Drunkard

This, although I would add if we're paying that much there better not be any NTCs or NMCs on the back half of the deal. Front loading it as much as the CBA allows would also be helpful.

I hope so, that's why I speculated about the potential run on US and Euros from picks 1-6 on the previous page. If a guy like Byram just happened to be there at 7 and he passed on him in favor of say Boldy or Caufield I'd be concerned but as I already stated Byram will most likely be gone before pick 7 anyway. If he picks Boldy or Caufiled over someone like Cozens it's entirely possible that it's not implicit bias, it's just how he has them ranked.

I never claimed to have proof, it's just speculation. It seems peculiar to me that he hasn't drafted a single CHL player in 2 drafts when probably half the league comes from the CHL. Until he does draft a CHL player (I don't care what round), I'll continue to wonder if coming from the CHL makes players lose points in his evaluation/BPA ranking metrics and how much weight it carries.

None of the above. I don't even really care given that Europe and the US have seemed to have essentially closed the gap in developing junior talent with the CHL. I honestly just wonder how deep it goes that he hasn't even spent a single pick in 2 years on a CHL guy. I wonder if there was an obvious talent gap if he would stick to his guns and reach, reverse course and go BPA even though it means drafting someone from the CHL, or trade down.

Plus your top hat might fall off your head and get dirty, and there's a chance you'd lose your monocle and with no monocle and a dirty top hat you'd be no better than the rest of the unwashed masses (i.e. working class bums)

I wonder if Botterill even has Cozens or Dach on his board given his apparent disdain for drafting CHL players. I wonder how far down he would reach for a USNTDP or European league guy if the draft went this way be before his turn: Hughes Kakko Turcotte Caufield Zegras Boldy Would he sprint to the podium to pick up Byram, Cozens, Krebs, or Dach? Would he gamble on the Russian factor and take Podkolzin? Would he take a lower ranked guy anyway from the leagues he likes anyway? I imagine it's a moot point because I'm pretty sure Byram is gone before we pick and it's possible that Podkolzin is gone too, but I wonder how strong his preference to avoid CHL guys really goes.

Who knows. I was a little inebriated when I posted it, but it fit my mood perfectly because I was happy to see O'Reilly help beat Boston last night.

Exactly. Overpaying the next Okposo isn't going to get us out of this mess.

Philly may have had a down year but they aren't in the midst of a near decade long playoff drought like we are. Maybe Botterill will find a way to plug some holes in our forward lineup after all. We'll see in a month or so.

I think Kaleta played with a broken jaw too.

Philly traded for the rights to Hayes and their franchise isn't a tire fire like ours is. Unless we are willing to pay more than they can get elsewhere the odds of us picking up good top 6 players in free agency is minimal at best. Free Agency is always tough even with a deep pocket owner. All is takes is one team who is more competitive or in a more desirable location and the Sabres will miss out.

That's fine, we can disagree. Maybe Botterill has a plan B if Skinner walks and I hope he does but I don't have much confidence in him at this point. I look at last year's roster though and I don't see how we can field a competitive team with those forwards minus Skinner because they were already inadequate with Skinner.

I edited my post to hopefully make it more clear. Unless Kreuger has a Ph.D in turd polishing or several of the young guys in Rochester all step up simultaneously, I don't see how the forwards on this team are going to have any success other than the top line.

Fair enough, but the point is that Botterill doesn't really have any choice but to pay Skinner and shipping out a top 6 forward under contract and replacing him with a 1 year rental made it worse. We don't have enough forward talent right now even assuming that Skinner re-signs. If he walks we're potentially looking at a 1st line of: Olofsson Eichel Reinhart and absolutely nothing to round out the rest of the 3 lines. Duchene, Panarin, and Hayes aren't signing here. Botterill has no choice but to pay Skinner what he asks.

That's why I started my initial post on this topic with here we go again. We don't have the forward talent on this roster to give Reinhart adequate wingers so the experiment is bound to fail again, which is my whole point. You go to war with what you have and those crappy players I listed are what we have. Guys like Duchene, Panarin, and even Hayes aren't signing here and I'm not going to pull a wookie and assume we're going to hoodwink some team and take their best players for spare parts. Skinner is likely stapled to Eichel's hip (if he even stays). I think Reinhart and Mittelstadt are our best bets for a decent second line, but if they plan to move Reinhart to center then he's got nobody to help him. Olofsson has talent but he's too green to be with those guys and the rest of the forward lineup is worse.

I agree completely. If he can't crack the roster this year, I doubt he ever will. It shouldn't be hard to surpass guys like Okposo, Sobotka, Thompson, Girgensons, Larsson, and Wilson. If he can, he can fight it out with Sheary and Rodriguez for a spot in the top 6.

By trading away O'Reilly and expecting some combination of Berglund, Sobotka, and Mittelstadt to play 2nd line center it ruined our scoring depth. O'Reilly and Reinhart played great together at the end of the previous season and after he got shipped off we were pretty much left with a single line that could score (Skinner, Eichel, Reinhart).

Skinner has the upper hand for sure and Botterill did it to himself. This team with Skinner can't even fill out a proper top 6. If they let him walk, they won't even be able to ice a proper top line, let alone an adequate top 6. They can cross their fingers and hope that guys like Olofsson and Nylander are ready, but we saw how well that worked with Mittelstadt last season.

I never said the 4th line. Look at the roster. We have too many bums who belong on the 4th line so they can't all play there. Would you prefer Sheary and Rodriguez? I guess it could be those guys but the point remains the same. Eichel is the face of the franchise and he's already earning the big bucks so he'll get the best players on his line (Skinner and I guess Olofsson if Reinhart moves to center) and we don't have enough good players to put with Reinhart on the second line. If they are looking at putting Reinhart at center then it's obvious that we don't have enough centers so I doubt they move Mittelstadt to wing. If they were willing to do that they should leave Mittelstadt at center and put Reinhart on his wing rather than the other way around. https://www.nhl.com/sabres/stats

I guess we're back to this again. So long, great center depth and hello Reinhart back at center with mediocre at best talent to play with. I guess this is how Botterill plans to keep the price down on Reinhart's next contract. Reinhart spending half of next season centering guys like Girgensons, Sobotka, Okposo, and Thompson will be a sure fire way to ensure he starts offs on a scoring slump and ends the year with less than 50 points in scoring. Very shrewd.

You just need to spend a week in Uncle Touchy's naked puzzle basement. It's like boot camp for perverts.

If that means he takes Botterill's job I'm all for it.

The Perfection was pretty good horror flick. I think it's a Netflix original. Can't remember for sure but that's definitely the platform I watched it on.

Well I'm glad I'm not a season ticket holder then. To save $7.5 million dollars they cost us a golden opportunity to get better or at least break even on the trade and instead, they set back the rebuild significantly. Murray set up his contract to be extremely friendly to unload after that bonus was paid. Not just this past year, but really every year of the contract. If Pegula had only decided to drill another gas well like he previously stated, just imagine what O'Reilly would have brought in through trade with a cap hit of $7.5 million but a salary of just $1 million. Cash poor teams like Carolina, Ottawa, and Arizona love contracts like that. I still would have preferred to keep O'Reilly but if they had to move him getting a young defenseman from Carolina or a former blue chipper that Ottawa or Arizona has drafted over the last 5 years would have made it easier to accept. https://www.spotrac.com/nhl/st-louis-blues/ryan-oreilly-6353/