Roster Thread (2023-2024 Season)

[Irie]

Alright. Here we go.

Until the end of 25/26:

Skinner/Tage/Cozens/Tuch/Benson: 28.943M
Dahlin/Clifton/Sammy/Power: 26.966M

So, that's a total of 55.909M. We know the cap is going up significantly the next 2 years. So I'm going to make my math easy and say that the cap for the 25/26 season is $90M.

So, what do we need? 2 goalies, 3 defensemen and 9 forwards.
What do we have to spend? 34.091M.

Let's get the "Easy" ones out of the way: Let's say we get 2 more guys on ELCs for forwards (between Savoie/Kulich/Rosen/Ostlund/Wahlberg....seems reasonable to be). So that's roughly 2M. Let's say 1M each for a random 7th D and a random 13th forward.

30.091 M left.

At this point, we're at:
Skinner/Tage/Tuch
???/???/Benson
ELC/???/ELC
???/???/???
6 forwards, 2 D and 2 goalies.

Let's do the goalies. My gut is telling me that UPL is signing something close to a 4x4 this offseason. Levi will need to be re-signed, but I can't imagine he gets anything other than a bridge. It'll probably be more than UPL's current bridge, but I can't imagine much more. Let's assume that we give him a touch more than is necessary -- $1.5M on a 3 year bridge.

24.591 M left.

6 forwards and 2 D.

Ryan Johnson will need a new deal. Will he go the Sammy route and take a long-term deal at lesser money or a bridge at Joker-like money? I'm guessing he does a Joker bridge: 2.5x3

22.091 M left.
6 forwards and 1 D to sign

So now we need to look at what exactly we need and who we need to sign.

At D -- still looking for that RHD to pair with Power.
At forward -- looking for 3 bottom line guys, with the need to factor in Quinn, Peterka and Mitts. Maybe a re-sign of Greenway.

So, let's first factor in Quinn and Peterka.

Quinn first. His injury-riddled year should help us get him a bridge at a reasonable number. There's a halfway decent comparable to him on the roster in Mitts. Coming off of his ELC, Mitts had a decent end to his ELC and earned a 2.5x3...though was in and out of the lineup in his 3rd ELC year. So that likely depressed his value some. For purposes of this experiment, I'm giving Quinn a 3 x 3.

Peterka. En route to a 25-30 goal season in year 2. If we assume some progression, we're looking at 30-35 goals in year 3. Quinn just signed a 3.5 x 3. Peterka will get more. How much? Welllll, Necas in CAR signed a 2x$3M bridge coming off of a 71 point year. Matthew Tkachuk signed a 3 x $7M bridge deal. Peterka will likely go in the middle. I'm saying 3 x $4.5M.

14.591 M left.
4 forwards and 1 D to sign.

We've basically got the top 6 done and 7 out of 9 top 9 spots.

Krebs' bridge deal isn't going to get north of Mitts', and might not even hit that. 3 years x $2M

12.591 M left.
Skinner/Tage/Tuch
Peterka/Cozens/Quinn
Savoie/Krebs/Benson
ELC/???/???
VET

Sammy/Dahlin
Power/???
RyJo/Clifton
VET

UPL
Levi

In this scenario, we've got some flexibility with where we give a big deal to (given that we've given my "mid-range" deal to UPL). If we give it to Mitts, that'll leave us with around $4.5M of cap space to sign a couple of 4th-liners and a defenseman. Under that scenario, my bet is that RyJo becomes Power's partner and we get a moderately-priced 3rd pair LHD......and there's also a real possibility that we put ELC Novikov as the 3rd pair LHD.

So it's tight........but it's completely reasonable to sign Mitts and Cozens and Tage.....and still field a competitive roster. It's not easy and would require Adams/whoever to find a good complementary Dman and sign the right 4th liners.

But it's certainly possible........and is not a scenario to be dismissed out of hand.

That roster looks very small and young.

I just don't think I would expect playoffs (which I think are mandatory in 25-26) with a roster that young and non-physical. I would expect teams to take massive liberties night in and night out against that team, and it will probably be difficult to watch.

I hate being negative here, but if we want to compete, small ELC replacements for the limited amount of depth they currently have doesn't really solve this teams biggest issue imo.

 

[Doug Prishpreed]

Alright. Here we go.

Until the end of 25/26:

Skinner/Tage/Cozens/Tuch/Benson: 28.943M
Dahlin/Clifton/Sammy/Power: 26.966M

So, that's a total of 55.909M. We know the cap is going up significantly the next 2 years. So I'm going to make my math easy and say that the cap for the 25/26 season is $90M.

So, what do we need? 2 goalies, 3 defensemen and 9 forwards.
What do we have to spend? 34.091M.

