Taro T

And had he been even remotely effective at selecting an NHL coach we might still be wondering what he has against CHLers & Russians. 😉 Were it not for Rolston, he'd have picked the worst HC in team history & then followed that up with the guy who would've been the 2nd worst.

With his skipping the prospects challenge expect he's penciled into the top 12 & it'll take a really bad camp to start the year in Ra-cha-cha. Prior to that thought Sheahan would be penciled in as the 4C & his being among the skaters dressing nightly would bump Peterka out of the top 12 & into the lead scoring role in Ra-cha-cha out of the gate waiting for the 1st injury to become an NHL full-timer. Still have his 2 games in Buffalo etched into the memory more than that fantastic playoff run which caused the expectation that it'll take him some time to really dial in. But do expect he'll give Quinn a good run for Sabres 2nd best rookie. Also expect him & Quinn stealing votes from each other for end of the year awards. Also expect him to become nearly as popular as Cozens before the season is over. He's fun to watch.

No issue w/ the owners' kids getting to be around. (It's one of those perks that come w/ being the princeling.) PROVIDED they don't end up pushing themselves into actual scouting roles and trying to get their voices heard over Adams & the rest of the actual pros. Wilson's daughter thinking she knew more than she did was a not insignificant portion of why Ralph decided he didn't need Polian around. Let him design more BS hats or whatever it takes to keep him from providing scouting reports.

Expect that's a big part of Granato & Mittelstadt saying Mitts might be a W this year. Expect they'll have those 2 together w/ someone (Olofsson?) and they don't see Krebs being able to transition to W but Casey can. Could see them covering the roles like Hecht & Briere did & then Leino & Briere did.

Am hoping the answer to the Q is "never." Expect Girgensons to be useful in his 60ish healthy games played and don't see much of a trade market for him. Hope he gets a 1-2 year contract this off-season & the Sabres getting 1-2 more good years out of him but at his age,, if he does take a step back, no point in trading him because they won't get anything of value back.. So he then retires a Sabre. Darn few guys have gone cradle to grave w/ the Sabres; would like to see him add 1 more to the list.

Really don't see the Sabres tanking. Neither hard tank (obviously) nor the soft tank. The ONLY way they're running a soft tank is if they EXPECT Comrie to be Hutton. And just can't see them having gone after him as they did if they expect him to only be Hutton. A much stronger case for a solft/stealth tank could've been made if Murray was the only NHL goalie brought in this year. But, really expect they were going to go after Comrie even with Murray figuring Comrie can get them 45-55 quality starts & some combo of the other 4 guys could get them another 30ish quality starts.

If Comrie doesn't start at least 50 games, this year's goaltending will be a hot mess. (It might be even if he does get that many, but not expecting that.) Comrie 55 Anderson 21 UPL 3 Subban 2 Levi 1

Not only that, the D has pitched a shutout in the 2nd 1/2 of both games. (Actually, they're outscoring the opposition 7-0 in the 2nd 1/2 so far. Fun. 😉 )

Already said above why the GM should be under contract for 2 more years than the current year rather than just 1. Why you so concerned about saving the Pegulas $'s if things go sideways?

He stops getting paid at the end of the regular season. The contract ends ~ Jun 30 (whatever the last day of the league year is & 1 day before FA opens up; traditionally the 1st day of the new league year is July 1; it hasn't been the last 2 years).

So you want him fired too because your boy Botterill got canned after refusing to restructure the scouting department? You didn't answer the question of are you fine having Adams become a free agent at the end of this season & THEN negotiating a new deal with him? Because, either he gets a new deal now or after he holds all the cards should the Pegulas want to re-sign him.

How so? Pretty sure he was starting his last year under contract (it was a 3 year deal originally, right?). You going to wait until after the season and he's a free agent to negotiate with him? There is no downside to this other than it costing the Pegulas more money should he not be able to continue the rebuild. Don't care about them wasting a few bucks if in fact they did. Jury's out on that but expect they didn't.

Personally always want the GM under contract for at least 2 more years than the current one & the coach to be under contract for at least 1 more year than the current season. Want to make sure they aren't thinking about their next stop while they should be fully focused on making things better here & now. (Butler tanking his last draft for the Bills still chafes.)

Personally would set it at 91.5. They get to 92 points, they can be kicking themselves all off season how those two 3 game losing streaks cost them the playoffs. And all it takes beyond that is winning 1 game they'd otherwise have lost in regulation every other month to sneak into the dance. If they can legitimately play at a 92 point pace, find 1 extra win in October, December, February, & April and they're in the playoffs or the very 1st team to miss the playoffs with a 0.600+ record in at least 50 years.

Actually, by artificially lowering his own salary, he's definitely giving (some of) his teammates more money & if the Avs stay under the cap he's giving every single player in the league a few extra shekels as the demonimator used to adjust everybody's salary to an aggregate 50% of HRR is that much smaller.

But MacKinnon seems to understand that: 1. You CAN have enough money; 2. With a hard salary cap, if he leaves a couple extra $million on the table, it's available for ideally teammates that can help him win; and 3. If the Avs have the right culture, it could actually convince some other guys like Landeskog that could break the bank to leave a small amount on the table & then there's that much more available to be able to afford 3rd & 4th liners that aren't TOTAL JAGs. He needs to have faith in management to do so, but he had that faith at his previous contract negotiation & now he's a SC champion for his faith.

Don't expect many goals (12 or so seems realistic for his usage/ role), but expect that Granato will be running balanced lines often enough to see him real close to 30 points total.

Expecting we see ~65 points again. Low 70's is possible, as is sliding back, but with the expectation they'll be pretty much rolling 3 or 4 lines 65 seems about right. Also, expect he'll be the top line C by 5v5 ice time.

Expect he falls just short of 30/60 as he ends up missing 10 or so games due to injury. Really curious as to whether he gets an extension next July. Hoping he does. Not sure he will.

And that in itself will keep the cupboards stocked. Looking forward to being at the point Detroit was most of this century where good kids cooked in the AHL until they were both ready & a spot was available.

True to a degree. It's very unlikely the last 2 drafts are putting 12 NHLers out there for the Sabres. But with all the high end picks they've had & a little luck they should get at least 7 NHLers out of the past 2. They had 5 1st rounders alone the past 2 years. And if they did, they have at least 9 NHLers out of the last 3 drafts. That'll keep the cupboards stocked.

And stuff like the Sabres being ready to pounce on Kulich (and a few other guys the past 2 (and maybe even 3 years - Quinn & Peterka say 'hi') is what was so frustrating about the Golisano years. Rather than building up the scouting department to have a lot of cheap homegrown talent coming in, he & Quinn gutted it & brought in video scouting. It wasn't just his gutting the most complete team they'd had since at least the early-90's & likely since the mid-70's or possibly ever due to being focused on only today's balance sheet, but his inability to see how his overall goals were completely complemented by building the scouting department rather than tearing it down. At least there is hope once again, & not the forced kind we've lived with most of the past decade.

As long as there's one that looks right getting taken around 15 and will last until then, they'll be good.

Don't count your inactives list before Sunday. 😉

But, were it not a lockdown year would he have been a 7th rounder? Again, the Sabres SEEM to have knocked the last 2 drafts out of the park. Is that due to being better than everybody else in general or having an edge due to being better at guessing how guys would've been advancing their previous 2 years or others being particularly bad at evaluating guys during the lockdown or some combination of the 3? If we're lucky, the Sabres actually did draft great these past 2 drafts & it isn't an illusion and more importantly it was due to a lot more of option 1 than 2 or 3.