Around the NHL 2025-26 Season

[PerreaultForever]

27 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

So the rookie GM wouldn't take the bag of pucks offered him? I can see why the other GMs didn't like him. 😂

I don't think that's it. There was a lot of hesitation and procrastination and other GMs might have wanted a yes or no not a let me think about it. There's always a desire to move on to plan B quickly in some circles. 

[PromoTheRobot]

13 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

I don't think that's it. There was a lot of hesitation and procrastination and other GMs might have wanted a yes or no not a let me think about it. There's always a desire to move on to plan B quickly in some circles. 

I'm sure there was, because the deals being presented were likely intended to take advantage of the inexperienced GM. You do realize NHL GMs will try to take advantage of you if they think they can, right? 

And I'm certain those GMs ran crying to their reporter buddies about how "indecisive" Adams was being. It's called a pressure campaign. Just like the crapstorm over Eichel's neck surgery. The agent wants to turn up the heat on Adams from the already prickly fan base by putting some bad press out there, hoping to force a quick trade for less return. Kudos to Adams for not taking the bait.

Edited May 5 by PromoTheRobot

[Nacho Libre]

4 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

I don't think much of Chayka and don't think it was a good hire but it could have been worse. 

I'm just going to speculate here but I wouldn't be surprised if Adams burned his reputation around the league. Did go through on trades, proposals, was "hard to deal with" and it's a boys club and word travels. That may actually be part of why he was let go here. It might not be that "players don't want to come here" entirely, it might also have been that Buffalo was hard to deal with on trades. But I'm just speculating. 

I think Leafs are done no matter what they do. At least for a while. 

That, and being an objectively horrendous GM will do that to a man 

25 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

There's already been talk about various GMs who might not want to deal with Chayka or will make it difficult for him. As Friedman put it "they have a group chat". 

As for Adams, it was said a few times outside of here that "Buffalo was hard to deal with" and that might all be on Adams. idk. 

Also, Adams isn’t going to be hired as a GM. Look at the clowns being hired ahead of him 

The league doesn’t share the logically utter shite, revisionist history Adams nonsense this site loves ever so much. His story is written, as much as he necessarily needs to be the main character here every day, even if there is a segment of fans who love the guy even Terry knew wasn’t good enough and thus fired him 

Edited May 6 by Nacho Libre

[PerreaultForever]

2 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

I'm sure there was, because the deals being presented were likely intended to take advantage of the inexperienced GM. You do realize NHL GMs will try to take advantage of you if they think they can, right? 

And I'm certain those GMs ran crying to their reporter buddies about how "indecisive" Adams was being. It's called a pressure campaign. Just like the crapstorm over Eichel's neck surgery. The agent wants to turn up the heat on Adams from the already prickly fan base by putting some bad press out there, hoping to force a quick trade for less return. Kudos to Adams for not taking the bait.

It's not worth going over all the rumors and outcomes (or lack of outcomes) since the end result is a playoff team and whatever happened happened but we had many times of us watching nothing happen from the rumors so I'm sticking with my theory until it's shown to be wrong. We can agree to disagree.

2 hours ago, Nacho Libre said:

That, and being an objectively horrendous GM will do that to a man 

Also, Adams isn’t going to be hired as a GM. Look at the clowns being hired ahead of him 

The league doesn’t share the logically utter shite, revisionist history Adams nonsense this site loves ever so much. His story is written, as much as he necessarily needs to be the main character here every day, even if there is a segment of fans who love the guy even Terry knew wasn’t good enough and thus fired him 

idk, JBot's a GM now. Adams could resurface.

[LGR4GM]

10 hours ago, Nacho Libre said:

That, and being an objectively horrendous GM will do that to a man 

Also, Adams isn’t going to be hired as a GM. Look at the clowns being hired ahead of him 

The league doesn’t share the logically utter shite, revisionist history Adams nonsense this site loves ever so much. His story is written, as much as he necessarily needs to be the main character here every day, even if there is a segment of fans who love the guy even Terry knew wasn’t good enough and thus fired him 

Adams appearing as an AGM wouldn't surprise me at all. This league is all about recency bias.

