nfreeman

I can see missing the experience of having young kids, and taking them somewhere that they really enjoy, but missing Chuck E Cheese itself? The ones in Rochester must've been a lot nicer than the ones I patronized.

And I could wear my white Myers jersey again! I would also support this as a hockey move -- he's a pretty solid player who didn't reach his potential, but still decent, has the right term remaining on his contract, presumably wouldn't cost much and would definitely fill a need.

As a related point, being a parent is the most rewarding thing I've ever done, but there are certainly major sacrifices that are part of the deal -- and one of them is spending time in Chuck E Cheese when your kids are young.

Who is the tweeter?

I think Bjork could get waived and sent to Rochester and Asplund could become the 13th forward. Vinnie is better than both of them.

Both of these are obnoxious.

On paper/screen this is interesting but IRL not likely I'm afraid. I don't think anyone will give them anything for a clearly injury-diminished VO and I don't think any decent FA will sign here after yet another bottom-5 (and maybe bottom-3) finish.

I think with VO it should come down to whether the Sabres think he can get healthy over the summer. If they think the slapper is gone for good, they should try to get whatever they can get for him and not give him a contract with term.

Well, saying we owe a lot of the current core to JB cuts both ways. The current core is delivering yet another bottom-5 finish. Also, most of them are here only because of terrible moves by JB. Skinner — terrible contract TT — terrible ROR trade Dahlin — terrible DFL finish in a season in which JB was trying to ice a good team To be fair, some of the members of the current core that JB brought in — Cozens, Mitts, Joki, Mule — appear to have good upside, although they haven’t really delivered yet.

The Manchurian Goalie.

Well, the Sabres are 6th-last in the NHL, so there aren't many compliments to be given here.

Well, Eakin makes $2.25MM and Zemgus makes $2.2MM. I’d call both of them JAGs. I guess it goes back to your definition of JAG, which is a point you made earlier. I’ll ask again: leaving aside the snark about other stats, and noting that I said explicitly that the other stuff does matter, albeit not nearly as much as goals do, what kind of deal do you think VO would get as a UFA if he scores 11 or 12 goals this year and next year? Would he get more than Eakin?

Yes, goals. The things that are counted in determining wins. The things that are twice as precious as assists on scoring plays. The things that Gretzky and the Rocket and Bossy and Ovechkin produced. Assists matter, as do saves and blocked shots and plenty of other things. Goals matter more — a lot more. Put another way: if VO finishes this year and next year with 11 or 12 goals per year, would you expect him to be paid materially more than JAG level?

PP2 for the end of this season: Mitts VO Quinn KO Power That's kinda interesting.

I think part of DM's psychological revival of Skinner though is putting him on the top PP unit. I would guess that Mitts stays on the 2nd unit for a while.

I was referring to last season and this season. His 13 goals in 56 games last season and 7 goals in 40 games this season isn't going to get him a fat UFA contract unless he has a major rebound season next year. Me too.

I can't see anyone giving up a first or a good prospect this year for VO. He's injured and his last 2 seasons he's produced very slightly above JAG level. I think it's about 50/50 that he and the Sabres will agree on a deal that is longer than 1 year this summer, and only about 25% likely that they agree on a deal that is longer than 2 years. He is going to want to be paid well to give up UFA years, and the Sabres will not want to pay that much given injury risk and mediocre production for the last 2 seasons. OTOH, he has to consider that he will turn 28 in his UFA summer and would really have to deliver a monster season next year in order to attract, say, offers of 5 years x $5MM. If he can get, say, 3 years x $4.5MM from the Sabres this summer, he might decide the prudent move is to take it. Tricky decision for both sides.

Maybe they want to give Mattias a game to catch his breath as he's been a bit shaky lately but they don't want to put pressure on him so they are hiding behind a D rotation story?

I’m still giggling about that post/gif combo.

Well said. It seems likely that he has a serious issue in his shoulder that has impaired his shot, which is his best NHL talent, and which will not magically heal this season. If that's the case, then we're looking at shoulder surgery this summer -- right after he's produced maybe 12 goals and 35 pts and right when he needs a new contract. I don't think they would, or should, commit, say, $4.5MM x 4 years to VO in that situation. OTOH, if they give him a 1-year deal and he comes back healthy next fall, he's reasonably likely to put up 30 goals in his UFA contract year, which would make him highly likely to be too expensive to keep. I'd be pretty disappointed to lose another good player because we didn't give him a long-term deal when we had the chance. I'd try to give him a 2-year deal at, say, $4MM per year, and if he kills it next year, try to extend him the following summer. But if he's willing to bet on himself, he probably wouldn't agree to that kind of deal. It's a tricky one for KA. As noted upthread, the Sabres are far from having too many good players. We can be pretty comfortable with the top line and reasonably confident in Krebs and Cozens. But Quinn and Mitts so far haven't produced anything at the NHL level and can't stay healthy, JJP looks great but also hasn't done anything in the NHL and Rosen, the Russians and whoever they draft this year are just rolls of the dice. If they think they can get VO healthy, it would be nuts to trade him on the assumption that they have plenty of good young forwards who can take his place.

Well, the injuries and aborted/limited recoveries this season have been abnormally bad, and KA just said that he's going to evaluate the medical staff over the summer.

This is a pretty interesting question and a bit of a dilemma for KA. When healthy, VO is IMHO a legit 25-30 goal guy with pretty good speed and hockey IQ and is a major weapon on the PP. He’s also homegrown and generally the kind of guy you want to keep around. But shoulders are tricky (I’m assuming that is what’s ailing him.). Can you get comfortable that he will in fact return to full health? Can KA rely on the Sabres’ medical team to give him advice on which he needs to base a $20MM+ decision? I hope he fully recovers and I hope they keep him. He’s a good scoring forward and they need as many of those as possible.

FWIW, Joe Tsai bought 49% of the Nets initially before buying the rest of the team 2 years later.

I agree with the bolded, and I'm optimistic about Krebs and Quinn, and hopeful about VO, Mitts and JJP, but my point is that they kinda need ALL of them to do so, which isn't likely -- one or more are likely to be injured, wash out or encounter other issues.

They really need all of Quinn, Mitts and VO, and maybe JJP, to play at a top-6 level next year to have a legit top 9. Right now they are pretty much a 1-line team.