Roster Thread (2023-2024 Season)

[Chainshot]

While not the sole reason, I do believe the Quinn injury (along with the decision to not make a meaningful add to fill in for him while he was out) and then the variety of nagging injuries, especially to Thompson and Cozens, have been a factor in why this team has been unable to get any momentum this season.

I think the #1 thing is the 28th ranked PP. They have been better 5v5 this season. And their PK has been better. But the PP being 9% worse than last year has been a killer.

View attachment 816276

The decision to think Vic could replace what Quinn provides is certainly a question for management.

And yes, the death of the PP, now almost 14 months in the toilet, is very much a root of their failures. 6th worst in the entire league since January 1st of 2023 seems like a long enough sample to finally try something new.

 

[Doug Prishpreed]

While not the sole reason, I do believe the Quinn injury (along with the decision to not make a meaningful add to fill in for him while he was out) and then the variety of nagging injuries, especially to Thompson and Cozens, have been a factor in why this team has been unable to get any momentum this season.

I think the #1 thing is the 28th ranked PP. They have been better 5v5 this season. And their PK has been better. But the PP being 9% worse than last year has been a killer.

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Cozens hasn't had any nagging injuries, per the coach. He confirmed that Thompson did, however. Cozens' issue was mental.

 

[Doug Prishpreed]

The challenge will be whether you can find another GM that wants to make a "hockey trade" like that. Especially this time of the year where the vast majority of trades are NHLers for futures. Most buyers now want to add for a playoff push. And a hockey trade takes away too much from the roster in most cases.

A Mitts "hockey trade" might need to happen in the draft through early UFA window.

If you listen to Adams last two interviews, combined with the report about Mitts and other prospects being shopped (yes, shopped), I hear this message from him:

"I'm trying to trade Mitts, and trying harder to trade some winger prospects, but that's probably going to have to wait until the offseason, based on how conversations have been going."

He says he's on the phone so much lately that he barely gets sleep. He's not just waiting around for something good to happen. Trades are very hard and rare.

 

[sabremike]

Cozens hasn't had any nagging injuries, per the coach. He confirmed that Thompson did, however. Cozens' issue was mental.

Been confirmed:

 

[Jim Bob]

If you listen to Adams last two interviews, combined with the report about Mitts and other prospects being shopped (yes, shopped), I hear this message from him:

"I'm trying to trade Mitts, and trying harder to trade some winger prospects, but that's probably going to have to wait until the offseason, based on how conversations have been going."

He says he's on the phone so much lately that he barely gets sleep. He's not just waiting around for something good to happen. Trades are very hard and rare.

Trades are not very hard and rare.

Trying to "win" every trade can make it very hard and rare. We saw that with Regier and I think Adams is taking that approach, as well.

But, GMs that prioritize making their roster better via trades over just "winning" a trade find it a lot easier to actually make trades that help their team.

 

[Jim Bob]

Cozens hasn't had any nagging injuries, per the coach. He confirmed that Thompson did, however. Cozens' issue was mental.

Sabres' Dylan Cozens goes back on the attack to try to reach another level

Dylan Cozens' improvement over the past two months has short- and long-term implications for Buffalo. He’s a pivotal figure in GM Kevyn Adams’ plan to build a Stanley Cup contender.

buffalonews.com

Cozens missed a week in November after he was injured during a fight with Philadelphia Flyers winger Garnet Hathaway. And when Cozens returned to the lineup, he was forced to wear a full-face shield that made it challenging for him in every area of the game.

That injury did have a lingering negative effect on Cozens's game this season and it was obvious to anyone paying attention when he came back.

He has had challenges this season in part due to the big contract extension and the pressure that has brought. But, it is not all mental with him over the course of the entire season.

 

[Chainshot]

Cozens hasn't had any nagging injuries, per the coach. He confirmed that Thompson did, however. Cozens' issue was mental.

Hathaway did put him in a fishbowl that did seem to impact his game for a few weeks while he wore it. And that was stupidity on Cozens' behalf, not realizing who he is deciding to throw a tantrum against and getting his nose adjusted.

 

[HogtownSabresfan]

Because they're lying when they tell us that winning is the #1 goal this year. I'm convinced they settled for improvement this season, not the playoffs -- but can't even get the improvement part right either.

I watched a Kevyn Adams interview during Leafs game in preseason, not seen widely, and it was obvious he wanted to win but building a sustainable franchise is the larger goal. I think Buffalo wants a deep deep farm system so it can trade out guys who get too pricey and stay under the cap by $5 M to $10 M. We can win in that scenario but it is not what Pegula promised and he should be more open about his goals. (And I don't get why a with $7 B cares if he loses a few million but he does.)