Let's get the "Easy" ones out of the way: Let's say we get 2 more guys on ELCs for forwards (between Savoie/Kulich/Rosen/Ostlund/Wahlberg....seems reasonable to be). So that's roughly 2M. Let's say 1M each for a random 7th D and a random 13th forward.

30.091 M left.

At this point, we're at:
Skinner/Tage/Tuch
???/???/Benson
ELC/???/ELC
???/???/???
6 forwards, 2 D and 2 goalies.

Let's do the goalies. My gut is telling me that UPL is signing something close to a 4x4 this offseason. Levi will need to be re-signed, but I can't imagine he gets anything other than a bridge. It'll probably be more than UPL's current bridge, but I can't imagine much more. Let's assume that we give him a touch more than is necessary -- $1.5M on a 3 year bridge.

24.591 M left.

6 forwards and 2 D.

Ryan Johnson will need a new deal. Will he go the Sammy route and take a long-term deal at lesser money or a bridge at Joker-like money? I'm guessing he does a Joker bridge: 2.5x3

22.091 M left.
6 forwards and 1 D to sign

So now we need to look at what exactly we need and who we need to sign.

At D -- still looking for that RHD to pair with Power.
At forward -- looking for 3 bottom line guys, with the need to factor in Quinn, Peterka and Mitts. Maybe a re-sign of Greenway.

So, let's first factor in Quinn and Peterka.

Quinn first. His injury-riddled year should help us get him a bridge at a reasonable number. There's a halfway decent comparable to him on the roster in Mitts. Coming off of his ELC, Mitts had a decent end to his ELC and earned a 2.5x3...though was in and out of the lineup in his 3rd ELC year. So that likely depressed his value some. For purposes of this experiment, I'm giving Quinn a 3 x 3.

Peterka. En route to a 25-30 goal season in year 2. If we assume some progression, we're looking at 30-35 goals in year 3. Quinn just signed a 3.5 x 3. Peterka will get more. How much? Welllll, Necas in CAR signed a 2x$3M bridge coming off of a 71 point year. Matthew Tkachuk signed a 3 x $7M bridge deal. Peterka will likely go in the middle. I'm saying 3 x $4.5M.

14.591 M left.
4 forwards and 1 D to sign.

We've basically got the top 6 done and 7 out of 9 top 9 spots.

Krebs' bridge deal isn't going to get north of Mitts', and might not even hit that. 3 years x $2M

12.591 M left.
Skinner/Tage/Tuch
Peterka/Cozens/Quinn
Savoie/Krebs/Benson
ELC/???/???
VET

Sammy/Dahlin
Power/???
RyJo/Clifton
VET

UPL
Levi

In this scenario, we've got some flexibility with where we give a big deal to (given that we've given my "mid-range" deal to UPL). If we give it to Mitts, that'll leave us with around $4.5M of cap space to sign a couple of 4th-liners and a defenseman. Under that scenario, my bet is that RyJo becomes Power's partner and we get a moderately-priced 3rd pair LHD......and there's also a real possibility that we put ELC Novikov as the 3rd pair LHD.

So it's tight........but it's completely reasonable to sign Mitts and Cozens and Tage.....and still field a competitive roster. It's not easy and would require Adams/whoever to find a good complementary Dman and sign the right 4th liners.

But it's certainly possible........and is not a scenario to be dismissed out of hand.

Ok so like I said, you had to pay Quinn and JJP an unrealistically small amount on their bridge deals. Basing them on the most favorable deals in the league. And you also don’t have a single good RHD, so this is an incomplete, shitty team. Basically what I expected.

I’m trying to figure out a way to keep Mitts and bring in Matt Roy. I think the only way to make this work is to trade JJP for a prospect and to trade Tuch when his time is up. We really can’t afford to commit to a single winger for a while.

 

[Doug Prishpreed]

In the end, we shouldn't be giving long term money to non core forwards. We are locked into Thompson/Cozens for 7 years. It's fine to give Mittelstadt a mid term deal, no need for a 7/8 year deal. If Mittelstadt isn't open to that, then you can move on from him.

We don't have to do anything about Peterka/Quinn until next summer. Given the volume of skilled forwards behind them (Benson/Savoie/Kulich), Bridging is fine unless one has a massive year. My worry is Adams is warming up an 8 year deal for Peterka, because, you know, thats what he does.

The goal should be to get to the other side of the Skinner deal, that is the real albatross, with Power being a potential one, but far too early to tell on that yet.

I think we kind of agree on this, but I don’t think we should be committing to a single winger for quite a while now. That means trade JJP before he makes over $3m, and you also have to let Tuch walk when his deal is up. That’s the only way you’re gonna be able to afford to fortify this team with the RHD that we need, and keep centers like Mitts and Krebs…even on bridge deals for those two.

