nfreeman

Here comes Toker with a hamburglar type run to close out the season with 12 more wins...

Such a great movie. Ryan Miller? this seems impossible, not least because Miller wouldn’t leave his family in SC to play here I suppose it depends on your definition of con artist, but I don’t see how this is possible.

Yes. There was a sequence last night when the Sabres had control in the offensive zone and Dahlin got it, danced across the water with his galleons and guns, and Joki read Dahlin’s risky move, dropped back a bit out of the zone to cover in case Dahlin turned it over, and the whole thing flowed so naturally that the two of them seemed perfectly matched.

FWIW, Hall strikes me as a pretty sincere guy who wanted it to work here and was, last fall, legitimately excited at the possibility of regaining his peak form on Eichel's wing on an ascendant team for his all-time favorite coach. I don't think he dogged it here, at least not until the last couple of weeks before the deadline, at which point he knew he was going to be traded. I just think his game is in significant decline.

So not only do you not want to give him the job, you want to can him and hire his brother? That's cold, sir.

Holy mackerel there is a ton of good hockey talk in this thread, not just in these 2 posts. I didn't think for a minute that DG was the right guy, but how can I not at least start to think that he might be? It's a great story -- hockey lifer, tons of NHL and AHL experience, tons of experience developing young players, from a hockey family, almost died from the GD virus, finally gets his shot at the show at age 53 with a true doormat team made up of a ragtag group of kids, cynical vets and underperformers, plus The One from the territories... We need to be smart about this, as PA points out, but still. The hockey gods really might be offering us a lifeline here.

I can see the ATM line and the Bjork-Cozens-R2 line playing roughly equivalent minutes and swapping 2nd line/3rd line status next year depending on matchups and performance. Ideally, Cozens' line would seize the job and put the ATM line into a slot similar to the Vanek-Roy-Max line back in the day -- i.e. a nominal 3rd line that got advantageous matchups and was highly productive and exciting.

I agree with much of this, but not the bolded. I think any NHL team with the cap space would've given Hall the same deal the Sabres gave him. Yes, the NMC hinders your ability to trade him at the deadline, and thus reduces your return by some indeterminate amount, but you are still not committed to him for more than 1 season, you get the benefit of a putative star player in a contract year and you have the inside track on re-signing him should you want to do so at the end of the year. Certainly you would've preferred not to have the NMC, but that option wasn't available. It didn't work out, IMHO because Hall's game has significantly deteriorated, but I think the thought process was sound.

Toker is indeed better than Hutton. And Bjork is better than Hall.

Unforgettable. Not so fast there pardner. Darcy's 1st- and 2nd-round picks during that period: 1998 -- 1 - Kalinin; 2- Petey, Norm Milley and Jaroslav Kristek 1999 -- 1 - Barrett Heisten; 2 -- Milan Bartovic, Doug Janik and Michael Zigomanis 2000 -- 1 - Artem Kryukov; 2 -- Gerard Dicaire 2001 -- 1 - Jiri Novotny; 2 -- Derek Roy, Chris Thorburn and Pommer 2002 -- 1 - Keith Ballard and Paille; 2 -- none 2003 -- 1 - Vanek; 2 -- Branislav Fabry 2004 -- 1 - Stafford; 2 -- Michael Funk 2005 -- 1 - Marek Zagrapan; 2-- Philipp Gogulla 2006 -- 1 - Dennis Persson; 2 -- Enroth and Weber That is ONE good NHL forward out of 7 drafted in the first round (and there were a bunch of guys drafted after Vanek who were better than he was), plus a decent player in Stafford and a fringe guy in Paille, and 4 total washouts. I also think that if we're evaluating 1st- and 2nd-rounders, the video scouting period counts too, because those guys would've been scouted in person. In the 2007 - 2013 drafts, the best forwards he drafted in the first 2 rounds (in 16 picks total) were Ennis, Kassian, Armia and Zemgus -- not a top-sixer to be found. Darcy IMHO was good at drafting players who could play in the NHL, but terrible at drafting forwards.

I liked him. He seems pretty sharp, and not like the type of guy who would join a BS organization that isn't committed to winning. We'll see.

I thought Joki was excellent in the 3rd period last night -- cool as a cucumber under pressure, and beautiful skating and passing.

This looks like a good move, and a good sign that the FO will be built back up to NHL standards.

Yikes. Question for the medical types here: is this something that would have developed over time from the wear and tear of playing hockey/lifting weights/etc, or more likely been the result of a single incident (per @SwampD's post upthread about the crosscheck)? If the former, then it probably explains the subpar Jack we saw early in the season before he was shut down. Separately: I think we can stick a fork in the possibility of Eichel being traded this summer. With an injury like this, no one is going to give up a package good enough for KA to accept without seeing Jack back and playing to his peak.

GA has pretty consistently assumed -- with zero justification IMHO but with possible correctness -- that Mitts would turn into a good NHL forward. I'm not there yet, but certainly Mitts is now showing signs that this is outcome is quite possible.

Let the record reflect that with the Bruins swarming for the GWG in the final minutes of the 3rd period last night, the Sabres got a whistle and a D-zone draw with about a minute left -- and Mitts cleanly won a huge faceoff, enabling the Sabres to clear the zone and create a couple of chances of their own. @GASabresIUFAN might turn out to be right about him. Holy mackerel.

Would you rather have Hall for a playoff run this year or Foligno?

I would love it if the Bruins tied themselves to that lead balloon. It’s weird though. You’re right that Hall is a different guy since the injury, but he still seems pretty fast and strong on his skates to me. It looks more like he’s lost his hands and his timing. The mojo is gone and what’s left is flash, dash and empty shifts. Separately, I only saw the 3rd period plus OT, but that was a pretty exciting and hard-fought chunk of a hockey game. The difference post RK in guys like Joki, Dahlin, Mitts and, yes, Skinner is enormous. And I freaking love Cozens. Make the right moves this summer and I will be raring to go in the fall.

But but but -- KA should've gotten a first-rounder! He got worked over by those other GMs! Other teams got more for their players! JFC.

It would have been insane for them to keep Hall in retaliation for Hall's exercising his NMC. The Sabres would've looked even more like a clown show, they wouldn't have gotten the 2nd-rounder or Bjork AND it would've hurt their ability to get FAs in the future.

So -- last fall, would you have walked away from signing Hall over the NMC? Only a yes or no is an acceptable answer -- not "I would've gotten him to agree to a limited NMC/other more team-friendly structure." (I am not trying to single you out, as you are far from the only poster decrying the NMC. My point is simply that pretty much everyone was ecstatic over signing Hall, and this was part of the price to do so.) I will also point out that giving someone a 1-year contract with an NMC is very different from giving someone a long-term deal with an NMC.

I agree with most of this and would just add that I fervently hope (and kinda think) that KA understands that drafting well won't matter unless and until the other fundamental components (coaching, FO and goaltending) are in place.

I think the GM well understood that if he wanted to sign Hall, the NMC was part of the price, and he was OK with paying that price. Do you think that they would've gotten a #1 for Hall if the NMC had not been in place?

I know you know this, but the most critical task is for them to build the right infrastructure to accommodate the good players they already have and (hopefully!) draft: coaching, scouting and goaltending. Right now we are nowhere on all 3 of those.