Drunkard

Sweet. Good thing we're the only team in the league who is interested in doing that. It should be easy.

So we can rely on Casey Nelson, Zach Bogosian, and a rookie playing his off hand to play the right side? Welcome to the NHL, Dahlin.

I think he'll be given time, even though Murray drafted him, since he's still on his ELC and he's dirt cheap. Barring some GM offering more for him than GMJB thinks he worth and given his lackluster performance since he's been drafted, I don't see that happening. There's plenty of more expensive dead wood for him to worry about replacing to upgrade the roster before him. I imagine he has 2 years before they have to worry about him needing to piss or get off the pot.

I think Carolina would balk at any of those 3 being added. They may offer a guy like Hanifin, but I have more worries about our right side than our left. Skinner with only 1 year until UFA status doesn't move the needle for me as the main piece coming back for O'Reilly though.

I hope he's full of on this tidbit of information. Even if they sweetened the pot by giving us Faulk for Bogosian, I still don't think I'd do the deal (although I'd think harder about it).

The failed tank happened in Arizona who drafted Dylan Strome after they finished 29th, Edmonton won the lottery, and we got the consolation prize of Eichel.

I don't follow your logic. By that reasoning Eichel should also be gone because he helped land us last in the league as well. Also, which of our remaining centers is going to carry the load of defensively difficult minutes? Are we going to task Eichel with them? That will go over great when we're paying him $10 million to score and the increased responsibilities cause a drop in his production. A rookie like Mittelstadt? Or are you going to double Larsson's TOI so that the worst scoring team in the league gives even more ice team to a guy that hardly ever scores? Trading away Ristolainen makes even less sense. We only have him and NHL/AHL tweener Nelson on the right hand side, along with Bogosian's 10-20 games. We can speculate that Dahlin will also play his off hand on the right but until that proves to be the case and he shows he can handle it, I wouldn't want to ditch the only ox we have to help pull that wagon.

Reinhart's ELC is already over. He becomes an RFA on July 1st. Short of getting Tavares or a team paying through the nose (including sending us back a defensively minded center as part of the package) I would not move O'Reilly this season. I want Eichel and Mittelstadt focused more on generating offense so O'Reilly needs to carry the water defensively.

15/15/30 was the stat line for Girgensons during his "all star" season in which he spent much of the season on the top line. If Baptiste was capable of that, he wouldn't still be in the AHL. I think that's more of a best case scenario for him.

Yep. That's where I get all my free goose poop from. Nothing but the best!

I was thinking the same thing. A few dogs with some electric collars that would allow them to patrol the property while not being able to run off should be a relatively cheap fix.

Nice! Was the sun shining? Were angels singing? Does his mom ride a donkey around town while the other villagers lay palms leaves down in front of her? Please say yes.

I'm fine with a mix of veterans on short term deals and young guys, but it's time for some of the young guys to sink or swim. Guys like Baptiste and Bailey are forwards who were drafted 5 years ago now and the organization needs to find out if they have a future in the NHL or if they'll end up as permanent fixtures riding buses in the minors and only serve as call ups when there's a string of injuries.

So we hired Housley a year ago because we already knew we were going to get Dahlin? Does the illuminati have our backs or something? And if they do, why don't we already have a dozen championship banners hanging from the rafters?

They have to get the next crop of 18 year olds to sign up and fight the next boogeyman somehow. Still they shouldn't have to pay or it. If an organization wants to flout its patriotism they should allow them to advertise free of charge and if they charge them to do it, they shouldn't be able to flaunt what patriots they are.

They don't mind being political when it helps them make money. They just don't want it to cost them money. All the controversy and discourse along with the President weighing in hurt them with ratings and advertisers. They had no issue taking the military's money for years though.

This. Plus, if the NFL really wanted to be patriotic they shouldn't charge the military to be there.

Kneeling during the anthem invites political discussion. Political discussion tends to alienate half the viewers (depending on who is talking). That's bad for business. They'd rather hide dissenting opinion rather than lose money.

Other teams can win with deadwood. Probably because those guys ride the pine 9r 4th line/bottom pairing in good organizations while they get penciled in for the top 4 and/or PP time for us. Expecting Zach Bogosian to handle top 4 minutes entering a new season is flat out irresponsible at this point and GMJB did that with his clean slate. 3 players, $15 million for 66 games and 3 points of production doesn't look like trying to win to me. They waived one bum. I think they should be more proactive in ditching the others. If you can't trade them you can still demote them. 2 AHL defensemen and an AHL forward on 1 year deals to take their places would likely produce better results. I don't know who officially replaced Moulson but whoever it was only had to score a single point to outscore him.

We've been basically the worst team in the league almost every season over the last half decade. Biding our time and idly waiting for these bad contract to lapse over time just perpetuates the losing. Waiting 2 more seasons to replace Bogosian essentially wastes 2/3 of Mittelstadt's and Dahlin's ELC. If that how GMJB chooses to play it that's his perogative but I see it as a waste.

This is twisting my previous statements into a pretzel. I never said he just decided to just take a bad offer. I said he set the price too high earlier on in the season and it's possible that his 4 pieces demand that had to include a first round pick may have caused some teams to look elsewhere. Sometimes one good piece is better than 4 smaller ones and by the time he came down from his ridiculous demand for a rental winger Kane was no longer producing at a ppg clip and the San Jose offer was the only serious offer left on the table.

I'm sure they did discuss it and Botteril balked at the price and opted for the smaller deal instead of protecting Ullmark and going with the clean slate for everyone left. There was opportunity to unload some dead wood though, it just means Botterill wasn't willing to pay the price. I can be disappointed in the final outcome without having all the facts in the same way others who also don't have all the facts can defend it. If the price was too high to move a particular player there were no shortage of other bad contracts to attempt to move and I would assume, based on all the other deals they made, that there was a sliding scale depending on the dump. They may have demanded a 1st and 2nd to take Bogosians 3 years (which even I would pass on) but only required a second to take Gorges single year. We'll never know for sure but we do know that the Sabres spent about $15 million in cap space (around 20% of the total) this season on Moulson, Bogosian, and Gorges who all combined to play 66 games for a whopping 3 points. That's a huge part of why this team sucked despite getting great value for the ELC's of both Eichel and Reinhart.

We definitely see it differently. He may have had a shopping list but they were at least open to taking whomever other teams wanted as long as the price was right. I can't copy/paste on my phone but the 4th paragraph from this link said it flat out. http://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/19256694/vegas-golden-knights-open-making-deals-expansion-draft I feel like it was a missed opportunity. But either way it's spilled milk. The dirt cheap years of Eichel and Reinhart are over and we'll start burning up the cheap years for Mittelstadt and Dahlin this season. Tick tock.

It didn't have to be Nylander though. We could have given them one of our other young guys or draft picks. Maybe they would have gone for a prospect like Bailey, Baptiste, Pu, or Asplund. If not maybe one of those guys coupled with a second round pick. It was an opportunity for a new GM to trim some fat from this underachieving roster and free up some spots to replace them with new blood. Turning Ennis and Foligno into Scandella and Pominville was great but instead of doing more he went with the clean slate mantra.

Yep. They forced Pittsburgh to bribe them even though just about everyone expected them to take Fleury. I still think we missed an opportunity to dump one of our cap anchors. I hope they don't make the same mistake when Seattle has their draft. By that point the likely dump will be Okposo, unless he seriously rebounds in the next 2 seasons.