Archie Lee

I hope they learned something from the game winning goal. There was no play to be made so Tage dumped it in and got after it. I’m not arguing for us to go away from being a puck possession team to become a dump and chase team, but we would be so much better if our best offensive players developed better discretion on when it just makes sense to get the puck deep.

Sorry, but this is like saying once McDavid hit a certain point total in the NHL that there was nothing left he can improve on at the NHL level. It’s just flawed. Savoie’s a smart kid I think, there was lots he had an opportunity to improve on playing a final year of junior.

The current Sabres team is too young. That’s a legitimate excuse for the players collectively and for the coaching staff to a degree. Experience, and physical and mental maturity are unquestionable factors in how a professional sports team performs. The players have no control over how experienced they are and the coaches have little or no control over the age of the players at their disposal. Management does not get to use the team’s youth as an excuse though. This is because management has control over this. This team had cap space and an abundance of assets that would have allowed them to ice a more experienced, and more physically and mentally mature roster, and they chose not to do so.

This is where I’m at. I’m not upset by a game 71, 6-3* loss in Edmonton. I’m frustrated that our loss in game 71 all but ends our slimmest of playoff hopes and that we are now 13 years into this. There have been times this year, even last night in moments, where you can see how it all might fit together as soon as next season. But then there are moments where we seem still so far away. Last night in the 3rd period was like watching men against boys. It seems we are further than a year away from this group collectively “putting it all together”. And yet there seems no urgency on the part of ownership or management to move this along at a quicker pace. *Oh goodness, it was 6-3 when I shut it off.

I’m not sure what you mean when you say “if” we saw the same phenomenon in football. We do see lots of CTE in football. Maybe not across all positions, but you seem to equate the number of head shots that an NHL enforcer would take over a career to that of an average NFL player. Maybe this is true, but I don’t think you have evidence of this. It could be significantly more.

Maybe the personality type that would gravitate to being an NHL enforcer is also prone to other reckless behaviour. Maybe. There are a lot of stories out there that detail the stress and anxiety that some enforcers experienced when they knew that night after night they would be called on to fight. Andrew Peters has spoken about this on his podcast. Maybe that level of anxiety contributes to the need to self medicate and the slippery slope to substance abuse. Maybe it was the concussions and CTE. Or maybe a combination of these. Regardless, these guys were/are clearly exploited. It’s long past time to remove fighting from the game.

To the bolded, every team has players who are not a threat offensively. I'm not letting any player off the hook, but we are not where we are because we have a handful of guys on our roster who aren't prolific scorers. We are where we are because 4 of our top scorers from a year ago are on pace to combine for 71 fewer goals this year. There might be good reasons or excuses that they all have (injuries, perhaps, for Thompson, Cozens, Tuch; a badly designed power play; in Olofsson's case they have relegated him to bottom 6 and cut his ice-time), but 10-15 more goals from these guys and we are in the thick of it. Dahlin is on pace for 17 fewer assists this year, which likely speaks directly to how poor the PP has been. The guys you list are not the issue.

I don’t understand the connection you are making. What does the “lifestyle” of NHL enforcers have to do with the high number of football players and boxers who get CTE. Not trying to be cute, I’m just not sure what you are indicating?

Well, that's not what was said, but it is what some of you heard.

I don’t know. When a player finds himself with a new coach, it’s pretty common that the new coach tries to find a way to squeeze more out of said player. Isn’t this what Granato did with Dahlin, Skinner, Thompson, Mitts? Okposo himself saw his production increase under Granato. Now, maybe the message isn’t getting through anymore. Maurice left the Jets as he thought he did all he could do with that group.

This is exactly right. I understand why some are frustrated, but we weren’t going 18-0 to end the season.

Tough loss. I thought the turning point was the Charoit and Rasmussen mild-goonery in the 2nd. We didn’t respond or capitalize on the PP and it seemed that gave Detroit a jump. We had chances to clear the puck on the two 2nd period goals that followed and that’s the game. We have a 5 game home stand after the road trip. The cut-off is still 90.5. We need to keep our head above water on the west coast road trip (2-1-1) and then hold serve on home ice. Long shot to be sure, but not done yet either.

I would say a lack of experience. Or, put another way, we are unquestionably a young and inexperienced team. Perhaps this is true both in the player and coaching ranks. That’s not to say the leaders we had/have are poor, but rather that we have a general lack of experience which means not enough leadership and not enough mental and physical toughness and maturity.

There is probably a difference in the thought process though, between assessing such a first-time infraction by a guy whose played 500 NHL games and never been a problem and a guy who has played 10 career games, leads his team in PM and is clearly on the team to do this sort of thing.

