GDT: Senators @ Sabres October 15, 2025 @ 7PM, MSG-B, ESPN, FUBO

[Palm Trees And Taxes]

Who's JJ Peterka?

[JohnC]

3 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

I’m perfectly happy to see how the deal works out, but let’s not kid ourselves why KA made the deal. Daddy OilBucks didn’t want to pay JJP.   Adams floated the “didn’t want to be here” BS on Peterka to shift the blame to the kid.  Frankly it’s despicable.  

This move was primarily financial.  Utah is paying JJP 7.7 this season and Pegula is paying Kesselring and Doan 2.3 between them.  This allowed KA to piss away 3.375 on Quinn and 1.8 on Danforth and still stay 5+ mill under the cap.  

Will the deal work out?  Possibly, but we traded a top line forward for potentially only one year of two 3rd line (or pair) players with possible upside as both players are RFAs after the season.  If they breakout Pegula probably won’t want to pay them either.  

You are making a claim that he wasn't signed due to the owner's reluctance to pay him in his next contract is based on what? Your assumption based on your disdain for the owner? There is no one in this forum who has more antipathy toward this fool owner than I do. I would conjecture that you and I are in the same contempt strata directed toward this stubborn and incompetent owner. So let's be fair here. That doesn't mean that money was the reason why he was dealt. The evidence based on many reports is that he didn't want to remain for a number of reasons. One of them had to do with his relationship with the coach and I'm sure that he didn't want to be stuck in this third-rate organization that has little chance under the current organizational scheme to be a serious franchise. (As you and many others have frequently noted.)

The GM wanted to sign him to a new deal. And he publicly stated so on a number of occasions. JJP had no interest to sign a deal. So he was dealt for what I consider to be a fair-trade deal where the return was Kesserling and Doan. With respect to Doan, he's giving us what we hoped he would do so. Kesserling has been injured so that is a TBD issue. 

 

 

[Jävə Keith]

55 minutes ago, Sabres73 said:

Just saw that Kulich is "leading" the team with a minus 6 on the plus/minus after this game. What is up with that? Tage and Rasmus aren't great either.

Sample Size. Stats are deceptive at best after 1 week.

That being said, Kulich has been off and needs to wake up.

Edited 12 hours ago by Jävə Keith

[inkman]

1 hour ago, Sabres73 said:

Just saw that Kulich is "leading" the team with a minus 6 on the plus/minus after this game. What is up with that? Tage and Rasmus aren't great either.

They’ve lost 3 of 4 games scoring 2 goals in the first 3. Have a positive +/- in that circumstance would be noteworthy. 

[Shoot da Puck]

[Thorny]

36 minutes ago, JohnC said:

You are making a claim that he wasn't signed due to the owner's reluctance to pay him in his next contract is based on what? Your assumption based on your disdain for the owner? There is no one in this forum who has more antipathy toward this fool owner than I do. I would conjecture that you and I are in the same contempt strata directed toward this stubborn and incompetent owner. So let's be fair here. That doesn't mean that money was the reason why he was dealt. The evidence based on many reports is that he didn't want to remain for a number of reasons. One of them had to do with his relationship with the coach and I'm sure that he didn't want to be stuck in this third-rate organization that has little chance under the current organizational scheme to be a serious franchise. (As you and many others have frequently noted.)

The GM wanted to sign him to a new deal. And he publicly stated so on a number of occasions. JJP had no interest to sign a deal. So he was dealt for what I consider to be a fair-trade deal where the return was Kesserling and Doan. With respect to Doan, he's giving us what we hoped he would do so. Kesserling has been injured so that is a TBD issue. 

 

 

Goes both ways. The other side of this coin is the claim JJ had “no interest in improving” and that he was “anti-culture” and that’s why we dealt him. Don’t really see the need to call into question the mindset of a player retroactively but we’ve been here many times before so it’s hardly worth relitigating.

As mentioned it’s a both sides dynamic. Probably best to simply judge based on the macro results.

 

[JohnC]

2 minutes ago, Thorny said:

Goes both ways. The other side of this coin is the claim JJ had “no interest in improving” and that he was “anti-culture” and that’s why we dealt him. Don’t really see the need to call into question the mindset of a player retroactively but we’ve been here many times before so it’s hardly worth relitigating.

