nfreeman

Well, here's a somewhat non-schadenfreude reason to care: if Eichel really is bad medicine, then KA made the right call in identifying him as such and sending him away. That would reflect quite favorably on KA's judgment, as well as on his guts in seeing it through, since the conventional wisdom would be to hang on to a guy with Eichel's talent. And it would be nice to know that our GM, for once, is pretty sharp.

This is reasonable, but at the same time, this is a thread about VGK firing their coach. It's also reasonable that in a thread about the fallout from a disappointing VGK season in which they traded for the Sabres' former franchise player, who left here on bad terms and then criticized the fans when he returned, and for whom the franchise stupidly threw away a decade, there will be some speculation about whether that player is bad medicine.

You are certainly right that proving a negative is tricky to impossible, and that many here have an ax to grind with Eichel. And as others have noted upthread, the Sabres were highly dysfunctional for Jack's entire time here, so it's unfair to pin everything on him. But still -- there's more than a little smoke indicating that he's not a great team guy, and Vegas' record got significantly worse immediately upon him joining the lineup, and when he's on a team, coaches get fired. And we're here on the internet in the offseason speculating as to whether he's a big problem for his teams. Is it really unreasonable to ask whether anyone's seen any positive indicators about his team spirit?

I wouldn't do this, as the owners are essentially defrauding Airbnb -- and if they are unscrupulous with Airbnb, they will conduct themselves similarly with others.

Serious question: is there any evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, that Eichel is NOT a destructive, toxic presence? I know a number of his former teammates have spoken in support of him, but I kinda think they're just following the rules, and there are also plenty of his former teammates who have spoken negatively about him. Has he ever been part of a positive team situation? For his 1 year at BU, he led the team in scoring as a freshman and they made it to the NCAA title game, so presumably that was a great season. Does anyone know whether that was regarded as a close-knit team? He put Eichel's face on it though -- so he improved the meme.

I don't think it was obvious, or conclusive. Separately: brutal loss for Pittsburgh, which led this series 3-1, and had 2-0 leads in games 5 and 6 before losing both. They also led this game in the 3rd and were 6 minutes from advancing, but the Rangers tied it and then won on a PPG in OT. Still, I'll shed no tears for them. Sabres fans of a certain age may remember losing to Pittsburgh in OT of game 7 in the 2nd round of the 2001 playoffs, Dominik Hasek's last game as a Sabre. The Sabres led the series 3-2 and were winning game 6 late in the 3rd, but then Mario Lemieux, in his first season back after missing 3 seasons with Hodgkins disease (a type of cancer), tied it with less than 2 minutes to go. Pittsburgh then won game 6 in OT to force game 7. The Sabres led that game in the 3rd also, but Pittsburgh tied it with about 11 minutes left and then Darius Kasparitis won it for them in OT. Hasek forced a trade to Detroit that summer, and the Sabres missed the playoffs for the next 3 seasons. The 2004-05 canceled season would've been the 4th season post-Dom, and then the Sabres returned to the playoffs in 2005-06. The best team in the NHL that season was Ottawa, whose goalie was...Dominik Hasek.

TB going full Alamo mode. Vasilevsky is playing great.

TIL that Jim Lorentz's grandson, Steven Lorentz, is a 4th-line winger for Carolina.

So Carolina was up 1-0 close to the end of the 1st, when Taylor Hall took a really dumb 4-minute penalty: Carolina scored on the PP early in the 2nd to make it 2-0. Smart play, Taylor!

I haven't watched much of Carolina vs. Boston, but it looks like Swayman took the starting role from Ullmark in game 3 and has started each game since then, including game 7 today.

I wouldn't call this awesome as I'm not a fan of the band, but @Sabres Fan in NS might:

Awesome. Thanks. I thought so too. That should be a suspension.

Well, I'm glad that's settled!

Roger, Roger. Welcome to both of you!

Florida looked very good against the Caps but TB or Toronto will be a step up in weight class.

Fla wins it in OT. They advance for the 1st time since 1996! In round 2, they get the winner of game 7 in TB-Toronto. That is a potentially great series.

I like them playing "Country Road" after the Oshie goal, with the arena singing along. I wonder whether that's his goal song or the team's.

Caps have a power play with just over a minute left. Reinhart just blocked an Ovie slapper at point blank range from the top of the circle ...but the Caps tie it!

Huge swing in the Fla-Caps game (I've watched a decent chunk of this series and it's been quite good). Caps, trying to win at home to force game 7, cannot hold a 2-1 lead in the 3rd and Fla ties it with about 9 min to go. Fla starts dominating the play, then there's a busted play in the Fla zone, the Caps hit the post, Fla takes it down the other end, works it around, and Barkov gets a lucky bounce to get it on his stick down low with the Caps goalie on the other side of the crease. 3-2 Fla with 5 min to go.

Wow. 3 game sixes tonight and 3 game 7s tomorrow. High drama.

Now that would be an all-time top-5 Sabrespace schizophrenia situation.

Again -- this is simply not accurate. There is a HUGE difference between TP saying to JB, "it's up to you whether to trade ROR, but if you do so, it needs to be before the bonus deadline" and "I am instructing you to trade ROR, and to do it before the bonus deadline." I'm glad you're enjoying a good laugh, but it is important not to make stuff up when we discuss things here. I also disagree that there are lots of false representations here. There are plenty of mistakes, to be sure, but most people here are honest. As for GMs getting credit/criticism for their #1 or #2 OA picks -- I agree that they can be criticized for screwing them up, but I don't think they deserve credit when they turn out well. You may view this as unfair, but I think if you GM a team into the basement, getting the resultant pick right is the bare minimum, and you don't get credit for achieving the bare minimum. YMMV, of course.

On SabreSpace, we do not blithely make false factual assertions just because they support our arguments. As to the bolded, we'll never know for sure, but what we do know indicates that JB decided to trade ROR in order to improve the room, and TP told him to get it done before the deadline for paying the $7.5MM bonus. That is NOT him being "forced to trade ROR." JB absolutely does not get credit for drafting Dahlin, who was a runaway "generational" defenseman and the unanimous top prospect in the draft -- especially because JB was trying to ice a competitive team that year but nevertheless finished DFL. For that matter, GMTM does not get credit for Reino or Eichel, and KA does not get credit for Power. No one gets credit for icing a terrible team and then having the resultant #1 or #2 OA pick be a good player.

He liked himself a Russian cutie, IIRC. That was a great show that ran out of gas in the last 2 seasons IMHO.

Wasn’t that because Zemgus “accidentally” ran into him in training camp one year?