Benson either this season or next will surpass him.
Hate the tank, it is the low hanging fruit, but the idea of selling off assets to draft as high as possible has lots of merit around the league from Pittsburgh to even a team like Florida. The issue is selling the assets is easy, building is hard. One last thing, everyone seems to forget that in 2012 and 2013, the sabres were bad. It wasn't like we were a good and then had this stupid idea. In fact think about it, by 2014, we hadn't won a playoff series since 2007. I won't convince you the tank wasn't bad, but the tank was a symptom of a larger problem that existed for almost all of Regier's time and certainly all of dipshit GMTMs time.
I will always disagree with the majority here about the tank because I believe the goal of the tank was to acquire elite talent that the team was incapable of drafting otherwise (a problem Detroit is having because of how the lottery played out). I believe the tank achieved that objective but unfortunately Murray and Botterill were unable to build a team after that. I could see an argument that that was a fault of the tank but I think it was more to do with Murray being terrible and Botterill just never really getting what he needed. I suppose it doesn't matter now.
You make many good points that I agree with. I would argue that there is a difference between “A” tank (the concept of tanking) and “THE” tank (the tank that we did). There was no appetite among any group associated with the Sabres (ownership, management, fans) to manage the tank in a way that we would now describe as proper (I don’t doubt you may have felt different at the time, but I would not say your view was representative of how fans felt in general). The expectation was that we would be terrible for 2 years, get a good player in 2014 and then McEichel in 2015 and then be back in the playoffs and on our way to contending within another year or two. There was never any intention, at least after Regier was fired, to manage the tank and rebuild “properly”.
In other words, I don’t think “THE” tank can be separated from the failed rebuild.
Note: you are, of course, free to separate them if you see it otherwise. I’m not speaking for anyone but myself, but I don’t see what happened from June 2015 to June/July 2018 as being separate from “THE” tank.
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3 hours ago, dudacek said:
To my mind:
- Dahlin is a clear-cut #1
- Power is a 2/3 with #1 upside
- Byram is a 3/4 with 1st-pair upside
- Samuelsson is a 3/4 with injury issues
- Jokiharju is a 4/5
- Clifton is a 4/5
- Johnson is a 6/7 with 4/5 upside
- Bryson is a 7
As a group they seem to skate and transition very well, defend the rush pretty well, need improvement boxing out and with in-zone reads, add to the attack nicely, and lack nasty.
Ideally, they would add some snarl and defensive acumen, but I think in general that's a deep, highly-skilled group with everyone properly slotted. I'm curious to see what Lindy can do with them.
Payroll is interesting:
- Dahlin will the league's 3rd-highest paid defenceman next year
- Power will be paid like an average 1D
- Samuelsson like a good 3D
- Byram and Clifton like average 2nd-pairing guys
- And Jokiharju has probably earned a deal like Clifton's
Obviously the Mule, Dahlin and Power contracts are designed to hurt most this coming year, but this is not a cheap group
I'm not looking to make change for the sake of change. But, if we come back next year with the same top-6 D and Skinner, there won't be many roster spots or much cap space left to make substantial change. I'm onboard for a remade 4th line, but I don't see (as examples) adding Noah Cates through trade and the likes of Brendan Smith, William Carrier, Kevin Stenlund, etc. as UFA's as moving the needle all that much. And just adding players of that level (along with extensions for Joker, Krebs, UPL, Bryson) will get us within a couple millions of the cap.
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Just now, thewookie1 said:
Frankly I see little to no scenario we buyout Skinner this offseason; the earliest I could see it is next season
Assuming the Sabres plan to be a cap team from here (no sure thing, I understand), then from a cap perspective, the only significant value in waiting a year is avoiding the 6th year cap hit of $2,444,444. The benefit in buying him out now is $7.5 million in space this season to remake the roster. From an actual dollars spent perspective, waiting a year saves Pegula about $3.7 million ( I think).
12 minutes ago, dudacek said:When people say they want to add a 2nd-pair D, do they mean the team doesn't have enough good defencemen?
Or does it mean they don't like the mix and want to move a defenceman out in exchange for a different type of defenceman?
For me it is the mix.
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On 4/26/2024 at 2:22 PM, Thorny said:
This is the most I can ever remember the board being so nearly unanimously in favour of moving picks and prospects even the good ones. Definitely saying something.
I’m fine with moving a high-end prospect or two this off-season. My preference, though, would be to address our top-end needs (middle six forward, 2nd pair D) through free agency and to trade some secondary pieces (Joker, B-prospects, 2nd rd picks and later) to fill out the 4th line and depth positions.
If the Sabres are serious this off-season and spend to the cap (hopefully with a Skinner buyout), then whether they acquire new players via trade or free agency it will put them in a difficult cap position next year with Peterka, Quinn, Byram as RFAs (and Levi). I’m not afraid of that and indeed hope we are in a difficult cap position a year from now. I want them to have tough decisions to make regarding RFA’s or trading a vet or two to make space. If we are in such a difficult spot, then the more good prospects we have to challenge for vacated roles, the better.
There should be no rush to trade or promote our top prospects. In 04-05, Vanek, Roy, Pominville, Gaustad and Miller were in Rochester and their average age to start the season was 21.6. Next year to start the season the average age of Rosen, Kulich, Savoie, Östlund and Levi will be a full year younger. I’m not opposed to trading one or two in the right deals, but improving through free agency and keeping prospect bullets in the chamber, so to speak, for when the cap crunch hits, should be an option.
Off-season Game Plan 2024
in The Aud Club
Posted
Serious question, what’s your logic for waiting a year? The buyout cap hits? Or do you think we still might get enough value from Skinner to make the $9 million cap hit at least somewhat palatable?