Sabres have elected arbitration with Byram

[thewookie1]

20 minutes ago, Ducky said:

A 38 point D man is worth 7m?

Should he no, will he, probably

[SabreFinn]

Is this a possibility to get BB on a cheaper contract and by that get more teams interested? 

[Turbo44]

18 minutes ago, SabreFinn said:

Is this a possibility to get BB on a cheaper contract and by that get more teams interested? 

Doubtful as any team trading for him would prefer term at a higher cost than 2 years at 6m or so and UFA after that. It’s fine for Adams cuz in 2 years it will be Jaro’s problem

[Standing Room Smoking Cigs]

Bo seems to have a good agent. The agent knows as other GM's know last year was outlier when he didn't get concussed. It definitely plays a factor in trade value, and money going forward, along the higher insurance rate for him. Lafontaine had a great agent soaking the Rangers so he was set for life. Bo is not a Lafontaine, and I think his agent knows that 7 million in arb, will set him up for retirement. Don't ever wish upon another being taken out the game earlier than on their timeline, but concussion issues a factor in this...

[JohnC]

7 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

I doubt he got "trash offers" but I imagine they were not player for player offers. I bet he got a lot of offers involving picks and prospects and if he'd taken those and then flipped them to someone else he'd have gotten what he wanted as we alluded to earlier. 

If he were only getting futures for offers it certainly would be considered trash offers from a Sabre perspective. 
 

 What seems to be developing is that currently the return isn’t as high as hoped. And it seems BB’s contract expectations are not being met by the market. So it might be in the player’s interest to bet on himself by signing a short team deal and improve his future market value. And it would be better for the Sabres to have him on the team, even if for the short term, rather than peddle him for less than perceived value. This can be a situation where individual interests mesh.

[Pimlach]

Woke up to four pages of this.  Anything I can say or think has  probably been said.  
 

Two more years of Byram at ~$7M when you have Power at $8.3M and Dahlin at $11M is not a great situation for a lot of reasons.  
 

On the other hand I don’t trust Adams to acquire futures and then flip them with any success.  It’s not something he has shown us he can do.  

[JohnC]

12 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

Woke up to four pages of this.  Anything I can say or think has  probably been said.  
 

Two more years of Byram at ~$7M when you have Power at $8.3M and Dahlin at $11M is not a great situation for a lot of reasons.  
 

On the other hand I don’t trust Adams to acquire futures and then flip them with any success.  It’s not something he has shown us he can do.  

Sometimes the unfavorable situation you are in is better than the alternative response that would get you a less than value return.

It’s understandable why you are uncomfortable with having so much cap $$$ dedicated to the blue line. However, teams get constructed differently and still succeed. So if this is a blue line dominate team for the short term, then so be it. 
 

As far as our GM liability, this is another creation of our peculiar owner. 

[Sabres Fan in NS]

This is a smart move by Adams.

Gives an amount of cost certainty and means there can't be an offer sheet that is insane.

I still think the Sabres will sign Bo(hemian) to a 4 year $6.5 to $6.75 AAV contract and this case never gets ruled on.

When do we know what the Sabres are offering in arbitration?

[Mango]

1 hour ago, JohnC said:

Sometimes the unfavorable situation you are in is better than the alternative response that would get you a less than value return.

It’s understandable why you are uncomfortable with having so much cap $$$ dedicated to the blue line. However, teams get constructed differently and still succeed. So if this is a blue line dominate team for the short term, then so be it. 
 

As far as our GM liability, this is another creation of our peculiar owner. 

I agree with your overall point, but also we have fought for the most expensive blue line award the least season or two and our blue line pretty much sucks.

It's already money poorly spent. Everybody gets paid and nobody plays defense. 

[JohnC]

1 minute ago, Mango said:

I agree with your overall point, but also we have fought for the most expensive blue line award the least season or two and our blue line pretty much sucks.

It's already money poorly spent. Everybody gets paid and nobody plays defense. 