[Taro T]

2 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

Adams appearing as an AGM wouldn't surprise me at all. This league is all about recency bias.

It's almost guaranteed that somebody would hire him as the AGM.  

Would be mildly surprised were he to get another kick at the can again without that step back first.

[LGR4GM]

 

[bg17]

 

[Taro T]

Just now, bg17 said:

 

An increase from last year of $8.5MM.  

Skinner's cap hit goes up by $2MM next year from where it was last year.  And Doan's raise eats up $6.025MM of it.  

Stanley, Malenstyn, and Tuch (not necessarily in that order) are the only 3 UFAs that'll likely get raises over last year and Dunne is probably the only other UFA they're thinking about bringing back.

Kesselring, Benson, and Krebs are the RFA's heading into this off-season.

[Taro T]

Obviously, there are some Amerks that are RFAs too, but didn't bother to mention them.

[Second Line Center]

 

[LGR4GM]

Sabres have 13.1 million according to this. 

[Trettioåtta]

I reckon we need $22M for Doan, Tuch, Benson, Krebs and Beck.

The cap going up is $8.5M. So we need to find $13.5M. I can't see how we do that whilst keeping UPL and Greenway. As that would free up $9M. Meaning we need to find $4.5M.

Danforth, Kesslering and Pearson would free up that remaining amount.

[shrader]

21 minutes ago, Trettioåtta said:

I reckon we need $22M for Doan, Tuch, Benson, Krebs and Beck.

The cap going up is $8.5M. So we need to find $13.5M. I can't see how we do that whilst keeping UPL and Greenway. As that would free up $9M. Meaning we need to find $4.5M.

Danforth, Kesslering and Pearson would free up that remaining amount.

Shouldn’t Doan already be accounted for in the numbers since he re-signed already?

[Taro T]

6 minutes ago, shrader said:

Shouldn’t Doan already be accounted for in the numbers since he re-signed already?

His contract kicks in next season.  And his deal eats up ~$6MM of that cap increase.  Skinner's buyout eats up pretty much the other $2MM of the cap increase.   But, with only a 23 man roster, the team was ~$5MM under the cap this year (they ate up ~$4MM of that with injury replacements and adds at the deadline).  So, there's about $4MM available for raises / other players getting brought in and the rest of what they'd need in roster adds / raises will have to come from things like trading Greenway away.  

A $4MM 4th liner is no longer a luxury this team can afford.

[tom webster]

10 minutes ago, Taro T said:

His contract kicks in next season.  And his deal eats up ~$6MM of that cap increase.  Skinner's buyout eats up pretty much the other $2MM of the cap increase.   But, with only a 23 man roster, the team was ~$5MM under the cap this year (they ate up ~$4MM of that with injury replacements and adds at the deadline).  So, there's about $4MM available for raises / other players getting brought in and the rest of what they'd need in roster adds / raises will have to come from things like trading Greenway away.  

A $4MM 4th liner is no longer a luxury this team can afford.

That’s what it’s really going to come down to. Beck is unlikely to be retained unless he signs for well below market. As valuable as him and Greenway are to the team, you make concessions, especially on the fourth line.
You go with Kozak, Danforth and Carrick, mixing in Krebs occasionally and than acquire someone at the deadline. 
 

[shrader]

14 minutes ago, Taro T said:

His contract kicks in next season.  And his deal eats up ~$6MM of that cap increase.  Skinner's buyout eats up pretty much the other $2MM of the cap increase.   But, with only a 23 man roster, the team was ~$5MM under the cap this year (they ate up ~$4MM of that with injury replacements and adds at the deadline).  So, there's about $4MM available for raises / other players getting brought in and the rest of what they'd need in roster adds / raises will have to come from things like trading Greenway away.  

A $4MM 4th liner is no longer a luxury this team can afford.

 But Doan is factored into the remaining $13 million projected above, right? I can’t imagine anyone would be making a projection while ignoring an already signed contract. 

[tom webster]

4 hours ago, shrader said:

 But Doan is factored into the remaining $13 million projected above, right? I can’t imagine anyone would be making a projection while ignoring an already signed contract. 

