Samson's Flow

No worries. We all get crotchety from time to time. Hell I have a freaking Eichel-corn as my avatar since Hodgson got bought out. Players that are viewed as "elite" (and you can argue whether he is or not, but he did play on Canada's stacked World Championship team) are not often available. When they are available, you do whatever you can to acquire them, then you worry about how to make them fit later. IMO, GMTM was able to do so with both Kane and O'Reilly. You win championships by having high end talent far more often than you do having a bunch of second tier talents. You only get 5 skaters on the ice at a time, and come playoff time I want my best 5 skaters to be more talented than the other team, not hoping #'s 6-15 can beat the other team. This is why I personally am excited for the addition of RoR, Kane, Eichel et al. the way the team is projecting, we will have some top end talent to trot out there when the going gets tough and you need that late goal down one. Think the Toews play against us late in the season. All the picks we traded, and Zadorov, Grigo etc have the potential to maybe be those kinds of players if they hit their ceilings, but O'Reilly is already that kind of player.

I'm not sure what they are getting at, his last post was yesterday at 9:49pm. He's still around... :unsure:

Good to see you noticed :blush: (since they got rid of Hodgson, I needed to de-cody my profile - this is what I landed on)

Bold move trading for his UFA rights. Gave them an extra week of negotiating.

I appreciate the sarcasm. The Moulson, Foligno, Deslauriers that you listed have little to nothing to do with O'Reilly. Those aren't the type of players you make room for like a Kane or O'Reilly. For a key game 7 faceoff, I would prefer to trot our Eichel with O'Reilly so if Eichel gets tossed you have a veteran centerman to take the draw and not Jason Pominville (who took lots of draws back in the day)

For all the reasons mentioned above I was confident that he would be given one more year to show that last year was a fluke. However, with all the additions, it might have become a numbers game of not having enough room for all these talented forwards.

My answers if I saw this thread before now would have been the exact same for the same reasons. Go figure.

O'Reilly has played wing in Colorado and I think he projects as a great top line LW in the future. Come playoff time it is good to have backup centers throughout the lineup for faceoffs and defensive zone coverage purposes.

Black Sunday -> Gold Friday

I'd go with 15 as well. He mentioned it in an interview at the draft that 15 seems pretty good, his family likes that number and its his draft year.

Thanks bud. I'll have to file him in with Brad Boyes, Dainus Zubrus and Paul Gaustad for ex-sabres-who-kind-of-sucked-but-I-still-liked.

It seems like all you jerks were finally right by excluding Cody from your roster predictions. I'll be at the bar. :beer:

Can I complain about the move to buyout Hodgson in this thread? I need to pick out a new avatar now, change my profile title... and take down all the Cody fatheads in the basement, and cancel that tattoo appointment next week, plus no more weekly in-season bridge tournaments with the Hodgsons... this is gonna be tough...

pi pikachu! :wub:

Now I know how LastPommerFan felt on his day. Anyone want to talk Hodgson v. Kassian for old times sake?

What an idiot... :cry: :cry: :cry: Why won't the windows open up here on the 20th floor...? Yep, I was doing quite well but my "Hodgson is a top 6 player" prediction may have done me in.

He's not being bought out IMO. He's going to be the comeback player of the year. (boy this bandwagon is getting awfully lonely :unsure:)

Close enough doesn't get your wife pregnant... :flirt:

Even at the reduced price, I don't think Kessel fits the attitude/player type that GMTM is trying to assemble. All of his big acquisitions (Kane, Bogo, RoR) are either very physical determined players or a nuisance to play against and give full effort at both ends. Competitiveness seems to be GMTM's #1 targeted trait.

Maybe I am naive, but I never looked at RoR as a greedy/selfish player in all of the contract negotiations. He just wanted to be paid equivalent to his comparable worth around the league. I don't think he will want to jack up his price if the Sabres are offering what he thinks is fair, especially since doing so will hurt this team long-term in their ability to keep the other young pieces assembled. It was a problem in Colorado beacuse they wanted a big discount like Landeskog and Duchene gave due to their internal cap. (BTW I took a Sports Economics class in college and ever since I always side with the player in most contract disputes. It is often their one chance to maximize their worth in a sports market where once injury or poor season greatly impacts their future earning potential.)

That would be the only thing I could think of. The sabrespace mobile is very user and visual friendly IMO.

He may have been at the start of last season, but he had a bit of a decline towards the last half of 2015.

I think that would be the thought process behind that. Especially since last season Bogo showed he was pretty effective getting 25+ mins a night. I agree that is the ideal long term scenario, however given Eichel and Reinhart's age and experience, we are probably 2+ years away from seeing that lineup regularly.

It is kind of a bummer but I sort of assumed Irbe was a long shot because of the new coach factor. That he made it this long and through the initial head coaching hire means he was held in high regard by GMTM et al.

Yep the best forward on our team last year is now the worst player on his line. I just keep smiling thinking about that