nfreeman

It's hard to avoid that sinking feeling that today will be a classic Buffalo sports two-fer.

It has to be said: this was another stinker from JA.

The Bills are getting exposed on both sides of the ball today.

This is fair, but I don't think it's reasonable to be PO'd at the team (as the OP apparently is) for not seeing it the same way.

I haven't thought they would get to playoff bubble status, but I have thought that they could be competitive in most games other than against, say, the top 10 teams in the NHL, and that the games would continue to be entertaining throughout most of the season. If they lose 7 out of 9 regularly, though, they won't come close to that standard. Pass the hopium, bro! I need a taste.

Well, they’ve now lost 7 out of 9, and one of those wins was due to Toker standing on his head while his team got outshot 45-19. I hate to say it, but that is bottom echelon results. We could feel very differently about this team by Christmas.

@LabattBlue — you are certainly right to be dissatisfied with the team’s results since TP took over, but I can’t agree with your criticism of either the prices or the dynamic scheme. Their prices are among the lowest in the NHL ($17!!), and pretty much every team uses dynamic pricing. if you feel like the team isn’t good enough to earn your money, you’re more than entitled to feel that way, but it’s not realistic to expect NHL tickets at $25 each or whatever you have in mind that is appreciably below $58.

FFS. Dahlin is 21 and in his 4th season. His 1st 3 seasons were played for poor coaches and with a highly unstable organization, all during a very strange and tumultuous pandemic. He has nevertheless produced historic scoring numbers for a young defenseman and displayed offensive puck skills and instincts shared by only a few defensemen in NHL history. Does he get confused and beaten in the D-zone from time to time? Yes, indeed. Is he anywhere near the type of game-changing force we were expecting when he was drafted and the hockey intelligentsia was throwing around names like Orr and Potvin? NFW. (And this is yet more evidence that tanking is a stupid and low-percentage strategy, btw.) But still. Trading him for anything less than the next Eichel-type-unhappy-superstar-demanding-a-trade (sans the potentially career-killing injury) would be insane IMHO. Donnie Meatballs is going to coach him up and by the middle of next season he's going to start delivering on that promise.

FWIW, R2 had the 5th-most ice time last night among forwards and 3rd-most at even strength. I too like R2's game and think he would produce more with better linemates. I agree that his line has been pretty ineffective, but Hayden is barely an NHL player and is where O-zone possessions go to die. Separately, I only saw about half the game last night, but Cozens IMHO looks like he is getting better and more confident by the day. He made a couple of nifty passes in the O-zone that I hadn't seen previously.

@MattPie and @Thorny beat me to it. NHL .500 is an utterly meaningless stat (and I'd also note that the Sabres left the rink with a loss 2 more times than they left with a win, so I'd say NHL .500 is fundamentally inaccurate). DeLuca .500 is a very good shorthand stat, while points percentage is the most precise and accurate, although less useful IMHO because no one other than @Taro T is going to whip out the calculator and calculate points percentage while looking at the standings. Jeez. Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed. And Crosby is the farthest thing in the world from being a "punk" IMHO.

They're already 2 games below .500.

I didn’t like Green Knight at all. Just a bunch of gibberish pretending to be art. I also thought the Saints of Newark was pretty lousy. I thought the Bond movie was OK, but I find all of them more or less OK. Red Notice on Netflix was of a piece with most of their recent big budget action movies — stupid but briskly paced and reasonably enjoyable if you like that genre.

Out of those 9 NHL execs in the LeBrun piece, 6 of them referred to the injury in a manner that I’d say indicated it was a significant factor (recognizing that YMMV on that interpretation) and a 7th mentioned it as well. And LeBrun also said that 1 of the 3 teams at the end, Carolina, was likely only staying in the game in case the price fell to a bargain level. I think it’s pretty likely that only Vegas and Calgary were willing to take the full $50MM risk, and that everyone else was only interested if the Sabres kept at least $20MM or so via either salary retention or taking back bad contracts. As to your second point, I disagree that Eichel was asked to choose between his health and his livelihood. Fusion surgery is the prescribed approach by the substantial majority of the medical community. Taking that route wouldn’t have been sacrificing his health. And if he had taken the risk on the ADR — a risk that a very small minority of NHL teams were willing to take — and it worked, he would’ve been able to play hockey for millions of dollars. He has wanted all along for someone else to bear that risk.

