Adams Adds Another Deadline Surprise

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My how things can change in an instant. 

Most of the reporting surrounding Kevyn Adams and this year’s trade deadline was low key. The Sabres were expected to send out their pending unrestricted free agents, but it seemed any significant work would have to wait until the summer. 

Then Wednesday afternoon, Adams swapped Casey Mittelstadt for Bowen Byram and dropping the biggest bomb of the 2024 deadline season. 

Much of this post had been written at that point, with a hope that Adams would be able to pull off a big deal by Friday. The combination of cap troubles around the league and difficult fits seemed like that might be a longshot. even if the hope of a deadline surprise always lurks. Any deal Adams would have made outside of selling Zemgus Girgensons, Erik Johnson and Kyle Okposo would’ve been a surprise addition in some way. Though I’m not sure anyone was truly prepared for the magnitude of the trade he made with the Avalanche.  

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The Instigator Podcast 12.28 – NHL Trade Deadline Preview

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It’s deadline week and the rumors are flying left and right. We run through a number of topics on this week’s show, including the most recent trades to have been made around the league while offering up one trade that each of us would make if we were in charge of another NHL team.

We then talk about Buffalo’s apparent strategy ahead of this year’s deadline and the trio of pending UFAs Kevyn Adams appears poised to move. We close the show with a pair of trades we’d like to see Adams make before the 3 p.m. deadline on Friday.

Projecting the 4 Nations Face Off: USA

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The 4 Nations Face Off will be the closest the U.S. has been to Canada in terms of overall talent at any point in best-on-best international play. The Americans beat the Canadians in 1996 and they were one shot away from another sweep in 2010, but neither of those teams were close to their Canadian counterparts on the basis of talent. The Americans have a young and deep group of players to select from and should be able to ice a roster that can go toe-to-toe with the Canadians. 

It’s a shame there isn’t a mechanism that would allow them to trade a goaltender to Canada for a forward or defenseman simply given how rich the U.S. is at the position. There are easily four, if not five, goaltenders worthy of consideration for this roster, a strength that will largely be squandered in a tournament that is so short. That isn’t to say the Americans shouldn’t feel confident in their goaltending, but it’s the one position where depth as impressive as theirs won’t really matter given the nature of the position. But goalie isn’t the only area where the Americans should feel confident. So long as they don’t repeat the mistakes of 2014 and 2016, they should have an immensely talented lineup at their disposal. 

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Revisiting Some Renovation Ideas for KeyBank Center

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Renovations to KeyBank Center are coming. What was initially reported in the fall has been further confirmed with the recent publication of the Sabres’ plans for a new videoboard and repairs to the building’s roof. 

As was detailed in the fall, the team is eyeing additional work throughout the 28-year old arena with one of the biggest pain points for fans, the seats, high on the to-do list. As upgrading the arena has moved back to the front burner, it seemed like a good time to revisit some of the areas of the arena I’ve hoped to see the team address when it comes time to bust out the hard hats. 

Making improvements to the seating bowl is obvious to just about anyone who walks in the building. The seats have been there since the building opened and they are showing their age. But there are other sections of KeyBank Center that are underutilized and could bring a better overall customer experience should they be reimagined and depending on the amount of investment the Sabres, county and state care to make. 

Some (many?) of the ideas floated in this post may be too ambitious or unrealistic to ever be adopted, but my hope is to offer a healthy mix of feasible and necessary improvements with a few pipe dreams sprinkled in. The building needs quite a bit of TLC and even if the bulk of the attention is paid to the most necessary repair work, there will still be a marked difference down on Perry St.  

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Projecting the 4 Nations Face Off: Sweden

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It will be hard to fairly judge any of the teams in this tournament given its length. Finland’s roster doesn’t seem ultra impressive on paper, but if Juuse Saros is hot, or certain key players on other teams are injured, the results could be much different than what may be expected. I think in a more controlled setting, with more runway to get up to speed this Sweden team could really make some noise. 

They have a well rounded defense corps and there are some serious players up front. They don’t have quite the same amount of depth of talent as the Americans or Canadians, but they’re close. It’s a solid group with some lineup flexibility that could come in handy. Their goaltending won’t get as much attention as the U.S. group, but the Swedes easily have the second best stable of the tournament. How it all translates in a round robin setting is tougher to determine. 

