nfreeman

Excellent hockey game so far. The Sabres look determined and are getting good goaltending. Colorado has to be the fastest team in the NHL, innit? Late in the 2nd I was thinking how useless the Vesey-Lazar-Frolik line was -- and then they get the GTG. Similarly, Reino has had a mediocre game so far IMHO -- and I frequently find that when I say that after 2 periods he has a very strong 3rd. Go Sabres.

Please do not post links to illegal streams. Thanks.

It is far from certain that the Sabres are up and coming. They could easily go 7-13 in their last 20 games, limp home with 80 pts and fire everybody. Palat plays on the 1st line with Kucherov and Point, so moving to the 2nd line in Buffalo with Skinner and crappy JB middle-sixer isn't an upgrade. (I agree that Johnson would have the opportunity to play a bigger role.) Whether they could help us isn't the question -- it's whether they would want to leave a perennial cup contender in low-tax, sunny Florida to join a perennial bottom dweller in cold, gray, snowy, high-tax Buffalo. I would give them that pick for either of those guys in a heartbeat, but there is NFW that they trade Point, especially not for #11 overall.

Well, Palat is a LW, and Tyler Johnson, although a C, is 5'8", expensive, in decline and turns 30 this summer. It also seems pretty unlikely that either would waive a NTC to leave Florida and come to Buffalo.

I agree -- they will figure out a way to offload one of their expensive vets and keep Cirelli. I also think there is NFW that JB trades Cozens this summer under any circumstances.

The recent winning streak also provides more hope for meaningful games in March, as opposed to last year when the bottom was falling out at this point in the season (although I admit the similarity to last year's point total and standings position is a bit unsettling). Keep hope alive!

At this point, I feel the same way about Mitts that I felt about Nylander: he has some skill but probably not enough skill, will or hockey IQ to be an effective top-6 NHL player, and we should adjust expectations, and roster plans, accordingly. However, also like Nylander, he is young, not expensive and under team control for a while -- so there is no rush to make a decision on him. If someone offers a Jokiharju-level asset for him, I would pull the trigger, and I wouldn't hesitate to include him in a package for Cirelli or other strong 2C candidate, but I wouldn't dump him for a lower-level asset. In the meantime he should stay in Rochester and learn the game.

I was not a fan of Vanek’s but I certainly wish him well in his future endeavors.

I agree with much of this, but I also think: - Skinner played in a frustrated and petulant way for much of the season. - In doing so, Skinner lost a bit of his razor-sharp scorer's edge -- so that now, despite playing with more determination and Skinner-PITA-ness, he's not burying his chances like he did last year. - The decline in Skinner's play relative to last year has materially harmed the production that the Sabres would otherwise have gotten from their 2nd line (again, acknowledging that Skinner deserved and needed better linemates) and power play -- which in turn has cost the team wins.

What's the problem with discussing why the Sabres, who are dying for a 2C, didn't obtain one who was traded yesterday for not that high of a price?

His team's jerseys have the players' nicknames, not their full names -- e.g. Cozen's jersey says "Cuz" and his teammate Stringer's says "Strings."

True, but "he might have done X" is not the same as "he did X."

The Sabres have 66 pts with 20 games left. To get to 96 pts, they'd need 15 wins, or 14 wins and 2 OTLs. 12 of their last 20 games are on the road. They are 10-19 on the road. So even if they win 6 out of their 8 home games, they'd also need to win at least 8 out of the 12 roadies -- which would mean essentially doubling their road winning percentage. It's not crazy to think that Toronto or Florida might self-destruct, but the odds are well against both of them doing so. It's also pretty unlikely that they'll get the kind of goaltending they'd need to accumulate 14-15 wins against their schedule. But they have Eichel, and RK, and Dahlin, and a number of proud, strong, nasty SOBs like Risto, Larsson, Zemgus and McCabe who are PO'd that they've never been this close and who will crawl across broken glass to get there. So hell yes there's a chance, especially if they get good goaltending.