Will Power be a better player this year? I think so. Will Samuelsson be a better player this year? I think so. Will the two new defenders improve the unit? I think so. If kept, will Bo strengthen the unit? I think so. Will Dahlin continue to play at his high level? Yes. Is this a better overall unit compared to last year? I think so. This is where we are at. There are no guarantees other than Dahlin's play. As far as I'm concerned, the biggest issue is still the caliber of our goaltending. On that issue, I just don't know. Without a doubt, there are a lot of "not sures" and few "very sures" with this roster. That's why I'm again queasy about this KA constructed team. When you have a third-rate operation you end up with a lot of "I'm not sures". Normal state of affairs for this forlorn franchise.  

[LGR4GM]

31 minutes ago, Mango said:

I agree with your overall point, but also we have fought for the most expensive blue line award the least season or two and our blue line pretty much sucks.

It's already money poorly spent. Everybody gets paid and nobody plays defense. 

Part of that is because they give HUGE minutes to Samuelsson and Bryson and they are bad. On top of that, Owen Power was awful under Ruff last year and I think part of that is his partner. I also think Wilford needs to go but that's another story. Basically Buffalo needs to stop playing Bryson at all and needs to put Samuelsson into the 3rd pair where he belongs. If they ran... 

Byram - Dahlin

Kesslering - Power

Timmins - Samuelsson? 

Literally anyone other than Byrson

They would probably improve their defense quite a bit. 

Question becomes what if we have to run:

Timmins - Dahlin

Kesselring - Power

Samuelsson - Johnson? Jones? 

The fact Buffalo thinks Zac Jones is some sort of useful NHL player is certainly something. 

[Thorny]

Timmins top pair on his off hand what could go wrong 

[PromoTheRobot]

10 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

I doubt he got "trash offers" but I imagine they were not player for player offers. I bet he got a lot of offers involving picks and prospects and if he'd taken those and then flipped them to someone else he'd have gotten what he wanted as we alluded to earlier. 

 If you can't get value in a hockey trade for Byram, what are you getting for picks? Sounds to me if you're converting Byram to picks and then a trade, you are losing value and will end up with less.

[LGR4GM]

18 minutes ago, Thorny said:

Timmins top pair on his off hand what could go wrong 

They would probably move Dahlin back to the left which he is also very good at. 

[Thorny]

18 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

They would probably move Dahlin back to the left which he is also very good at. 

Oh definitely. Slightly better there last deep dive I read 

[DarthEbriate]

I'm glad that Adams understands the rules around arbitration and has blocked an offer sheet. Of course, no team was going to try to give Byram some 4 firsts mega-contract, so the whole "protecting against OS" isn't really an issue unless Byram was the last person to sign and JJP was the Sabres' RFA. The is plenty of cap space for all 3 remaining RFAs.

It goes back to: 

If leadership didn't see Byram as part of the future, they should have traded him before the draft/UFA when more teams had cap space and lots of flexibility. Even if some of the return is futures (because the teams that might want him are playoff contenders), then you have the surplus futures assets to go get a now player.

If leadership sees him as part of the future (even if only 2 years), then they should have bridged him months ago so you can plan more accurately. If Byram is on the roster, Timmins being yet another offense-first guy (very limited PK work until last season), even if he's big and strong, isn't a need. You could prioritize a different big RHD. And, if you believe in Timmins as a PK dynamo now that he's entering his prime, you can still get him, too. But you would already know he's a #6 because your top 4 is locked.

[LGR4GM]

5 minutes ago, DarthEbriate said:

I'm glad that Adams understands the rules around arbitration and has blocked an offer sheet. Of course, no team was going to try to give Byram some 4 firsts mega-contract, so the whole "protecting against OS" isn't really an issue unless Byram was the last person to sign and JJP was the Sabres' RFA. The is plenty of cap space for all 3 remaining RFAs.

It goes back to: 

If leadership didn't see Byram as part of the future, they should have traded him before the draft/UFA when more teams had cap space and lots of flexibility. Even if some of the return is futures (because the teams that might want him are playoff contenders), then you have the surplus futures assets to go get a now player.

