Quoting: Skyraider112
I'd let Johnson develop in the AHL for at least a few months but agree he would be our 4th best D even now. I'd really like to reward guys who have stuck with the organization for a few years and haven't been given NHL opportunities. Biro, Murray, Rousek are all good options for 4th line rotation.
Ultimately its the Pegula's money they are spending on 1 year deals to UFAs. We still have 9.5 mil of cap space, its not like those deals to Z, Okie, and EJ cap-strapped us. Why wouldn't you want to reward the longest tenured Sabre and your captain with paying them a little more than they would get on the market? As to EJ, again its not like his contract AAV is killing our cap situation. We could have paid him 7 mil and still been okay. I agree that it appears Kevyn and Donny are very cautious and not inclined to big shakeups, however the team is still building, we are not yet contending. A team doesn't need dramatic moves while they build, they just need to keep improving. When you are a contender and you are up against some issues, then maybe its time for a shakeup. Next year should be the first season where the Sabres are locked in as contenders for the playoffs. I think of them as fringe playoffs this year
These aren't mutually exclusive paths though. You obviously can't trade or sign your way to contender status, but the opposite extreme is true as well. You can't only draft and develop your way to the next level, even if you are the best drafting team. The variability in pick success rate and development curve is too big to reliably expect it to be the only thing that carries the team.
Also, said it a bunch of times over the summer and got nothing but vitrol back but this team was never going to spend to the NHL salary cap. So they made the decision to spend what they had on those guys mentioned above rather than take risks in other areas. The idea that they have 9.5 mil in cap and thats going to lead to a move that eats up that cap space in season is extremely unlikely barring a really bad kane contract (which would just be more of the same).
This year should have been the year they tried to be a bonafide playoff team. They were in a good position to take advantage of core players in their prime not yet making big money. Even without factoring the cap, a players prime in todays NHL is actually much younger than the assumption from years ago suggesting it was late 20s.
It also feels like broken record status. Last TDL it was all "we werent expected to be good, wait until the summer" Nothing happens in the summer and here in fall "we weren't expecting to be a legit playoff team yet, wait until next summer."
It seems like more and more fans are just conditioning themselves to expect less and less to cope with what's going on instead of channeling that into pushing back against an ownership and management team that appears unmotivated to do what it takes to turn the team into a legit contender.