Drunkard

You can leave his power play time the same and give him fewer defensive zone starts, more offensive zone starts, and less even strength time against the other teams top lines. Let Montour or someone new they bring in carry the water defensively. Other teams have offensive defenseman that they use to help generate offense without throwing them in over their heads. This could maximize the good he provides while also minimizing his weaknesses.

Fair enough. I don't think it matters too much since missed time is missed time regardless of the reason. Either way I hope this is the last offseason where we have to speculate how many game this guy isn't going to he able to be counted on to play.

I'd go with Old faithful because you can always count on him to be injured. It's like clockwork. Just another reason why Ristolainen doesn't deserve the ***** he gets on this board. At least he can be relied on to play. Does it even matter? The guy is a walking injury report whether it's something new or the continuation of something chronic.

He's not strong defensively but every coach that has come through here has fed him tons of ice time. He also earns his paycheck by producing offensively and he's never really pissed and moaned about anything despite being thrown into the deep end as a rookie and kept there consistently. If we really want to improve the defense wouldn't it be smarter to keep him and put him to use in a more offensive role while looking to find someone on the right side who can carry the load defensively?

Hopefully we'll get to see if the next head coach agrees. I'd be interested to see who he chooses to rely on the most to eat difficult minutes. It has the added benefit of ensuring Botterill doesn't trade Ristolainen away for a handful of magic beans as well.

Maybe when Phaneuf was in his prime and before he was on a horrible contract, sure. That Phaneuf would also have a positive impact on this roster.

The reason for the argument is that he's been placed in a top pairing role by the last 3 or 4 head coaches despite his flaws, because we have nobody else who can handle the role. I would think the best way to improve the defense would be replacing the guys who can't surpass him on the depth chart and looking for a RHD who can actually push him down the depth chart to the second pairing, rather than jettisoning him without a replacement on the roster. Some people think that guy is Montour, but I haven't been impressed with his defensive capabilities so far. Dahlin will likely get there soon, but he plays the other side. We saw what moving out O'Reilly without an adequate replacement did to our center depth. I'd rather them not double down on that mistake by trading Ristolainen.

It's the poor man's/moneyball formula. Load up on cheap talent from the draft and round out your roster with lesser or relatively unknown guys with below market contracts then hope to catch lightning in a bottle once or twice over a period of a few years until your young studs reach free agency and teams with deep pockets like NY, Boston, and LA back up the brinks truck and lure away your talent with contracts big enough to practically buy some of the small teams. Once your primo talent is gone you rebuild, start the cycle over, and hope to catch lightning again in 7 or 8 years.

Fair enough, but if that's the case why not get him to sign an 8 year deal for league minimum? I also think we should trade Sobotka and Okposo to Edmonton for McDavid and Draisaitl both at 50% retention.

Great work. Now make it look like Kakko failed an AIDS test and we should be sitting pretty.

There is virtually no chance Skinner signs a 5 year deal for $7 million AAV. You're either willing to pay him more and/or for longer term than that or you simply don't want him back enough to pay him.

Yes, please. I'll even let you borrow my van if you think it will help.

Ristolainen earns his paycheck more than most of this roster does (excluding Rodriguez, Reinhart, McCabe, and a few others who are on cheap bridge deals or ELCs). He has the 5th most points on this team as a defenseman. When FXGMJB tries to make up for his O'Reilly mistake by trading him for some mediocre center and a late first round pick or some other collection of cap dumps and prospects to make it a multi piece deal (my guess given his preference of trading a quarter for a nickel, two pennies, and a slug), I predict we won't be able to replace him. How much do you think a consistent 40 point defenseman in his prime is supposed to earn?

I like Housley more than Botterill but that's not exactly saying much. I just hope the next coach can run a solid power play and doesn't rely on dump and chase as plan A for zone entry. On the bright side a GM usually gets 2 coaching hires so if Botterill picked Housley and his next coach flames out, at least there's a good chance he should follow coach #2 out the door.

So you want to trade Ristolainen for a #2 center, then you want to acquire a defenseman with more size and toughness? Why not keep Ristolainen and trade one of the defenseman that doesn't have size or toughness? I think this is basically doubling down on the O'Reilly trade. We traded away a great #2 center for scraps and now people want to trade arguably our best defenseman (depending on whether you think Dahlin is already better or isn't there yet) to try to fix that mistake. The sad thing is that the #2 center we theoretically trade Ristolainen for most likely won't be as good as O'Reilly so we're just going to down grade at 2 critical positions.

A few reasons, mostly unrelated to job performance (lucky for him) but I'll venture to guess it's because 1. He came highly recommended by the league 2. He's a Sabres alumni 3. He supposedly communicates well by talking to Terry every day Unfortunately none of those reasons have anything to do with the Sabres winning hockey games.

If his temperament is that poor that he let his personal feelings impact his decision making to the point that he accepted that garbage offer from St. Louis just because that was the best deal he could get prior to paying out his bonus then GMJB needs to be XGMJB.

Fair enough. He definitely seemed to be enjoying himself, but I only watched him for 20 minutes or so while I was waiting in line to meet him, then I shook his hand, talked to him for 2 or 3 minutes and begged him to never retire. Then I got in line to meet Lindy Ruff.

I wonder if they put him on a line with guys like Sobotka and Okposo or if they'll be smart enough to put him with guys who could actually set him up for some one timers like Eichel or Reinhart.

More like awesome. It was a PR event with fans. It's not like he was driving a school bus or performing brain surgery. The guy is old enough (even then) that he could have retired whenever he wanted but thousands of people beg him to stay on the job constantly and he enjoys the gig (presumably). Nothing wrong with pounding a few colds one while snapping pics, shaking hands, and signing autographs.

We're the garbage that bottom feeders feed on.

Terry Pegula said that he thinks Phil could be a good coach. How much more of a case do you need? After all, no one has a monopoly on hockey knowledge.

I got to meet RJ at one of those road crew events in Raleigh about 8-10 years ago and he was putting back beers like it was his job. I tried to buy him and Harry Neale a round but he was drinking on the house anyway. The dude is a machine built to turn beer into piss. He always set his beer on the table behind him each time it was time to meet and greet whoever was next in line, then he turned and took a gulp between greetings. I think they had to replace his beer every 3 guests or so and there were hundreds of us there. That's how I know he's a cyborg.

You forgot the Trump pee tape and the Area 51 alien corpse.

Just avoid those slutty conifers. Pine sap is like the herpes of the tree world.