 

[Doug Prishpreed]

Hathaway did put him in a fishbowl that did seem to impact his game for a few weeks while he wore it. And that was stupidity on Cozens' behalf, not realizing who he is deciding to throw a tantrum against and getting his nose adjusted.

That wasn't "nagging. Seemed like a discrete, identifiable period of that that the injury affected him. Again, I'm only repeating what comes directly from player and coach. They are not blaming anything on nagging injuries.

 

[Chainshot]

Trades are not very hard and rare.

Trying to "win" every trade can make it very hard and rare. We saw that with Regier and I think Adams is taking that approach, as well.

But, GMs that prioritize making their roster better via trades over just "winning" a trade find it a lot easier to actually make trades that help their team.

Look at Allvin in Vancouver this year. He's made seven trades since camp opened in September. That team had it's biggest star (EP40) publicly stating that he would leave if the team didn't have a good season, complaints about their medical staff and the handling of a well-liked player (Pearson), and backlash from the way they'd handled the firing of Boudreau hanging in the air and instead... he hired a coach who got the team to buy in, made "hard decisions" on jettisoning OEL via buyout and then went out and consistently tweaked his roster even in the face of a lack of cap space.

He took a risk of a potential loss on the Beauvillier deal to simply move the cap space to allow him to make another move. He didn't sit around, thinking that because Beauvillier had over a 20-goal/season pace in Vancouver that he should hold out for something, he took a disgruntled guy and shipped him the hell out to clear space. (Analogous to how Buffalo should've moved Vic at any point in the off-season until now.)

He got a good veteran backup for essentially a cap dump of a disgruntled, damaged winger by getting DeSmith out of Montreal for Pearson.

He was able to use a relationship to get a quality depth defenseman in Zadorov from a division rival using the return on Beauvillier and a 3rd rounder and did that when his team was still playing well and above expectations.

He found a team that couldn't fit a depth guy and made a deal to help shore up his 4th line by plucking Lafferty off the Leafs for next to nothing. (Think of retaining Jost instead of making that sort of move.)

He made a pair of trades specifically for his minor league team where he got a useful #8/9 defenseman in both deals.

And he made a big rental splash while his team is driving hard in their conference in the Lindholm trade.

I mean f***ing hell, he turned over 2/3rds of his blueline since the last deadline, including buying at the worst possible time to make sure he got a great partner for his star defenseman if we go back to the Hronek deal.

(This is all building on your point... there is a direction from Allvin to ice a winning team and he's willing to make moves to make that happen, even if he's taking a net loss in the future on some of the moves but he's put a winning team on the ice NOW.)

The Sabres lack of ability to identify external options and then overpay internally is evident and I would question how they're pro scouting folks, analytics folks, coaching staff and Adams are approaching all of this because it's not to put winning hockey on the ice, it's for someday, one day, maybe, in the future.

 

[ValJamesDuex]

 

[Chainshot]

I would agree with others in that Friedman has never broken anything about Buffalo. If this were to come to pass, it would be a first.

 

[TehDoak]

He says he's on the phone so much lately that he barely gets sleep. He's not just waiting around for something good to happen. Trades are very hard and rare

Maybe he has a real bad angry birds addiction.

 

[Jim Bob]

I would agree with others in that Friedman has never broken anything about Buffalo. If this were to come to pass, it would be a first.

 

[Chainshot]

Edit -

 

[Chainshot]

Maybe he has a real bad angry birds addiction.

He found Regier's espresso machine.

Edit - I wonder if it was behind the unplugged fax machine?

 

[OkimLom]

I'm curious how Chad got to that summation based on Friedman's thoughts for the Sabres. Sounds like an opinion from Friedman based on the typical thought of too many prospects not enough room. To come to the conclusion seems like an incorrect narrative to build up unrealistic expectations.

 

[KeyserSoze81]

Instead of replacing players and coaches, have we considered the potential impact of the team dog?

Blue joined the team at the start of the 2023-24 season, and the team has played uninspired hockey since his arrival. On top of losing the commanding presence of both Rick and Nikki over the past two seasons, Blue appears to be dogging it. Adams may have to start thinking outside the box. Is this group ready for a service cat?

Maybe he has a real bad angry birds addiction.

Like me, he has been playing a lot of online chess. Unfortunately, Adams refuses to trade pawns. Each pawn has a potential to become a queen, so he protects them at all costs. His rating is taking a beating.