As mentioned it’s a both sides dynamic. Probably best to simply judge based on the macro results.

 

Every team faces issues with players who for a number of reasons prefer moving on. And every organization faces issues regarding makeup of roster and players fitting into their team concept. The reality is that when a franchise has been flailing for as long as they Sabres have, it is going to happen with greater frequency. JJP was in a contract situation that could give him additional leverage. So he used it. Good for him. On the other side of the equation, I believe that the Sabres got a fair return on the trade. It's all part of the business. 

[That Aud Smell]

57 minutes ago, ponokasabre said:

Kulich has been awful I honestly have no problem with him going down to find his game again

51 minutes ago, Jävə Keith said:

That being said, Kulich has been off and needs to wake up.

Dude's being asked to do too much.

It feels like a familiar story from the Sabres over the past ~15+ years.

Third liners being asked to be second or even first liners, third pairing or 7-D being asked to be a second pairing guy.

[Drag0nDan]

4 hours ago, rickshaw said:

Doan was good last night but he did cough the puck up cheaply in his own zone twice in the 3rd. Have to clean that up for sure. 
 

But he’s a player and seemingly well liked. Hopefully this kickstarts their season.

He seems to be playing in a lot of different situations with different linemates.  

[PromoTheRobot]

2 hours ago, Sabres73 said:

Just saw that Kulich is "leading" the team with a minus 6 on the plus/minus after this game. What is up with that? Tage and Rasmus aren't great either.

Dahlin is right behind with a -5. Tage is -4. Tuch, Bryson, Doan and Benson lead with +1.

[matter2003]

1 hour ago, Thorny said:

Goes both ways. The other side of this coin is the claim JJ had “no interest in improving” and that he was “anti-culture” and that’s why we dealt him. Don’t really see the need to call into question the mindset of a player retroactively but we’ve been here many times before so it’s hardly worth relitigating.

As mentioned it’s a both sides dynamic. Probably best to simply judge based on the macro results.

 

Hard to say much different with the way he coasted back on the backcheck all too often. You'd think a player who wanted to improve would be busting his ass every chance he got to show it.  Results and actions show what his mindset was.

[Thorny]

28 minutes ago, matter2003 said:

Hard to say much different with the way he coasted back on the backcheck all too often. You'd think a player who wanted to improve would be busting his ass every chance he got to show it.  Results and actions show what his mindset was.

You’d think the fact we only ever trade guys who are fatally flawed and only bring in guys who “play the right way” would eventually result in a better team. Anecdotally, I always seem to hear, after the fact, that guys we trade away are folks we “didn’t want around anyways.”

consensus in thread seems to be that Adams “wanted” to sign him but JJ wanted out. Are we thinking Adams felt JJ was reluctant to improvement if he was wanting to sign him? I’m trying to keep the argument straight, so forgive me. From reports we only dealt JJ because he had had enough - why wouldn’t Adams have been exploring a deal previous to that if JJ was someone selfishly only interested in himself and for some reason also not interested in improving himself?

we can argue he’s bad for culture because he wanted out (if we ignore the why being of our own doing) but a young player struggling to round out their defensive game doesn’t torpedo their offensive worth and it certainly fits much more snuggly within the common development curve narrative that it does the idea he “wasn’t interested in being a better player”

Maybe he’ll never have the aptitude and skill to completely round out him game? I could see that. But I’d deem the tarring and feathering of character we never miss the opportunity to engage in rather egregious.

 

[LGR4GM]

41 minutes ago, Thorny said:

You’d think the fact we only ever trade guys who are fatally flawed and only bring in guys who “play the right way” would eventually result in a better team. Anecdotally, I always seem to hear, after the fact, that guys we trade away are folks we “didn’t want around anyways.”

consensus in thread seems to be that Adams “wanted” to sign him but JJ wanted out. Are we thinking Adams felt JJ was reluctant to improvement if he was wanting to sign him? I’m trying to keep the argument straight, so forgive me. From reports we only dealt JJ because he had had enough - why wouldn’t Adams have been exploring a deal previous to that if JJ was someone selfishly only interested in himself and for some reason also not interested in improving himself?

we can argue he’s bad for culture because he wanted out (if we ignore the why being of our own doing) but a young player struggling to round out their defensive game doesn’t torpedo their offensive worth and it certainly fits much more snuggly within the common development curve narrative that it does the idea he “wasn’t interested in being a better player”

Maybe he’ll never have the aptitude and skill to completely round out him game? I could see that. But I’d deem the tarring and feathering of character we never miss the opportunity to engage in rather egregious.

