What To Do With UPL?

[bob_sauve28]

What to do with this guy?

[Taro T]

Is the question what we'd do or what we expect Adams to do?

Expect Adams will roll with the 3 headed monster for a month or 2; but doubt that Ruff gives either of the 2 backups much work.  Hopefully Ellis gets more of it than UPL but don't have a good feel for which one will get the bulk of the ones Lyon doesn't get.

Personally, would keep UPL on the big squad as the 3rd goalie until he either gets back to form and then would give him A game to see where he's at or until they have to risk putting a guy they don't want to lose through waivers as guys come back from IR at which point he'd get waived to Ra-cha-cha because honestly don't see anyone trading for him with his current deal and would be shocked if anyone made a claim on him.

(Presuming you need to punt him to not risk losing somebody else on the 23 man roster after IRs start to get healthy)  Let him split time with Levi or backup Levi in Ra-cha-cha until/ unless Ellis shows he's not ready to be the backup on the big team.  Should that occur, reevaluate.  Should UPL play too well to stay in Ra-cha-cha, then try shopping him again when he might have some value.

And in ANY case, get him a sports psychologist or a life coach or whatever you want to call someone to help him get out of his own head on the ice.  You've got too much money invested in him to just let him waste away, or even worse, to torpedo another season showing some potential because you don't want to just waste the money by not playing him.

Edited 4 hours ago by Taro T

[SABRES 0311]

The way this team bounced back after starting 0-3 it would be a slap in their faces to continue with UPL.

Their hard work and good play got them into a playoff spot and the chance to sweep a back-to-back against a rival.

Send a message that mediocrity will not be tolerated.

[LGR4GM]

I'd give him one more start at some point in the next week. As down on him as I am, he played on short notice without much practice and it was the teams 2nd game in as many days. 

That all said, my leash would be short.

[GASabresIUFAN]

Leave him on the side of the road and hope someone picks him up.

The truth is we are probably going to have to eat a large portion of his deal to get him moved.  

Edited 3 hours ago by GASabresIUFAN

[GoPuckYourself]

All I know, if he is in the Sabres lineup for any reasoning this entire staff should be ***** canned, I mean most of them should have been long ago anyways.

[Scottysabres]

Package him if necessary, but some team will bite on a trade for him. Established nhl player in return, either in a package or stand alone.

edit: oh and can that nhl player have skill both with the puck and the meat mittens please?

Edited 3 hours ago by Scottysabres

[GASabresIUFAN]

1 minute ago, GoPuckYourself said:

All I know, if he is in the Sabres lineup for any reasoning this entire staff should be ***** canned, I mean most of them should have been long ago anyways.

He is going to make an appearance again and soon whether we like it or not.  Adams invested big $ in UPL (as usual after only one good season) as part of his "rebuild plan" and he's going to try to make the failed investment work.  Sorry but that is the truth.  The best we can hope for in the short term is that he craps the bed again and forces Adams' hand.

[Weave]

Run the theee headed monster long enough to be sure of the top 2, then make a trade.  Might take a few weeks for the top 2 to really become clear.

I don’t trust Ellis any more than I trust UPL.  We need to verify which is going to be last man standing.

Edited 3 hours ago by Weave

[clink]

Make him the most overpaid BACKUP AHL goalie in history, while adding  ANOTHER mark of embarrassment to Shevyn's already dreadful resumé

[clink]

29 minutes ago, Scottysabres said:

Package him if necessary, but some team will bite on a trade for him. Established nhl player in return, either in a package or stand alone.

edit: oh and can that nhl player have skill both with the puck and the meat mittens please?

With UPL's body of work, you'll either get a skilled/fringe player, OR a banger with marginal skills 

 

UPLs history (injuries/$hitty play), combined with that contract, is not going to command anything significant in return..... unless, Adams is somehow the GM for the team that is trading for UPL 😁

The team taking UPL will be doing us a favor, so ANYTHING coming back would be considered a bonus 

[clink]

1 hour ago, LGR4GM said:

I'd give him one more start at some point in the next week. As down on him as I am, he played on short notice without much practice and it was the teams 2nd game in as many days. 

That all said, my leash would be short.

Can you honestly say UPL, sans being "ready" looked any different vs. UPL being "ready" ? 

He looked like the same, $hite goalie he's ever been; minus, that fluke 20 game period of yesteryear...

[JoeSchmoe]

He makes me not want to buy tickets to games. There's a real chance we can get back to packed buildings again if Terry swallows the remaining $20mil on his contract.

[Brawndo]

The irony is the six other goalies in the organization salaries combined are only 883k more than UPL. 
 

 

[LGR4GM]

19 minutes ago, clink said:

Can you honestly say UPL, sans being "ready" looked any different vs. UPL being "ready" ? 