This conclusion is not supported by the tweet you posted. Just because the Sabres thought their offer was better than Carolina's (that's assuming the tweet is accurate, of course) doesn't mean Florida saw it that way. Alternatively, Florida may have thought the Sabres' offer was slightly better, but preferred not to trade VT to Buffalo unless Buffalo's offer was substantially better -- which also would not be a case of Florida "not going to trade him to Buffalo."

Interesting. I am not expecting this and will be fairly surprised if it happens. Yes. If you're the GM in your 3rd year with a team, the team is lousy, you're capped out even after 2 expensive vets bailed on the team and had their contracts terminated, you've brought in a bunch of overpaid, underproducing vets and you're borrowing from next year's cap -- you've done a crappy job with the cap (among other failures). As to your 2nd point -- I think it's fair to say that on paper, TT and a #1 alone were a better return than Florida's return for Trocheck, plus Bergy and Sobotka were seen as having some value.

After reading that article, I want Kahun to play with Skinner.

I'm not giving up the #1 pick -- which will almost certainly be in the lottery -- plus Mitts for Trocheck. This is kinda where I am, although there is reason to be concerned that Trocheck ain't the guy, and it's still quite possible that Mitts becomes a good NHL player. Again, this is one of those calls that JB should be and probably will be evaluated on. At this point, it's more likely than not that Mitts never becomes a 40-pt NHL guy, and it's more likely than not that Trocheck's next 5 years are substantially better than Mitts' next 5 years. Maybe not, but JB is paid to make these calls and get most of them right.

OK, so I'm looking forward to seeing Skinner-MJo-Simmonds.

I think someone reasonably reputable reported on Twitter that the Sabres thought they had made a better offer for Trocheck than Carolina's was. Then, someone here posted that the reasoning was likely the intra-division factor. While I agree that the intra-division factor probably played some role, I think it's pretty likely that if the Sabres' offer had been materially better -- which doesn't look like that high of a bar to clear -- Florida would've taken it. As I posted above, I also think it's pretty likely that Florida wanted forwards, and therefore that JB would've needed to give up Mittlestadt (or maybe TT), and that JB wasn't willing to do so. I can understand that decision, but OTOH it's fairly likely that we'll look back in 5 years and be very PO'd that we didn't give up Mitts for Trocheck.

So, I'm deliberating over whether the Sabres should've tried harder to get Trocheck. Carolina didn't give up that much to get him -- the 2 prospects (a D and a C) look roughly equivalent to Borgen and Asplund, plus a decent pending UFA forward and a 24-year-old C who is 6'0", 178 lbs, in his 2nd full NHL season and who looks like maybe a 30-point guy. Since Carolina got 2 young forwards (plus a pending UFA forward) and 1 D, it's quite possible that they wanted forwards more than they wanted D, which would've worked to the Sabres' disadvantage. Presumably, they wouldn't have been interested in Malone or Ogilvie or Ruotsaleinen. It's quite possible that JB would've needed to include Mittlestadt to get it done. So -- if the trade had been Mittlestadt, Borgen and Zemgus for Trocheck, would it have been well received here? I would've been fine with it -- but if the Sabres had made the trade and then Trocheck looked like Moulson or Okposo next year, while Mitts lit it up in Florida, that would've been a debacle. It's JB's job to get this kind of decision right. So far he hasn't done so nearly enough, but he might've been right on this one.

@dudacek — I have the same concerns, but I’ve read that Pittsburgh thinks it will cost over $3MM per year to resign him and they don’t have the cap space, so better to use him for a couple of assets now for a playoff run. OTOH, if they thought he was really good, they’d probably figure out a way.

He’s gong to be good.

Well, then they need to be corrected.

No. Marv MIGHT have been outcoached by Parcells and Belichik -- 2 HOF coaches -- in the Bills' 1st SB vs the Giants, but the Giants of that era were a great team and the Bills shot themselves in the foot by going out every night until 4:00 AM that week and then dropping some passes and missing a FG at the end. They were mowed down by superior opponents in the other 3 SBs. And they were beating Dallas -- a team that won 3 SBs in 4 years -- at the half in the 4th one (at a game I attended, btw), with the ball to start the 2nd half, before Thurman fumbled and Dallas ran it in to take the lead. Their real undoing in that era was subpar interior defense. Marv was a great coach.