Drunkard

This is a good point. I wonder how much pressure was applied to move him before the bonus had to be paid once it was determined that he was no longer going to be part of the core going forward. You'd think it had to be ownership considering Murray was running things when the contract was signed. As a fan I'd rather see them pay the bonus in order to raise the price while Terry drills another gas well but maybe he decided he didn't like the idea of paying 88% of O'Reilly's pay this season for him to produce for somebody else.

I think with O'Reilly gone Eichel will now get the tough matchups because he has to. Reinhart hasn't even shown he can play center in the NHL at a productive level and Mittelstadt is a rookie so Eichel will get the tough matchups by default. I also predict it will make his offense suffer and everyone who thought O'Reilly was overpaid at $7.5 million for 55-60 points is going to lose their ###### when Eichel ends up scoring 60 points for $10 million because he'll now be forced to carry the load defensively.

I like this projected lineup better than the others I've seen, mostly because it remove Pominville and Larsson and bumps Okposo down to the 3rd line. Sign me up.

Or we can conclude that FXGMJB is a bozo who has a fetish for turning quarters into two nickels and a slug.

It ended up even worse than I thought. You were saying? ###### that Fat Faced Pugsley look alike and his fetish for trading a quarter for 3 nickels. Good man. You grab the torches, I'll round up the pitchforks.

He should definitely be fired. I hate his basket of lesser pieces approach. Trading a 27 year old 1B center for 2 30 year olds at roughly the same cap hit and futures. him. I don't care if O'Reilly demanded to be traded, the guy had a great contract, he was in his prime, and his contract ended before any serious decline would be able to set in. He should have at least been able to land a top 4 RHD in return.

Good to hear that Lord Casey (pbuh) is proving to be the true stud that was foretold by the ancients.

The club idea sounds good to me. If we could have an open club that allowed political threads then I can just bookmark it just like I do with this forum whenever I'm reading through threads to catch up on whatever I missed since I was last on.

Yes please on bringing back political discussion. I would prefer a subforum so all political discussion doesn't have to be confined to a single thread but anything is better than a blanket ban on politics in general.

We'll see. If he was trading O'Reilly for a defenseman 1 for 1 then I could definitely see the defenseman coming back being better than Ristolainen but if he insists on the deal including a 1st round pick and another prospect or whatever his basket of lesser pieces fetish entails then I could definitely see the defenseman coming back being a down grade. Time will tell, although I'm still hoping he doesn't trade either of them.

It can get a lot worse, even with the additions of Dahlin and Mittelstadt. Especially if GMJB: 1. Trades O'Reilly for a defenseman that is worse than Ristolainen then; 2. Trades Ristolainen for a forward that is worse than O'Reilly. 2 rookies won't be enough to overcome that if it happens. Even awesome blue chip rookies like Dahlin and Mittelstadt.

If he was as bad as you seem to think he is we shouldn't need to acquire another RHD to make him expendable then. We could just play another of the 10 LHD we now have on their off hand and that should improve the team.

How would it make Ristolainen expendable? Is there some unknown league rule that the Sabres are only allowed to have one capable RHD on the roster at any given time? You do realize we need at least 3 of them who can play, right?

Woof.

I feel like I should answer in the form of a guess from the board game Clue so I will go with Zach Bogosian in the strip club with a bag of amphetamines.

I guess it's possible, but I don't think an 18 year old kid is going to change the temperature of the room. I remember when the Jack Eichel hates to lose mantra was being parroted by lots of people on here and how he was going to single handedly carry the team on his back out of the gutter but that hasn't really worked so far. The supposedly staged hissy fit where he threw some trash cans around the locker room (or whatever it was) close enough for the press corps to hear the them clang against some lockers was a nice touch, but even after that feigned outrage he and the rest of the team seem to adjust to losing pretty well. Sure O'Reilly became emo and plays with razor blades in the corner while listening to NiN but that hasn't exactly inspired anyone to greatness either. I think the team will improve as the cap anchors slowly get replaced by better younger/hungrier players and the talent level increases. The team will eventually start to win more games and winning more ultimately brings the team out of the funk. You rarely hear about locker room issues for winning teams. I'm sure they still have many of the same issues (partiers, personality conflicts, etc.) that fractured locker rooms have, the difference is that people don't care as much if the team is winning.

Well, I didn't see us on the visit list for Tavares so we're going to down grade from O'Reilly if we move him. A 31st place team trading their second best player for futures and downgrades is stupid and I hope he gets fired if he's dumb enough to do it.

I agree with this. I don't want O'Reilly traded at all, but if he is traded before the season starts somebody who will actually lace up skates for Buffalo better be coming back or he's essentially writing off another season and needs to be fired. If that's the toxic environment he wants to welcome Dahlin to the NHL with then Pugsley can go pound sand. I hope he's not that stupid.

Looking at it long term they may need to change their agreement to keep pace with other leagues. Looking at the trends, other youth leagues like the USHL and European leagues are gaining ground and that increased market share is coming at the expense of the CHL leagues. It may not mean much now, but if those trends continue over the next say 10 years we may even see more Canadian players passing on the CHL in favor of the other leagues. If that happens they'll have to make changes to keep up.

Good. I hope the price goes up enough that nobody bites. The Sabres are better off keeping O'Reilly if the return is just picks and prospects. If GMJB trades O'Reilly for futures before the season starts he deserves to be fired. This was the worst team in the league last year and if he trade his second best player for parts that can't even help the team this season then STH's should want his head on a goddamn pike and they'd be right to demand it.

Sometimes the simplest answer is the best one. Neither of those guys better give Lord Casey (pbuh) any guff either or he might light them on fire and send them to hell.

I don't think there will be any issues/rivalry between Eichel and Dahlin. Those guys can commiserate together about how they both play second fiddle to Lord and Savior Casey Mittelstadt (PBUH).

Yep. Plus Reinhart was already well into his improved period of play before Kane ever moved. To suggest Kane leaving helped Reinhart to improve is inaccurate.

I highly doubt it. He's still young enough that the brass will likely keep their hopes up that he'll progress for another couple of seasons. If lower round picks like Bailey and Baptiste are still "prospects" 5 years after being drafted then a top 10 pick like Nylander still has a ton of rope left.

His career stats are slightly better but the Slayer fan inside my brain says Satan all day!