If leadership sees him as part of the future (even if only 2 years), then they should have bridged him months ago so you can plan more accurately. If Byram is on the roster, Timmins being yet another offense-first guy (very limited PK work until last season), even if he's big and strong, isn't a need. You could prioritize a different big RHD. And, if you believe in Timmins as a PK dynamo now that he's entering his prime, you can still get him, too. But you would already know he's a #6 because your top 4 is locked.

Fully disagree here. Timmins pushes Samuelsson and Bryson down another slot, he is very much needed. I also don't think an "offense first" defender is going to clock a whopping 15pts, that doesn't scream offense first as Samuelsson had 14pts, is he offense first? You don't pair Timmins with Karlsson if you want Timmins to be offense first. I understand about the limited PK work but that could be personnel related or Timmins related. Maybe he won't be used on the PK here or maybe he will. With the PP slots taken by Dahlin and Power, it seems unlikely that Timmins won't be used on the PK here and if he is the 2nd PK unit behind Kesselring/Samuelsson or Power/Samuelsson or whatever, so we shall see. 

[Thorny]

Timmins on top pair still a pretty big (see: massive) question mark but if anyone can make it work it’s Dahlin. I think I’d prefer the situation where Byram was moved for a top 6 forward and we didn’t make any futures trades to the situation where we re-signed Byram and didn’t make any futures trades, putting my faith in Dahlin if Adams won’t inspire any through actual action 

B : Byram traded for top 6 F (roster remains break even to last year), 2 futures trades made, 1 for an upgrade F and 1 for an upgrade D. OR Byram retained, 2 futures trades made at F (one to get F back to status quo (Peterka), one as an upgrade)

(both of these scenarios under A result in the one F upgrade one D upgrade I thought was bare minimum coming in)

C- : Byram traded for top 6 F, and 1 futures upgrade (BPA) OR Byram retained and 1 futures trade for a F 

(these scenarios result in 50% of the raw upgrades I felt necessary. If Byram is retained and the futures trade backlogs Peterka loss, Kesselring represents the add, etc. If Byram is traded for a F, everything is back square and upgrade TBD, if we make one)

D : Byram dealt for top 6 F, no futures trades (break even squad to last year)

D- : Byram bridged, no futures trades (break even squad to last year, but no shiny new toy)

F : Adams has another press conference 

Edited 2 hours ago by Thorny

[DarthEbriate]

23 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

Fully disagree here. Timmins pushes Samuelsson and Bryson down another slot, he is very much needed. I also don't think an "offense first" defender is going to clock a whopping 15pts, that doesn't scream offense first as Samuelsson had 14pts, is he offense first? You don't pair Timmins with Karlsson if you want Timmins to be offense first. I understand about the limited PK work but that could be personnel related or Timmins related. Maybe he won't be used on the PK here or maybe he will. With the PP slots taken by Dahlin and Power, it seems unlikely that Timmins won't be used on the PK here and if he is the 2nd PK unit behind Kesselring/Samuelsson or Power/Samuelsson or whatever, so we shall see. 

That would be my hope, too, but if Byram isn't on the team, I can only believe we'll see a breakup of Samuelsson-Dahlin when I see it.

I'm going by Timmins' career usage. He's been an O-zone start guy until his 17-game stint with PIT when he was at 46.2% O-zone starts, so there's a chance he can be a defensive-focused guy. But I don't put much stock in that small sample size with a Pittsburgh team that was like Buffalo at the end: facing backups, playing easy against disinterested teams, and had Crosby willing them to finish strong. Historically, he's a solid 3rd pair guy.

 

[Thorny]

3 minutes ago, DarthEbriate said:

That would be my hope, too, but if Byram isn't on the team, I can only believe we'll see a breakup of Samuelsson-Dahlin when I see it.

I'm going by Timmins' career usage. He's been an O-zone start guy until his 17-game stint with PIT when he was at 46.2% O-zone starts, so there's a chance he can be a defensive-focused guy. But I don't put much stock in that small sample size with a Pittsburgh team that was like Buffalo at the end: facing backups, playing easy against disinterested teams, and had Crosby willing them to finish strong. Historically, he's a solid 3rd pair guy.