 

[Doug Prishpreed]

Instead of replacing players and coaches, have we considered the potential impact of the team dog?

Blue joined the team at the start of the 2023-24 season, and the team has played uninspired hockey since his arrival. On top of losing the commanding presence of both Rick and Nikki over the past two seasons, Blue appears to be dogging it. Adams may have to start thinking outside the box. Is this group ready for a service cat?

Like me, he has been playing a lot of online chess. Unfortunately, Adams refuses to trade pawns. Each pawn has a potential to become a queen, so he protects them at all costs. His rating is taking a beating.

Some people recently developed a program to teach shelter dogs how to drive a car in 47 days. Maybe the problem is that he’s not on the ice.

 

[HOOats]

If Adams is unwilling to sign Mitts and trades him, short of getting a ridiculously good return in terms of value and fit, I'll be done with him. Even "shopping him" is wild, though I think that just means taking calls.

Not just because he'd be kneecapping what little on-ice heart and soul this group has, since Mitts is bar none the hardest working, lowest ego, most give-a-**** (also most productive...) player on the team. (So much so that the more conspiracy-minded fans who believe that Pegula doesn't even want a winner would start looking a little less crazy.)

But because it would confirm that Adams' idea of how to build a consistently competitive roster is completely misguided. And that's just in the regular season, not even considering playoff hockey yet. Mitts is among if not our best player at: winning board battles, creative play linking, high-danger chance creation, high-effort backchecking. He's bad at... faceoffs. Subtracting that player from this roster would be catastrophic imo, unless the player we get back is better than Mitts at those things. Problem is, teams that want players like that don't really trade away players like that. Good teams collect players like 2024 Mitts, so if the idea is to be a good team...

It follows this conversation from the Stars game thread. From his drafting, roster construction, coaching staff hires, and most importantly, on-ice product, Adams' philosophy doesn't appear to value interior offense and physical play. Why? It doesn't represent who Adams was as a player. Is it the push of our analytics dept? I didn't think they were that influential, but the drafting would suggest that they think they've found an inefficiency from teams overvaluing size, etc. Can we just not compete to acquire the most valuable physical net front F and D who can also skate? Shouldn't we focus on drafting them then?

I guess I just don't get it. This is the type of team that we've intentionally built. What did they expect? And what do they expect if they deal one of our only players that (even slightly) breaks that trend?

 

[Jim Bob]

 

[thewookie1]

I watched a Kevyn Adams interview during Leafs game in preseason, not seen widely, and it was obvious he wanted to win but building a sustainable franchise is the larger goal. I think Buffalo wants a deep deep farm system so it can trade out guys who get too pricey and stay under the cap by $5 M to $10 M. We can win in that scenario but it is not what Pegula promised and he should be more open about his goals. (And I don't get why a with $7 B cares if he loses a few million but he does.)

You are literally the only person here with the absurd notion we plan to stay 5 to 10mil under the cap in perpetuity

 

[Chainshot]

If Adams is unwilling to sign Mitts and trades him, short of getting a ridiculously good return in terms of value and fit, I'll be done with him. Even "shopping him" is wild, though I think that just means taking calls.

Not just because he'd be kneecapping what little on-ice heart and soul this group has, since Mitts is bar none the hardest working, lowest ego, most give-a-**** (also most productive...) player on the team. (So much so that the more conspiracy-minded fans who believe that Pegula doesn't even want a winner would start looking a little less crazy.)

Welcome to Salt Lake City, your Mormon Sabres! Or would it be the Atlanta Lost Causes Swords?

But because it would confirm that Adams' idea of how to build a consistently competitive roster is completely misguided. And that's just in the regular season, not even considering playoff hockey yet. Mitts is among if not our best player at: winning board battles, creative play linking, high-danger chance creation, high-effort backchecking. He's bad at... faceoffs. Subtracting that player from this roster would be catastrophic imo, unless the player we get back is better than Mitts at those things. Problem is, teams that want players like that don't really trade away players like that. Good teams collect players like 2024 Mitts, so if the idea is to be a good team...

Agreed on all points. And I would think if they wanted to put an emphasis on faceoffs, there are coaches who have shown an ability to draw that out of their players by being good instructors and innovative with their approach *cough* Peca *cough*. Mitts isn't the worst at it on the team either but their top three feature no one over 50-50 at the skill.