I don't know what the answer is. For a few years the narrative was that we would start strong and then we would fade when the going got tougher. Now we have bad starts, but we finish strong when the pressure is off. I would say that almost every team we are playing is under some pressure. If our recent success is because the teams we are playing don't feel pressure to bring their best games against a bottom feeder, then you would think at least one other team behind us in the standings would be on a stretch similar to us (7-3-1 in last 11), but they all have losing records over their last 10. It is frustrating. We have clearly separated ourselves from the dregs of the NHL, yet we can't quite find a way to move into the top half of teams.

I wouldn’t over complicate it. The Sabres play tonight. I’m a fan. A win keeps their very slim playoff chances alive for another night. So, go Sabres!

I think Scott Laughton is the bottom 6 centre target. Last year Greenway was linked to the Sabres prior to the deadline. This year there were Mitts for Byram rumours a few weeks back. Laughton had been linked to the Sabres for a few weeks also. My guess is that the Flyers unexpected success caused them to push the deal to the off season. As for the reference in a post above to people being upset with the Mitts trade, I think it has less to do with people not liking the value of the deal or the return, than it does to us still being a team that is gathering assets and willing to create a gaping hole in order to fill another. Yes, Byram is a great add. But now we only have 3 true centres in our line-up. We have an important week ahead of us and our GM doesn’t believe enough in the team he iced this year to support them by acquiring a centre who could help down the stretch. The frustration comes from not knowing when we are going to become a serious team.

As Weave pointed out, it was known Quinn would miss a lot of time. Also, Adams knew that: - Granato had lost faith in Olofsson; and - It would be highly unlikely that Quinn's off-season injury would be the only longer-term injury the forward group would sustain. We had the cap space and the draft/prospect capital to add a forward in the off-season and we chose not to.

Ok, I now see how Byram makes us better. Dahlin, Byram, Power is potentially a truly top 3. This will particularly be true when their average age is higher than 22. I still would have preferred that it was accompanied by a move for a veteran forward who can play centre and wing. Maybe it will happen in the off-season. If Tuch’s buddy Chandler Stephenson comes to us as a UFA, that would get me excited. That is not the sort of thing that is going to happen though. In his press conferences, Adams tends to work to lower expectations (trades are hard, they are concerned about taking on a player’s declining years in UFA, they won’t overpay, they aren’t shopping players, trades are hard).

I’ve been an Adams supporter and have defended him and his process. The tone of that presser was completely incongruent with the season the team is having.

I guess it is just that Ruff was fired this year for pretty much the same reasons that many want to see Granato fired. It isn't that he failed to get past round one or two of the playoffs, but rather that he oversaw a regular season disaster. If we make a move (and I doubt we will), there will be coaches available whose recent records are considerably better than Ruff's.

Ruff is a Sabre Legend who I have great affection for. But, pretty much every comment on the Devils that I hear or read from people who cover the NHL, is that they were a disaster this year that went far deeper than just a couple of key injuries and bad goaltending. I'm not opposed to moving on from Granato, but surely we can do better than recycling Ruff?

Not defending Adams overall performance, but he did just make arguably the biggest straight-up "hockey" trade of the season. Maybe we will get something for E. Johnson, Okposo or Girgs, but it isn't likely to be much to get excited about. Somewhat interesting is that the Mittelstadt/Byram swap was rumored for a few weeks. Last year we were linked to Greenway and that happened fairly late on deadline day as I recall. We have been linked to Laughton this year, so maybe something is brewing there.

Value-wise, the trade is fine. I’m a little concerned with Byram’s injury history, but perhaps that is largely behind him. Certainly it is possible that he ends up being the clear best player in the deal. I don’t really get it from a roster building standpoint though. With the regression we have seen in the play of Thompson and Cozens, it does not appear we have a “Cup Calibre” 1st line centre. Add Mitts to the mix and a still developing Krebs, and we at least had 3, and perhaps 4, legit middle 6 centres. So, while we did not have an elite centre, we at least had centre depth. Now we have 2, maybe 3 centres and that depth is erased. Does adding Byram on D offset this? I contrast this with what Colorado did yesterday. They needed a #2 centre. They identified Mitts as the guy they wanted and then paid a significant price in Byram. The loss of Byram created a hole, so they immediately filled it by acquiring Walker from the Flyers. What did we do? Did we address a specific need? Cynically, it seems we had a guy who we were reluctant to pay and so we collected the best piece we could for him. One team is committed to winning and the other appears to be collecting assets still.

Only makes sense if we are moving a D in another deal at some point. Dahlin, Power, Samuelsson, Byram, Jokiharju, Clifton and R. Johnson would all be top 6 next year. I don’t think any are a #7.