Two in the Mailbox

Two in the Mailbox – What Makes a Successful Offseason?

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I could’ve done without the agonizing breaks between games of the Stanley Cup Final, but it’s worked out in a way. Playing game seven on Monday sets up a sprint to Thursday’s draft and the opening of free agency on July 1 In between, Fanatics launched their new on-ice jerseys with the Kings and Ducks dropping their new designs for 2024-25. The end of this week could be a whirlwind of action as teams play catchup on trades and signings now that the Cup has been awarded. 

The Sabres will be among those clubs as they are expected to buy out Jeff Skinner when the buyout window officially opens. The buyout will give the Sabres an additional $7.5 million in cap space and the onus will fall on Kevyn Adams to use that space wisely. As previously discussed, there are some financial hurdles to clear with Skinner’s buyout. Even with the cap expected to rise, the three added years of dead cap eats up the approximate salary of a bottom six player. There’s also the larger cap hit in year three to contend with. In order to extract full value from this decision, the Sabres need to cash in on the cap and roster space created by the buyout. That means finding established NHL talent to acquire this offseason in order to tangibly improve the roster and break the playoff drought. They can seek players with term, but this buyout also opens the door for a rental acquisition. Adams has the most space to play with this summer, he has to use it to his advantage. The Sabres can lean on their pipeline when the dead cap stings the most, but they can’t use a buyout on Skinner and not use the cap savings to improve the roster.

Now, for your questions:

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Two in the Mailbox: An Abrasive Attitude

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It’s another edition of the mailbag and this time we’re tackling what the Sabres would need to change to adapt to the physical nature of the playoffs, how many new faces might be on the roster and Kyle Okposo’s recent comments on this year’s Sabres.

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Two in the Mailbox: Now What?

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Thursday’s action dealt a devastating blow to Buffalo’s late surge for a playoff spot. Between a horrific third period and Detroit’s win over the Islanders, the Sabres likely need to run the table over their final 11 games to even have a shot at breaking their drought. 

That sets us up for another summer of retooling and roster prognostication. That was front and center with the collection of questions for this latest edition of Two in the Mailbox. 

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The Instigator Podcast 12.10 – Neck Guard Adoption and Listener Questions

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We took listener questions and ran through topics like the Shane Wright plan, expectations for Devon Levi, how Peyton Krebs and Casey Mittelstadt should be handled and line juggling as the team finds the right fit for their forwards. We open the show with a discussion on the adoption of neck guards, what might be preventing early adoption for NHL players and how a grandfathered requirement could come into play.

Two in the Mailbox: Making Space for the Offseason

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It’s been a while since I ran a mailbag post. So here’s a smattering of questions from the Twitterverse on the Sabres roster, their outlook as contenders and arcade game preferences.

@jsymon86: Realistically, how do you see us creating 2-3 spots in the forward ranks to bring up a couple of the kids or bring someone in via trade/signings? Olofsson is low hanging fruit, but after that how would you rank candidates to be replaced in terms of likelihood / possibility?

The trade market has already gotten fired up and the draft is less than 20 days away, so I would expect to see something from the Sabres sooner rather than late. You’re right that Olofsson is low hanging fruit. He was replaced on the top powerplay, will be playing on an expiring deal, was a regular healthy scratch in a playoff push and there are at least two prospects with the type of shooting talent to further supplant Olofsson.

I expect to see Zemgus Girgensons move on, and there’s been speculation that Tyson Jost may not be qualified. Assuming Olofsson is moved, that’s three roster spots and only one would require a move. I’m not sure if there’s anyone else in the forward group who could possibly be moved, barring a blockbuster acquisition. But those three spots would leave two openings in the forward ranks, at minimum.

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Two in the Mailbox: Deadline Special

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In honor of the NHL Trade Deadline, it’s time once again to take a few reader questions.  

I’m looking forward to Monday’s deadline as I think the Sabres are poised to move at least two or three players off the roster. And there’s potential for even more moves both out and in. Unless Kevyn Adams makes zero moves on Moday, it will be hard to say it was an underwhelming deadline.

As we touched on this week’s podcast, I’m hopeful that Adams will bring in a player who will be in Buffalo not just for the final weeks of the season, but well into the future. A younger player, ideally with term, who could add to the growing confidence over what Adams and the Sabres are trying to build. That’s easier said than done, but it wouldn’t be the first time the organization brought in a notable piece for the future at the deadline. Here’s hoping the next one comes on Monday.

Before we get to the questions, we should celebrate the beauty of the Armchair GM submissions on CapFriendly. It’s been far too long since we shared any of these, so let’s make up for lost time with some Very Bad Trades.