 

[Doug Prishpreed]

You use him in a package to upgrade, or swap gor a forward RFA that may be on the outs from another team, or he goes for pick(s) that you can use for other trades or replace pick(s) that we might trade out.

I try to get Matt Roy to come to Buffalo, and then trade Joker for whatever. If you can’t get someone like Matt Roy, you kinda have to keep him.

 

[Gras]

I try to get Matt Roy to come to Buffalo, and then trade Joker for whatever. If you can’t get someone like Matt Roy, you kinda have to keep him.

Problem is the best time to probably trade him is prior to July 1, Ideally other assests can be used to bring in another D and Joker can be used to get an RFA or someone with term that can play the bottom 6.

 

[Zman5778]

Ok so like I said, you had to pay Quinn and JJP an unrealistically small amount on their bridge deals. Basing them on the most favorable deals in the league. And you also don’t have a single good RHD, so this is an incomplete, shitty team. Basically what I expected.

I don't think the deals I gave Quinn or JJP are unrealistically small at all. Tkachuk was the face of Calgary, a 1st round pick and a nearly-PPG player. Peterka ain't any of those. Giving him 50% more than Necas' deal seems eminently fair to me.

Quinn? I think his deal is going to largely depend on what he does next year. Lots of projection there.

 

[Zman5778]

That roster looks very small and young.

I just don't think I would expect playoffs (which I think are mandatory in 25-26) with a roster that young and non-physical. I would expect teams to take massive liberties night in and night out against that team, and it will probably be difficult to watch.

I hate being negative here, but if we want to compete, small ELC replacements for the limited amount of depth they currently have doesn't really solve this teams biggest issue imo.

I was flat-out told that paying Mitts, Cozens and Tage wasn't possible. That because of the presence of Tage/Cozens/Dahlin/Power/Sammy/Skinner, we couldn't give out a real contract.

All I set out to do was prove it's possible.

I don't LIKE the team that I drew up and I'd certainly make changes to the roster.

But the goal was to prove it was possible, since I was told it was not. Mission accomplished in that regard.

 

[Doug Prishpreed]

I don't think the deals I gave Quinn or JJP are unrealistically small at all. Tkachuk was the face of Calgary, a 1st round pick and a nearly-PPG player. Peterka ain't any of those. Giving him 50% more than Necas' deal seems eminently fair to me.

Quinn? I think his deal is going to largely depend on what he does next year. Lots of projection there.

Tkuchuk made $7m, and it was years ago. I’m saying you can’t even afford to give Petka $4m

 

[Zman5778]

Dude that was many years ago.

Which one? Necas' deal was 2 years ago. To me, that's the better comparable. I used Tkachuk's deal as a max theoretical.

 

[Doug Prishpreed]

Which one? Necas' deal was 2 years ago. To me, that's the better comparable. I used Tkachuk's deal as a max theoretical.

Sorry, I hit post too soon. I don’t think you can get Peterka + Quinn under like 5 or 6 mil, which it needs to be. And even if it is, you still don’t have a decent defense at all.

I was flat-out told that paying Mitts, Cozens and Tage wasn't possible. That because of the presence of Tage/Cozens/Dahlin/Power/Sammy/Skinner, we couldn't give out a real contract.

All I set out to do was prove it's possible.

I don't LIKE the team that I drew up and I'd certainly make changes to the roster.

But the goal was to prove it was possible, since I was told it was not. Mission accomplished in that regard.

I never said you couldn’t sign mitts. I said to do it you had to make other tough decisions. My goal is always to keep all centers. I’m not trading mitts at all

 

[Zman5778]

Sorry, I hit post too soon. I don’t think you can get Peterka + Quinn under like 5 or 6 mil, which it needs to be. And even if it is, you still don’t have a decent defense at all.

Agreed that Peterka and Quinn likely won't come in under 6 total.

And you can have a decent defense if you sign Mitts and Peterka and Quinn.

THEN, you'd have to go cheap at goalie. Like Levi and some vet min guy.


I totally agree with you that we've gotta shed a couple of the forwards.......but I'd like to find a hockey deal for them. Deal Peterka for a simlarly-aged RHD with a couple of RFA years left. One we can bridge. That type of thing.

 

[MOGlLNY]

I wonder what it would take to get Larsson and Gourde from Seattle. A lot id imagine.

 

[Gras]

I wonder what it would take to get Larsson and Gourde from Seattle. A lot id imagine.

First step would be finding out if we are on either of their NTC

 

[ValJamesDuex]

I would love to see us become a team that plays with speed!

 

[zenthusiast]

First step would be finding out if we are on either of their NTC

If you have to ask….

 

[zenthusiast]

It’s possible that I’m a rah-rah homer for the players but I don’t think the current roster is being maximized. Continue to tweak the build and address holes but I’d like to see what another proven coach could do here.

