Doohickie

I tend to agree, but I think Stillman would get snatched up. Which Johnson are you referring to? Veteran Erik or prospect Ryan?

I think some people simply can't imagine that far out into the future. If we have cap space now we should spend it, future be damned! Muel in the third pairing? wut.

A quick glance at one of the trails where I ride my bike

What does Kevyn have left to do? Tidy things up. Which defensemen are staying on the roster, which are going to Rochester and which... need to be moved. That's about it. I expect Kevyn will continue to look for improvements to the roster, particularly at defense and goal, but I'm also fully prepared to see this team play in October as is. If he makes improvements, more power to him.

Sabrepede 2023!

He didn't even have to lead in Buffalo. There were veterans brought in specifically for that, people like Brian Gionta, Josh Gorges and Ryan O'Reilly. But he didn't cooperate with them, he formed his own factions in the locker room, resulting in a dysfunctional culture for the team.

*cough, cough* Ullmark *cough*

Okay, but he was not and did not want to be part of the solution here. He had his chance to be a leader of the Sabres, to build something. He put up big numbers but in the locker room he was part of the Sabres toxic culture. That was my point. With all the feel-good vibes the Sabres have looking forward, if Eichel were still here he'd be undermining them.

I've realized that what looks like Kevyn being "cheap" and not committing to the top talent is actually protecting the top talent. He's signed Tage, Muel and Cozens to team friendly deals, will be signing Dahlin shortly by all accounts and will have Power to deal with, along with the rest of the players. He could bring in a big impact player but that would break the cap, if not this year, then next year or the year after that. So he's leveraging the Sabres scouting and analytics departments a la Moneyball to identify players that haven't made that jump yet but have a good likelihood to (Clifton) and secure the services of savvy vets that can be coaches on the bench (E Johnson), in an attempt to get as much value out of his remaining cap space as he can. Between Clifton and Johnson I'm pretty confident that Power will have a better partner than he did last season (nothing against Joki, but he's a marginal 4D). I kind of expect to see both Erik Johnson and Connor Clifton paired with Power. I think Johnson would be preferred but won't be able to play monster minutes, so for most of a game you might see Clifton playing 4D with Power but when crunch time comes and Granato shortens the bench Johnson will be able to play those shifts because for the beginning of the game he was getting short 3rd pair minutes. The shoe to drop, of course, is who will be moved out and who will be moved down to Rochester. Ideally you would want to keep all the defensive depth you can; that was last season's lesson learned, but realistically you can't just push players down to Rochester. A player like Bryson, maybe, Stillman perhaps, but they could get claimed. Could you pass Lyubushkin or Joki through waivers? If you did, they would be miserable playing in the AHL. So what is Kevyn going to do?

I think it's the overall team in decline. If he had an overall 0.899 Sv% in Buffalo like he did last year with the Ducks he'd be a winning goalie. If Kevyn is in discussions I bet the issue is trying to get Anaheim to retain 25-50% on Gibson.

This could totally be misinformation by Kevyn to motivate Anaheim to negotiate a Gibson trade. Yes, it would be an ideal trade for us to be honest.

Yep, I totally get it, and there's no telling if Kevyn is done with the D. But I also don't know what the analytics dept. projects for Clifton. They might have him as a legit 4D. If nothing else, the team seems to projecting Clifton as that, if only to lean them toward an advantage in trade negotiations for an actual 4D. I'm not going to say that every trade Kevyn makes is going to be like the Eichel trade, but if you look to what he said and how he played it, he seemed to manipulate the market to get what he wanted. Kevyn Adams is shrewder than his "aw shucks" demeanor would indicate.

He's got a 0.912 career Sv%. I don't think he feels threatened by a goalie with a whole 7 games of experience. The vibes the league is feeling about Buffalo are different this year.

With a MUCH larger sample size. I hope Levi's numbers project over a full season but I won't be surprised if they don't in his first full season.

He's gotten steadily better each season. I'm not saying he's definitely going to thrive at 4D but it wouldn't surprise me. He played on a pretty mature (old) team; now he will be one of the vets on defense. E Johnson will be there to fill in if it comes to that.

A hot take must be really, really bad if @Buffalonill and I both hate it. 😉

He's made a habit of precisely that and it's infuriating. I think the rest of the league knows it so they wait him out and as soon as he curls away the skate behind his back, usually up the boards while Ollie's skating at the blue line, out of the play.

I would like to move on from him too, but until he moves they're not going to bring someone in.

I disagree with this approach, giving up essentially two #1’s for a one year rental is not ideal. Adding one “special guy” for one year may not help the locker room of a young and up and coming team very much either. However, it is probably better than doing nothing at all and going with Levi/UPL/Comrie. A lot can go wrong with the later. This core needs help to start winning consistently and the fan base deserves better than another season with no playoffs. This pretty much captures my internal conversation on the matter.

I can just imagine if we still had Eichel he'd be mouthing "blah blah blah" behind Johnson as he said it. Oh, and rolling his eyes of course.

Let's hope Benson doesn't turn out that way. It won't happen unless they move Olofsson.

That explains why Stevie Y is clutching at straws in free agency. Not unlike XGMTM's attempt to bring in people to support Eichel, and probably about as successful (but with Larkin being a lesser talent).

I think Kevyn's approach is the opposite extreme, but perhaps he understands the impact of chemistry and how to build it better than I do.

I really hope he took that as a learning opportunity.