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The Instigator Podcast 12.27 – Targeting Mission: Eastern Conference

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In a follow up to last week’s episode, we run through the NHL’s Eastern Conference to determine viable trade targets for the Sabres at this year’s deadline or in the offseason. We hit on each team in the East, identifying players who can help on the fringes of the roster and even a few blockbuster candidates.

We also hit on the news that the Sabres will be bringing in a new scoreboard for the 2024-25 season along with repairing the roof of KeyBank Center.

Roof and Videoboard Replacements are Welcome Additions to KeyBank Center

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Rumors and expectations of renovations at KeyBank Center have been rumored going back as far as 2017. Work will finally get underway on updating the 28 year old building this summer as the Sabres officially announced a new scoreboard and roof on Monday. 

It should be noted this work was previously confirmed and discussed ahead of the season, so it’s not new news, but the confirmation is a positive sign. Especially for anyone who has been eager to see work begin in the aging building. 

The roof work is a necessary evil that is going to take precedence over sexier, fan-facing upgrades still expected in the years to come. It’s also possible that in addition to making any repairs to a roof that’s nearly three decades old, additional support structures could be needed to hold the new scoreboard. Given the history of the building, that’s a step worth taking. I understand the sour reaction to the roof being one of the two projects announced considering the many, many areas of need around the arena and although I’m not a structural engineer, it certainly doesn’t look good when you drive by on the Skyway and I’ve heard of people getting dripped on in the 100 level on rainy days, so it certainly seems like a pertinent project to tackle. 

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Projecting the 4 Nations Face Off: Finland

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Of the four teams participating in the 4 Nations Face Off, Finland looks to be the weakest of the bunch. While they don’t lack high-end talent, they don’t boast the sort of depth that the Americans or Canadians have in bunches. Their goaltending is also fairly unproven once you get past Juuse Saros. Saros also has the skill to steal games, making the Finns a dangerous opponent. But on paper, this is the weakest of the four groups. 

There’s a lot of room for movement on the Finnish roster and I think all four teams will use their practice time together to shuffle through line permutations before the games begin. So don’t view all of the lines listed in these posts as firm, but a general scope of how I view each roster. From the top group of forwards down, I don’t think any single one of these groupings would be written in ink given where some of the weak points are with the players they can select from. 

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The Instigator Podcast 12.26 – Targeting Mission: Western Conference Edition

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We thought we’d try something different with this week’s episode. Rather than go on about another squandered pair of points, we dive into the Western Conference to come up with players the Sabres could target in a trade. We touch on each team in the West, highlighting players that range from pie-in-the-sky dreams, to valuable fits deeper in the lineup.

Projecting the 4 Nations Face Off: Canada

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Nine years will have passed between puck drop of next year’s 4 Nations Face Off and the last time NHL players participated in a best-on-best international event. 

Like this abbreviated tournament, the last iteration also featured some unusual wrinkles as the field of teams was rounded out by Team Europe and the legendary Team North America U23 outfit. The 4 Nations event will be a little more by the book, with the United States, Canada, Finland and Sweden competing against each other, with an eye on expanded participation in a consistent international calendar in the years to come. 

The promise of NHL players once again representing their countries means that the time honored tradition of roster projection can be practiced once again. Who better to start with than the team that will almost certainly enter as the tournament favorite and whose superstar has been limited to just one international event in his career, that being the 2016 World Cup? 

Projecting any Canadian roster with NHL players comes with the challenge of determining which of their 184 number one centermen will slide to the wing and which will play the pivot. Canada’s goaltending has also been a point of contention in recent years as the lack of a true superstar has left many to point to the crease as the country’s biggest position of weakness entering this competition. 

I do feel the concerns with their goaltending are being slightly overblown. There are enough Canadian goaltenders around the league with starters credentials who should have little trouble playing behind a forward group and blue line that will be this star studded. 

My goal with the Canadian roster was to plug in players whose traits complemented their linemates as best I could. Just about any permutation of a Canadian roster is going to be a formidable unit and I had little trouble cooking up three different variations of their forward lines that would be easy favorites for gold in this tournament. The group I settled on ultimately maximizes the high-end talent the Candians boast in droves, avoiding the urge to be cute by picking a player just for the sake of being different. 

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