 

[Djp]

ESPN has philly as the 8th?

Top 3 make playoffs in each division

Metro-' rangers, canes, fliers
Atlantic-' Bruins, panthers, laughs
WC wings, bolts.

Sabred can finish better than players but flyers still go

 

[Doug Prishpreed]

I totally agree with you that we've gotta shed a couple of the forwards.......but I'd like to find a hockey deal for them. Deal Peterka for a simlarly-aged RHD with a couple of RFA years left. One we can bridge. That type of thing.

This is where I’m at, but I can’t even find any targets. I’d pay assets to get Roy’s cap hit down but it doesn’t work like that.

 

[MOGlLNY]

First step would be finding out if we are on either of their NTC

Welp

 

[Doug Prishpreed]

Problem is the best time to probably trade him is prior to July 1, Ideally other assests can be used to bring in another D and Joker can be used to get an RFA or someone with term that can play the bottom 6.

I have a feeling that a RHD with this many years’ experience in the league could be gotten rid of relatively easy at any time. It’s the highest demand position in the league, Which also means I can’t get rid of them unless I have a replacement.

 

[Djp]

Alright. Here we go.

Until the end of 25/26:

Skinner/Tage/Cozens/Tuch/Benson: 28.943M
Dahlin/Clifton/Sammy/Power: 26.966M

So, that's a total of 55.909M. We know the cap is going up significantly the next 2 years. So I'm going to make my math easy and say that the cap for the 25/26 season is $90M.

Here is how I see it.

5/4/0 $56M

24 summer
signs Mitts for$7M for 7
UPL for $4M for 4
Sign Krebs to 3 yr %2M ( assume hefinishes well in 3rd line role)

7/4/1 $69M
Quinn, peterka,, Greenway , RyJo, Clifton , Levi 3/2/1 $10M under contract
10/6/2 $79M
Joker RFA-- I think traded
Vet D for 4M, 2 F for $2M each, 2 ELCs
14/7/2 $87M

25 summer
2 $2M contracts are gone -4M
keep Greenway at $4M, peterka and Quinn at $3,5M bridges. $5M to $11M.
Levi resigned at 2 yrs $2M
RyJo resigned at 2 yrs at $2M
Combined $8M in cap space increase
Net $4M
12/7/2 for $91M
Maybe trade Krebs, replace with 2 ELC

In summer 2026

Tuch resigned, benson resigned, ELC d promoted, Clifton gone. If benson is signed to a $3M bridge.Tuck at $6.75M for 5 yrs. This is a $5M cap gain
If cap goes up $4M m as y nr just under tjr cap

In 2025 or 2026 one of Tage_Mits/Cozens could be moved for something cheaper opening up $3M in space thr next few years.

Summer 2026 and 2027 you decide who to keep and trade others for ELC/futures

 

[dortt]

play Clague more

He may not be the most talented player, but he is the perfect compliment for Dahlin/Power from past performance. Some players are that way, cannot drive a third pair in the minors, but are an excellent compliment to one of the top 2 pairs. A more extreme version of Tallinder, who failed trying to lead a defense pair, but was a great compliment.

Not playing him is the typical Buffalo of trying to ice the most talented team, not the best team.

 

[Zman5778]

play Clague more

He may not be the most talented player, but he is the perfect compliment for Dahlin/Power from past performance. Some players are that way, cannot drive a third pair in the minors, but are an excellent compliment to one of the top 2 pairs. A more extreme version of Tallinder, who failed trying to lead a defense pair, but was a great compliment.

Not playing him is the typical Buffalo of trying to ice the most talented team, not the best team.

Clague had a couple of good games last year when being forced to play with Dahlin or Power.

But there is no universe where:
A.) Clague is part of our "most talented" 6-man defensive unit
ii.) Clauge can repeat said good games for an extended period of time
3.) Clague actually deserves to play over anyone currently in the lineup. And I'm including Erik Johnson in that, who is so cooked that he's damned near a charcoal briquette 5v5.

And frankly, if one of our current top 7 get hurt.....I want Stillman up here instead of Clague.

 

[BFLO]

Oof. Big, big oof.

“Our goals and vision for the future are unchanged and we remain steadfast in our belief that this team will turn things around” -TPegs

Translation: We’re running it back with minimal changes again next year. Please don’t cancel your seasons! *Jangles keys* look a new scoreboard and roof!

 

[Beerz]

Oof. Big, big oof.

“Our goals and vision for the future are unchanged and we remain steadfast in our belief that this team will turn things around” -TPegs

Translation: We’re running it back with minimal changes again next year. Please don’t cancel your seasons! *Jangles keys* look a new scoreboard and roof!
View attachment 825754

What made me laugh was the goal now is to assemble a playoff team as opposed to the sole reason of existence is to win a Stanley Cup