Yes, they actually have closer to $14M with Doan included.

[tom webster]

1 hour ago, tom webster said:

Yes, they actually have closer to $14M with Doan included.

I have to reiterate what I’ve said before, good teams do not let players like Tuch leave. Buffalo can figure things out. 

[Flashsabre]

I think Jarmo will find a taker for Norris. 

[thewookie1]

To me the priority is in order

Benson

Tuch

Malenstyn

Krebs

 

Benson is vital because he’s both young and talented while being a heartbeat on this team.

Tuch is the vet leader that could be a solid piece well into his 30’s

Malenstyn depends greatly on price but he is a perfect 4th liner

Krebs is someone I would like to keep but out of the 4 is the only one that could be replaced internally without a major disruption 

[LGR4GM]

1 hour ago, thewookie1 said:

To me the priority is in order

Benson

Tuch

Malenstyn

Krebs

 

Benson is vital because he’s both young and talented while being a heartbeat on this team.

Tuch is the vet leader that could be a solid piece well into his 30’s

Malenstyn depends greatly on price but he is a perfect 4th liner

Krebs is someone I would like to keep but out of the 4 is the only one that could be replaced internally without a major disruption 

Idk if we can say that anymore. He's less flash than Benson but he's got almost as much substance, check out the score sheet. 

[dudacek]

1 hour ago, LGR4GM said:

Idk if we can say that anymore. He's less flash than Benson but he's got almost as much substance, check out the score sheet. 

People invested a lot of their Adams-era frustrations into Krebs and letting go is hard.

His reinvention has been a long slow process and it feels like for some around here the perception of what he is or should be usually lags a year behind the reality.

Pretty sure that’s the case for people right now. And to be fair maybe they’re right, maybe this year is an outlier or an illusion and he is actually a 28-point 10th forward.

Personally, I don’t see it that way. The guy works extremely hard and has created his own success.

He’s very much part of the dawg identity we’ve built up front.

Edited May 8 by dudacek

[SDS]

51 minutes ago, dudacek said:

People invested a lot of their Adams-era frustrations into Krebs and letting go is hard.

His reinvention has been a long slow process and it feels like for some around here the perception of what he is or should be usually lags a year behind the reality.

Pretty sure that’s the case for people right now. And to be fair maybe they’re right, maybe this year is an outlier or an illusion and he is actually a 28-point 10th forward.

Personally, I don’t see it that way. The guy works extremely hard and has created his own success.

He’s very much part of the dawg identity we’ve built up front.

He is a season or less removed from “there’s nothing you can really do for this team other than skate as fast as you can and provide energy.“

The dude is already 25 years old. Regardless of what people are reading into the small sample size of these playoffs, no one looks at this lineup and says Peyton Krebs is a first line left-winger. Even if you think he’s valuable and you like him, that’s nuts. 

He is exactly the kind of person you say goodbye to when making room for others. You want cheap bottom six players and high-end top six players. He is neither and when the off season market dries up - he’s the kind of guy someone’s gonna take an overpriced flyer on and it’s not gonna work in their system.

[Porous Five Hole]

39 minutes ago, dudacek said:

People invested a lot of their Adams-era frustrations into Krebs and letting go is hard.

His reinvention has been a long slow process and it feels like for some around here the perception of what he is or should be usually lags a year behind the reality.

Pretty sure that’s the case for people right now. And to be fair maybe they’re right, maybe this year is an outlier or an illusion and he is actually a 28-point 10th forward.

Personally, I don’t see it that way. The guy works extremely hard and has created his own success.

He’s very much part of the dawg identity we’ve built up front.

I think both points of view can be true.  Krebs has gone through a reinvention and skepticism still bounds. My viewpoint is that he has upped his game with the top line opportunity he’s been given. But I wonder who else could have been a dog chasing a bone and getting to 40 pts on a Tuch/Tage top line?

It is why I want to offer a min raise for another year. I am adamant on just a one year extension. I need to see it for longer. I’m open to a Krebs ride along, but we also have other guys who work hard with a dawg mentality.