Taro T

Watching Eichel play was worth the price of admission. That's in the past now. It's chicken & egg as to who wanted Eichel & Reinhart out of here 1st, management or the players. The players wanted to be here if not reloading; management saw a need for a reload but wanted to keep them if they WANTED to be here though they weren't seen as the right guys to be leaders. It didn't have to be a divorce, but that was the cleanest way forward for all involved. Adams has a lot of good not quite ready talent, draft capital & cap space at his disposal. If he does this right, he can have this team at least to an NHL 0.500 & maybe even to a DeLuca 0.500 as soon as next year. They could be legit playoff worthy as soon as the following year. If he does it wrong, we watch them continue to tread water at the bottom of the pool. They have to find a good stop gap goaltending fix at a minimum to move in the right direction. While one or more of the goaltending prospects may be ready in the near future, it'd be foolhardy to expect any WILL be ready in the next 3 years & a piece needs to be brought in the fill that role until then. If one is ready sooner, great, they've got a tandem & if 2 are ready sooner, great, there's trade capital. Have no faith Adams can get that part right. He hasn't in 2 attempts yet. But am hoping he can get it right.

Both teams benefitted. Per Puckpedia, the Aisles are now just over $2MM under the cap, so they are banking some cap now which they couldn't do with Boyckuk's ghost still around. And the Sabres now can afford to send league minimum salaries back to the AHL when injured guys come back & might even be able to trade Miller or Eakin at the deadline w/out major cap gymnastics. And all for somewhere between $500k-1,500k. Win win. That 8th round pick will head to the Aisles when Johnny retires officially. The Aisles might even play nice and swap an 8th rounder back. 😉

He's rather young, especially relative to this board's demographics. So he doesn't have memories of Perreault, LaFontaine, Gare, nor Hawerchuk. He likes who he likes.

When the thread was started, the Sabres had not announced that Krebs was Ra-cha-cha bound. They've also made it sound like his stay in Ra-cha-cha might not be very long.

Great shot by Okposo. Even better screen by Girgensons. --‐---------- Faaaack.

Thus the next word of the title "trade." 😉

Kind of surprisingly, especially after seeing a bit of him in Filly, hope they don't trade Hagg but actually re-sign him. That opinion could change as the season progresses, but at least before this road trip he's been playing well & Jokiharju can't be their elder statesman back on D next year. Won't be too broken up if any of the others on your list go away. They don't likely pencil into next season's lineup.

Now that they have Tuch, they might literally have their 3 best scoring forwards all out on IR. (Suppose that was true when Eichel was here this season, but he was never suiting up again for the Sabres. And technically Olofsson isn't on IR but it's getting close to a week that he's been out, so effectively ...) Granato's not getting anything handed to him.

He can, but hopefully he doesn't. 😉

Pretty sure the Sabres will send them an 8th rounder when Boychuk officially retires.

What does the Sabres roster in 2013 or 2014 have to do with teams (or in this case the specific example of A team, the '15-'16 Loafs) undergoing a "mini tank?"

Fair enough. 🍺

Htf is Vegas weather better for a ginger than Buffalo's is? He'd better start bumping the annual skin cancer checkups to weekly after he touches down from the plane. 😉

He's being given credit for holding out for Krebs & for seeing the need to move on from Eichel. Am willing to give him credit for the former, but don't agree that the latter is worthy of credit. Not sure that retention being a non-starter did actually keep offers off the table. Wasn't on the phone/ in the room, so don't know how literal the term "non-starter" was. You seem to believe he cut people off without even hearing them out. IMHO, it was likely more of a he hears them out & then reiterates "that's nice, but we're not going down that road, now let's hear what you've got for a full $ Eichel. Star player chips are stuck on a container ship off Long Beach & aren't available for a few months. We're not lowering the $'s." 😉