He looked like the same, $hite goalie he's ever been; minus, that fluke 20 game period of yesteryear...

No, he looked like he always does. 

[Archie Lee]

The Sabres have 5 skaters on their current 23 man roster (Bryson, Metsa, Dunne, Geertsen, Östlund) who can be waived/sent to Rochester, as the injured get healthy. I guess you could say it’s 4 skaters, as one of Bryson or Metsa stays as the 7th D. So, they pretty much need everyone back, including Norris, and keep everyone else healthy, before they would need to make a tough decision. As Lyon has never started more than 44 games in an NHL season, it’s quite possible we will need another goalie to step up for a stretch or two. Keeping multiple options, at least for now, seems prudent (I’m assuming no team is trading us a 3rd line C for UPL right now; if the Flyers want to give us Noah Cates, then do it). UPL’s best season kinda came out of nowhere after Levi faltered and Comrie was injured. Hopefully Lyon just stays healthy and rolls, but I don’t hate having UPL around for the if or when. 

[Porous Five Hole]

Not a direct answer to the OP’s question, but a UPL contract buyout would cost  $1.58MM for six seasons. Not ideal, but also not that bad. It would be less than 1% of each year’s cap to move on from the mistake of the contract.  
 

If no improvement this year and a trade is not possible, this is my angle.  

[Taro T]

23 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

The irony is the six other goalies in the organization salaries combined are only 883k more than UPL. 
 

 

Wow.  Would've guessed all of the others combined were a smidge less than his contract.  Because even Lyon is well under $2MM/year.

[...]

Package him with Power. Position it as "an UpPer echeLon blue zone Power-house" package.

[clink]

36 minutes ago, Porous Five Hole said:

Not a direct answer to the OP’s question, but a UPL contract buyout would cost  $1.58MM for six seasons. Not ideal, but also not that bad. It would be less than 1% of each year’s cap to move on from the mistake of the contract.  
 

If no improvement this year and a trade is not possible, this is my angle.  

So, he'd only cost THAT number against the cap??? 

Why TF aren't they doing it, RIGHT NOW!!! 

[Pimlach]

1 hour ago, Weave said:

Run the theee headed monster long enough to be sure of the top 2, then make a trade.  Might take a few weeks for the top 2 to really become clear.

I don’t trust Ellis any more than I trust UPL.  We need to verify which is going to be last man standing.

It has to be this. 

Like it or not, due diligence requires that they look at all of them to decide on the 1/2 goalies.  So let’s try to still achieve the playoffs while also conducting tryouts during real games.  

 

[RochesterExpat]

2 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

I'd give him one more start at some point in the next week. As down on him as I am, he played on short notice without much practice and it was the teams 2nd game in as many days. 

That all said, my leash would be short.

I don’t understand why he was given the start unless the staff doesn’t trust Ellis for some reason.

To the point about trusting Ellis:

1 hour ago, Weave said:

I don’t trust Ellis any more than I trust UPL.

It’s impossible to trust any of our goaltenders at this point. I don’t trust Lyon to handle a starter workload. While I recognize he has so far been a bright spot, he’s never played a 50+ game season in net. He played 44 two years ago in the NHL and then you need to rewind to 16-17 for the last time he even played over 40 (47 in the AHL). He might be able to do it, but I don’t trust that he can.

Colten Ellis has played one NHL game. Granted, I thought he looked good and, despite being very active in terms of motion, he was seemingly controlled in all of his movements and his positioning looked excellent—a promising sign considering his rookie status. That being said, I would have made the same statement after Levi’s first few games at the end of 22-23. Ellis is simply an unknown. It’s not even just one NHL game. He’s only played one full season as an AHL starter. So who knows?

UPL can’t be trusted. It’s impossible to know which version is going to walk out of the locker room for the game. Even worse, it’s impossible to know which version we’ll get from one period to the next. When UPL is good, he’s properly good, but he then turns around and looks awful for no apparent reason right after. It has to be mental. I have no other explanation.

[GoPuckYourself]

2 hours ago, Weave said:

Run the theee headed monster long enough to be sure of the top 2, then make a trade.  Might take a few weeks for the top 2 to really become clear.

I don’t trust Ellis any more than I trust UPL.  We need to verify which is going to be last man standing.

We know exactly what UPL is at this point, barely even a backup at the NHL level so let's see if Ellis is any better than an AHL Starter/Backup. To force feed UPL because we overpaid him is terrible which is probably why Adams will start him.

Edited 1 hour ago by GoPuckYourself

[SABRES 0311]

So if the idea is UPL looks no different then why would anyone say he needs more looks? We already have multiple seasons worth.