 

Im not sure ik anyone who was like "we didn't want Peterka anyway" and discussing his strengths and weaknesses isn't not wanting him. 

[Taro T]

It was a fun game to be at.

The people around us were pretty incredulous at the Sabres only having 3 shots through the entire 1st period.  Yeah, but after Quinn's "shot" found the back of the net, though they did have chances, Tuch's shot hit the post, the one where Benson was setting a screen went off the side of the net, another really quality chance bounced off the D-man in front, etc., etc..

2nd period was one of the most fun to watch in a long time.  Not sure what the total shots for the period were, but late in the period, the Sabres had taken 18 shots and the Otters 17 in that stanza after only getting 3 and 8 respectively in the 1st.  Place was the loudest it'd been in a while too; that there were probably only 10k-11k people in the building made it that much more impressive.  The lower bowl was close to full, but there were a fair number of empty seats in the 200's and the 300's had a lot of emply seats at both ends.

Thought except for pretty much just standing around trying to play the puck on the Otters PP goal that Power played well.  He had a pretty big check in the 1st; and courtesy of the sharp Otter unis that you could barely pick out the #'s of from the nosebleeds much less the names, took a moment to realize it was Cozens he hit.  Cozens seemed to take exception to Kulich, he was running him any time the 2 were on the ice together.

Timmons has been refreshing to see in the lineup - didn't know we were allowed to have stay at home D-men that don't go running around their own end looking for hits well away from the flow of the game.

Thompson and Tuch both seemed much more engaged this game.  Maybe they're finally getting their heads out of their bippies.

Weird that people were unhappy with Kulich; he started out on the wing on the 4th line and ended up with Benson and Tage.  Didn't really see anything noticable either way in his game other than how his linemates changed.  

Saw Danforth take the puck to the leg on the 1st shiff of the 2nd and him struggle to get around; could've swore he had 1 more shift after that but apparently he didn't come back out for the 3rd.

Team was noticably faster than in their previous 2 home games.  They need to find a way to still keep that up against the heavier game that the Swamp Cats will play.

As pretty much everybody else is, really liking Doan.  He seems like he'll be in the mold of a Marcus Foligno; hoping he gets there.

McLeod's and Quinn's best games by far of the young season.  Hope they can buid on this game.

Still not sure why there was no interference call right before the Otter's 3rd goal.  Dahlin got knocked to the boards behind the net and his man ended up all by himself in front of Lyon to make it a 2 goal game.

That was probably Ruff's best timeout in a long time.  Settled them down and before the 3rd was 3 minutes old, they had their 2 goal lead back and the 3 goal lead shortly after the 4 minute mark.  Again, fun game to be at.

Not sure why nobody wanted to score the 8th goal.  Glad the puck finally worked to Kulich.  HE wanted it.

[Thorny]

39 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

Im not sure ik anyone who was like "we didn't want Peterka anyway" and discussing his strengths and weaknesses isn't not wanting him. 

Most aren’t. I’m not talking about discussing his strengths and weaknesses - that would obviously fit under discussing based on result. Context is always important here and you can look to the post I specifically quoted as someone who doesn’t leave room for that if the equation is simply “he wasn’t committed to getting better.”

Any player “not committed to improving in any way” isn’t someone we would want which renders the discussion on result moot 

the post I quoted said “hard to say much different” with regard to my statement that it’s unfair to label JJ as a player with no interest in improving 

the inclination is often to “found money trade acquisition, dude we traded was a stalled-out lost cause anyways”. Defence mechanism. Labelling JJ as weak defensively is fair. Suggesting he had no desire to improve isn’t. 

Edited 8 hours ago by Thorny