Not sure the bolded is clear. Might you expound? 🍺

It is a common practice. But in this instance it may not have been "best" practice. The elephant in the room on retention is any salary retained essentially ups Skinner from being an unmovable $9MM 3rd liner to a $10-14MM 3rd liner. That will be a huge chunk of the cap tied up in a 3rd liner regardless of how much the cap goes up. Were it not for the Skinner albatross, maybe retention was in play. And we don't even know (and we won't) how/if the Vegas deal would've changed with retention. It's possible that the Sabres saw this package to be more valuable in 3 years than the 1 with another expensive quality piece added going along with the extra retention that Eichel's contract retention would entail. Though Adams told people salary retention was a non-starter does not mean Adams wasn't told by the other GM's what the offer would become w/ retention. (He very likely wasn't shouting "na na boo boo, can't hear you" when the other GM's did make their offers. 😉 )

But it is. And there is the prime example of one. Get rid of your high priced guys you want to move away from & keep the kids that could help add a few meaningless wins to bottom line down on the farm where they're in key roles on a winning team. The blue print is there. The smart teams don't scorch & salt the earth before beginning the rebuild.

True. The FUTURE looks bright. Just like it did at the end of the year for the past 7 or so years. But, around here it seems we've been living an endless loop of an old CCR tune, "someday never comes."

But how much more would've come back with a salary retain for a currently broken Eichel? Obviously, we'll never know, but doubt it would've been much more. And if there was much more of a return, essentially making Skinner an $11-$14MM/yr player could really start hampering this team those final 2 years of Jack's current contract. The Pegulas aren't spending money this year, because all that does is take them further from at least 1 of the 2 goals for this season (the 2nd of which is still unstated but obvious). Though we've both made the case that not bringing in a goalie that can hold up this entire season could put the stated goal in jeopardy. (But that's the only additional money that could reasonably have been expected to get spent this year.)

And these line projections were strictly for this season. (Mentioned specifically that Cozens would be in the mix as a C in the future.) But have been pretty consistent in the position that if he's in the NHL right now, he should be there at RW. And expect that after having played in the NHL last year capably until he ran out of gas that he should be in the NHL until he demonstrates he needs to go down. And when he's ready to play C again in the NHL, give him another crack at it. When he had that 2 assist game, his play picked up for a couple of games. His issues right now are between the ears (well, that & he doesn't yet have the strength to play the game he expects himself to play) so let him get some work at the easier position & if he's still gripping the stick too tight, then let him tear it up at C in the AHL.

When Olofsson & Mittelstadt are back he very well could find himself going down there. Expect they'll move him to RW 1st, but maybe not.

Ironically, keeping the road trip record allows them to stay on a playoff NHL 0.600 pace. (Though likely not for much longer. 😞 ) Losing tonight in regulation, while maintaining the overall DeLuca 0.500 drops them off an NHL 0.600 pace.

Honestly have never expected the Pegulas to be unwilling to spend if they think it'll actually help the cause. The only time they've EVER seemed to cheap out were when O'Reilly was traded & personally believe that was personal to them (they didn't want to pay THAT guy any more than they'd already paid him & that bit us all in the bippy) & when they made significant cuts to the back office & front office when COVID hit. Suppose they've cheaped out on GM hires, but at least 2 of those were recommended by people they trusted and this last 1 was based on their own 1st hand interactions with him. But would be mildly surprised if a majority of that cap space gets spent on FAs. Expect they've got a bunch of it penciled in on raises for guys that are currently here.

The community accepted Eichel exactly like they did Hasek. There was a significant component of the fan base that truly disliked Hasek for the sins of "chasing" Ted Nolan out of town and "quitting" on the team by not battling through a particular leg injury. Though he battled through other injuries & though it was Larry Quinn that actually was the driver of the single year contract extension offer, they still didn't like him. Blamed him for Barnaby getting traded away, too. There is a not insignificant component of the fan base that never fully bought in on Eichel either. The animosity towards both never made sense to this kid. Still doesn't. But the team has moved on & now so shall we.

Surprised they aren't giving him a few game look see with the big club. Am fine with it. Just didn't expect it.