 

“Historically 3rd pair” translates to “found money top 4 upgrade” in the ancient Adams dialect 

[LGR4GM]

6 minutes ago, DarthEbriate said:

That would be my hope, too, but if Byram isn't on the team, I can only believe we'll see a breakup of Samuelsson-Dahlin when I see it.

I'm going by Timmins' career usage. He's been an O-zone start guy until his 17-game stint with PIT when he was at 46.2% O-zone starts, so there's a chance he can be a defensive-focused guy. But I don't put much stock in that small sample size with a Pittsburgh team that was like Buffalo at the end: facing backups, playing easy against disinterested teams, and had Crosby willing them to finish strong. Historically, he's a solid 3rd pair guy.

 

If I were Buffalo at this stage, I would do

Byram - Dahlin

Power - Kesselring

Samuelsson - Timmins

[LGR4GM]

Another thought... I wonder if you could trade Byram and Krebs to Anaheim for McTavish. They have Carlsson, Strome, Poehling, and  Granlund with McQueen and Sennecke in the pipe...  I wonder if they would be willing to move McTavish to upgrade their defense. Unsure but just a random thought of the day. 

[jad1]

5 hours ago, Sabres Fan in NS said:

This is a smart move by Adams.

Gives an amount of cost certainty and means there can't be an offer sheet that is insane.

I still think the Sabres will sign Bo(hemian) to a 4 year $6.5 to $6.75 AAV contract and this case never gets ruled on.

When do we know what the Sabres are offering in arbitration?

I think it's clear that Byram will not sign a long term deal with the Sabres.  He'll happily play out his RFA years, but at this time, he will not give any UFA years to the Sabres.

And since Adams stated that he will match any offer sheet, it's doubtful that Byram would have signed one, because it could commit him to the Sabres for five more years.

So instead of offering Byram $8M for the next two seasons, Adams is going to try to argue down the cost in arbitration.  He has nothing to lose, beside p#ssing off Byram, who appears to be just fine driving up his UFA value playing with Dahlin the next couple of seasons.

And if you're fed up with the Byram trade talk, you get a break from it until the trading deadline.

[Taro T]

1 minute ago, jad1 said:

I think it's clear that Byram will not sign a long term deal with the Sabres.  He'll happily play out his RFA years, but at this time, he will not give any UFA years to the Sabres.

And since Adams stated that he will match any offer sheet, it's doubtful that Byram would have signed one, because it could commit him to the Sabres for five more years.

So instead of offering Byram $8M for the next two seasons, Adams is going to try to argue down the cost in arbitration.  He has nothing to lose, beside p#ssing off Byram, who appears to be just fine driving up his UFA value playing with Dahlin the next couple of seasons.

And if you're fed up with the Byram trade talk, you get a break from it until the trading deadline.

Personally, believe it is clear that the Sabres are not offering him a LT deal a the value he wants.  Don't believe it is clear that Byram WON'T sign a LT deal with Buffalo, but merely, as stated he won't at what the Sabres currently are willing to spend/offer.

And, yes, if he is Dahlin's partner the next 2 seasons, in 2 years he'll get at least that $9MM he's reportedly looking for at present if not even more as the cap will be significanlty higher by then.

[jad1]

2 minutes ago, Taro T said:

Personally, believe it is clear that the Sabres are not offering him a LT deal a the value he wants.  Don't believe it is clear that Byram WON'T sign a LT deal with Buffalo, but merely, as stated he won't at what the Sabres currently are willing to spend/offer.

And, yes, if he is Dahlin's partner the next 2 seasons, in 2 years he'll get at least that $9MM he's reportedly looking for at present if not even more as the cap will be significanlty higher by then.

I don't think that Byram wants to sign a long term deal with the Sabres because A. It's the Sabres (he's played in the Finals and probably wants to get back there) and B. He sees himself as a 1D and doesn't want to spend his career losing power play minutes to Dahlin and Power.

The best thing for Byram's career is to be traded to a (good) team that sees him as a 1D.  Adams is having a difficult time doing that. (Not a huge slam on Adams for that; there are legit reasons that is not happening).

The second best thing for Byram is to get to UFA as soon as possible, which rules out a longer deal with the Sabres.