A few thoughts here. First, Kaapo Kahkonen has had a decent season for the Wild but he hasn’t yet risen to the level of a number one goalie. Marcus Foligno has also carved out a very valuable role in Minnesota, so the idea that just Casey Mittelstadt (whose has been very underwhelming when not injured) could fetch you both of these players is silly. Yet, that deal is trumped by the following offer of the Arizona Coyotes offering a first and a third for Victor Olofsson and recent healthy scratch, Anders Bjork. I’m not sure how to arrive at that particular valuation, but it seems…inaccurate. Olofsson ought to have some value this summer (or at the deadline) but Bjork’s value will have cratered and while the Coyotes do need players on contracts, they also desperately need draft capital.

Sure, I guess. There are other players in the NHL though. We don’t always have to do Pat Kane.

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On to the questions.

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Two in the Mailbox – Visions of 2025?

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Back with another edition of the 2ITB Mailbag. Thanks to those who wrote in and if you want to participate in the next one, send me a tweet tagged with #2ITBmailbag.

@passoffpads – The year is 2025 and the Sabres are preparing for the Stanley Cup Finals (because even we can dream). Who is the goalie? Who is the captain? Who is the leading scorer? Who is the coach?

Let me just start by saying, I love your optimism. If the Sabres are a Cup contender in the 24-25 season, quite a few things will have needed to go right for them. The 2020 and 21 drafts will need to be paying dividends and the picks they’re set to make next June and in 2023 may have a say in that as well. I think Don Granato would still be the coach in this scenario, as the ramp up to Cup contender in that 24-25 season (or 25-26) would need to start in October of 2022. The likes of Owen Power, Jack Quinn and JJ Peterka will need to fill big roles and Granato will be the one welcoming them to the league next fall, so it’s only logical to conclude that the Sabres would be riding a wave that he helped start.

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Two in the Mailbox: Hall Trade on the Horizon

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It looks as if Taylor Hall has played his last game with the Sabres. As of this writing, Hall has been ruled out of Buffalo’s game against the Devils on Tuesday, April 6. With only six more days until the trade deadline, the odds that he’s seen in a Sabres jersey again sit somewhere between slim and none.

I meant to run this mailbag a few days earlier than it’s being dropped, so a couple of these questions may not seem as timely as they otherwise would have. The news of the week is Hall being scratched for the Devils game in anticipation of a trade being finalized. It seems unlikely that he even makes it to the deadline at this point, with a quicker conclusion to a trade benefiting any team that acquires him, especially those in Canada.

I’m not sure there’s any other way to describe Hall’s tenure in Buffalo as anything other than a huge disappointment. Luckily, the one-year deal the team signed him to mitigated any sort of long-term damage to their cap or depth chart, but two goals and 19 points over 37 games isn’t what you’re expecting from a former MVP. It’s certainly a far sight from Terry Pegula’s “We sign this guy, we’re not only trying to make the playoffs, we’re trying to win the Cup.”

Chasing Hall, like acquiring Eric Staal made for an exciting and promising offseason for the team. Not only was Hall a former MVP but he was the type of top-tier talent that could have helped take the Sabres to another level. Instead, he suffered through an abysmal stretch of shooting that tanked his stats and made him look like a passenger instead of the dynamic contributor he’d been earlier in his career.

We’ll wait to see what sort of trade return Kevyn Adams gets for Hall and whether or not that can help provide either short or long-term assistance to this club. Now, for your questions.

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Two in the Mailbox – No Need to Panic

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The Sabres are back and while it’s only been one game but the team, and the fanbase, are up to their old tricks. Given the leadup to the season opener, and the game’s result, what better time than to do another mailbag?

We’ve got jersey numbers, the Jeff Skinner conundrum, coaching and more. Continue reading →

Two in the Mailbox: The Lines, The Outlook and The Goalies

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Another season of Sabres hockey is underway and the 2ITB Mailbag is back for another run. This will be a weekly (sometimes) edition that runs down questions on the Sabres, Bills and just about anything else you can come up with.

I’m also going to use this as a quasi-season preview since I haven’t done one quite yet and it’s worth trying a different approach when it comes to a season preview. Especially when it’s written during the first game of the year and every other season preview is days or weeks old.

This is the first season in quite a while that I didn’t look forward to with some level of optimism. That’s softened a bit after Thursday’s performance, but it was still hard to really get up for the opening of the season with so many of the same faces on this roster. Not only are players like Sobotka, Scandella and Girgensons still around, but they’re all playing prominent roles. Add in the new coach giving them all sorts of love in the press and any frustration from the end of last year comes roaring back.

Sobotka got tons of credit for his play in the preseason, but I saw a lot of the same from last year. A black hole when the puck goes near him and very few positive traits. How he wound up in Buffalo’s top six is beyond me and I can only hope Krueger finds a new spot for him in short order.

It’s nice that Thursday went as well as it did, because that will help stoke the flames of optimism. The Mittelstadt line looked excellent and despite being an island of misfit toys, the Girgensons, Larsson and Okposo line was efficient as well. If there’s one spot on the roster I’m optimistic about, it’s the blueline. And that unit was quite good on Thursday. So, let’s see if they can string some wins together and prove everyone who was doubting their roster decisions wrong.

Now, on to the questions. Continue reading →