It follows this conversation from the Stars game thread. From his drafting, roster construction, coaching staff hires, and most importantly, on-ice product, Adams' philosophy doesn't appear to value interior offense and physical play. Why? It doesn't represent who Adams was as a player. Is it the push of our analytics dept? I didn't think they were that influential, but the drafting would suggest that they think they've found an inefficiency from teams overvaluing size, etc. Can we just not compete to acquire the most valuable physical net front F and D who can also skate? Shouldn't we focus on drafting them then?

There was a lot of talk prior to the Savoie pick that Buffalo was very, very high on Marco Kasper who one could say plays the sort of style that Adams did, but with some actual skill. If those picks are reversed (Savoie to the Wings, Kasper to Buffalo), it takes a lot of the emphasis off having a bunch of smallish wingers. Maybe they've learned something - this last draft with the Wahlberg and Strbak picks in particular look like more warrior types than fancy dans - even Kulich is more of a mid-6 guy with one dynamic skill than just a flashy player and Ostlund has a lot of interior driven play connecting in his game that could be a long-term Mittelstadt replacement (though not anywhere near ready, that's not my implication).

I guess I just don't get it. This is the type of team that we've intentionally built. What did they expect? And what do they expect if they deal one of our only players that (even slightly) breaks that trend?

He seems like he's noticed and at least is trying to find some spine with some guys who shake out more toward contact play with the Clifton, EJohnson signings and the Greenway and Robinson trades. It seems like he's too attached to what he has - why is he trying to squeeze value out of an empty calorie scorer like Vic for the last 9 months when that just takes up payroll with someone who doesn't actually help them win games or forking over money to Jost whose contributions last year were due to being frightened that his time in the NHL was nearing an end? They need some more players who are consistent - and yes, some of who they have will get there when they grow up more to anyone about to play the "they're so young" card - instead of the level of complacency that drives so many of us nuts. Action is needed. Said this last year - perfect is the enemy of done. They're waiting for the perfect fit instead of taking the actions to get better that they can.

I've got another gnawing doubt about some of their moves under Pegula that I just can't find a tactful way to say. So I'm not going to say them for the millionth time.

 

[Chainshot]

That's good, good stuff there. The Hockey PDOCast was talking about this months ago (and referenced it again), cool to see someone else tracking it.

Defenses have figured out how to stop these. Teams either adapt (see Florida) or keep thinking the same thing is going to keep working because it did work when conditions and actions were different sometime in the past (Matt Ellis, your table is ready).

 

[Nikolajs Sillers]

Look at Allvin in Vancouver this year. He's made seven trades since camp opened in September. That team had it's biggest star (EP40) publicly stating that he would leave if the team didn't have a good season, complaints about their medical staff and the handling of a well-liked player (Pearson), and backlash from the way they'd handled the firing of Boudreau hanging in the air and instead... he hired a coach who got the team to buy in, made "hard decisions" on jettisoning OEL via buyout and then went out and consistently tweaked his roster even in the face of a lack of cap space.

He took a risk of a potential loss on the Beauvillier deal to simply move the cap space to allow him to make another move. He didn't sit around, thinking that because Beauvillier had over a 20-goal/season pace in Vancouver that he should hold out for something, he took a disgruntled guy and shipped him the hell out to clear space. (Analogous to how Buffalo should've moved Vic at any point in the off-season until now.)

He got a good veteran backup for essentially a cap dump of a disgruntled, damaged winger by getting DeSmith out of Montreal for Pearson.

He was able to use a relationship to get a quality depth defenseman in Zadorov from a division rival using the return on Beauvillier and a 3rd rounder and did that when his team was still playing well and above expectations.

He found a team that couldn't fit a depth guy and made a deal to help shore up his 4th line by plucking Lafferty off the Leafs for next to nothing. (Think of retaining Jost instead of making that sort of move.)

He made a pair of trades specifically for his minor league team where he got a useful #8/9 defenseman in both deals.

And he made a big rental splash while his team is driving hard in their conference in the Lindholm trade.

I mean f***ing hell, he turned over 2/3rds of his blueline since the last deadline, including buying at the worst possible time to make sure he got a great partner for his star defenseman if we go back to the Hronek deal.

(This is all building on your point... there is a direction from Allvin to ice a winning team and he's willing to make moves to make that happen, even if he's taking a net loss in the future on some of the moves but he's put a winning team on the ice NOW.)

The Sabres lack of ability to identify external options and then overpay internally is evident and I would question how they're pro scouting folks, analytics folks, coaching staff and Adams are approaching all of this because it's not to put winning hockey on the ice, it's for someday, one day, maybe, in the future.

Canucks also have best third line in NHL me thinks.