First and 2nd bolded: LeBrun reported that very few, and possibly only 3, teams were interested in taking the risk on the surgery. (He also reported that Carolina was probably only interested at a bargain-basement price, which I'd guess would've required substantial economics in the form of either salary retention or the Sabres taking back bad contracts.) You are right that Vegas finally ponied up a big price, and that there hasn't been much discussion in the hockey media of the injury risk, just as there wasn't much on this board at first, but that doesn't mean the risk isn't very real. It was real enough to scare off 28 NHL teams and for that matter to scare off Vegas until now. Third bolded: respectfully, this is a straw man. As I and many others here have said, Jack is 100% free to do whatever he likes with his body. He's just not free to do so AND continue to be entitled to $50MM of TP's money. Fourth bolded: of course they had a choice. You are, I believe, implying that they should've chosen to take the risk on the ADR surgery and have Jack return to play for the Sabres as an audition for other teams in order to increase the trade return. I think that while in theory this might have been feasible, in practice it would've been a pretty toxic situation that would've frozen the Sabres in Mickey Mouse franchise status and torpedoed yet another entire season. When you add the ADR risk I think the course they chose is quite rational and certainly not unreasonable. Fifth bolded: I don't think I've seen anything credible to the effect that this was personal to TP, who I believe has stayed quiet about this the whole time. (Not doubting that you have, but I'd be curious to see these reports.) Last bolded: I don't think anyone is pretending that TP was benignly protecting Jack from himself. The Sabres haven't been dishonest about this. KA has been pretty clear that he's approached this situation with the goal protecting the team's interests.

I agree with most of this but not the bolded. Refusing to take the risk on the ADR was not "holding Jack's health hostage" or "handcuffing the GM." There was simply no reason for TP to take the risk on the ADR. LeBrun has reported that only a few teams -- apparently maybe only 3 -- were willing to do so, and those were the teams that were going to acquire Eichel -- i.e. the teams that would get the upside of a healed Eichel in exchange for taking the risk. If there is any evidence or even hints of evidence in support of the bolded, I'd like to hear it. I'd also point out that TP paid Eichel in full despite Eichel's refusal to get the medically recommended procedure -- we never heard any indication that the Sabres were considering suspending him. That is the opposite of petty. This is just semantics, but I'd call offering only a 1- or 2-year term (and Vogl reported that it was only 1 or 2 years) lowballing him.

So I’m not much of a soccer fan, but I’m in London visiting family and we are going to a pretty big EPL game tomorrow — West Ham vs Liverpool. It’s #2 vs #4, and Liverpool evidently has a guy, Mohammed Salah, who is regarded as one of the best players in the world. The game is being played in a sold-out 55K seat arena that was built for the 2012 Olympics and hosted the opening and closing ceremonies. This will be by far the biggest soccer game I have ever attended. Should be pretty raucous in the upper deck, which is where we’re sitting. I’m looking forward to it.

Great wheels.

From LeBrun in the Athletic: Sources confirmed Thursday that not nearly as many teams got serious on Eichel as one would think for a player of his caliber. His health situation, his $10-million cap hit and the timing of the Sabres wanting to move him were all contributing factors for some teams who just couldn’t make a meaningful move. The final three suitors, according to sources, were Vegas, Calgary and Carolina… The Anaheim Ducks had stayed in touch with the Sabres dating back to last summer but fell out of it, I’m told, because they weren’t ready to risk dealing for him pre-surgery.

Well, some people like to argue. Still, you have, for 4 pages of this thread, pushed hard on the assertion that KA's statement, if taken 100% literally, reflected a questionable judgment. My point was just that there is no reason to take his statement 100% literally -- or to argue about it -- as in the real world the scenario raised by the 100% literal interpretation almost certainly didn't happen. There are much bigger fish to fry.

Not an asset good enough to justify the retention.

Respectfully, I think you're taking this too literally. It seems pretty clear that KA wasn't interested in handicapping the Sabres' cap flexibility for the next 5 years. Would the handicap of, say, a $1MM cap retention been worth, say, 2 more first-round picks? Almost certainly yes, but something like that was almost certainly not on the table. For salary retention to have been meaningful to the acquiror, it would've had to have been in a substantial amount. KA wasn't interested in locking up a substantial amount of cap space for the next 5 years. He didn't use those exact words, but I think the meaning is pretty clear.

Serious question: if the Sabres don’t really get Tkachuk, but rather just a Reinhart-trade-level return for him, is that Calgary trade really compelling? It looks like a couple of medium-low first-rounders, a young player who is just OK and one or 2 non blue chip prospects. Am I missing something?

I hate to say it, but this strikes me as probably correct.

I don't think it's a cap issue. I think it's the $50MM left on Jack's deal, which will not be insurable when Jack has the ADR, and the (logical) desire of the acquirors to reduce that number as much as possible by getting the Sabres to retain part of it, take back bad contracts, or both.