TrueBlueGED

The Hayes contract certainly isn't something I advocated for, nor do I think would be advisable even now...but it'd be a ginormous improvement to our center position, and sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and overpay at the premium positions. On the more reasonable side of things, Carolina added both Dzingel and Haula for cheap. Neither of them are my ideal solution at 2C, but they are value contracts and represent players who would both be significant center upgrades. I'm in the minority on this, but JT Miller was traded for an acceptable price. Carl Soderberg was moved. Kerfoot and Kadri got traded. We can quibble about trade circumstances and absolute quality of player, but NHL centers moved with some frequency this offseason and Botterill (to this point) didn't land any of them. Offseason goal #1 should have been to fix, with a capital F, the 2C position. Reasonable arguments can be presented about why that didn't/couldn't happen, but inability to completely fix the 2C position in particular should not and is not an excuse for not improving the center position on the team more generally.

Speaking of bad QBs....Mitch " @Eleven's son" Trubisky, everybody!

You answered your own question. The GM has placed Mittelstadt in a position where he needs to be 2C and he isn't capable of anything close to it. That's a natural scenario for fan backlash. I'm not mad at Casey for not being good enough (at least not yet), I'm mad at Botterill.

It's like the inverse Belichick: instead of trading a vet the year before the league figures out he's falling off, trade a young player/prospect a year before the rest of the league figures out he's not living up to the draft hype.

I have too much bouncing around in my head to remember specifics, but Losman had some truly phenomenal passes to Evans.

I do too, I'm just not super optimistic about what that "more" is going to be.

If we had added Panarin, sure. But we added Johansson and Vesey. If we were going to punt at center because of cost or whatever, we needed to do better than that.

We went into the offseason needing both, and only addressed the less important one.

Did you get a promotion or something?

Indeed. I don't care if they lose every preseason game 31-2. The team was bad last year with a set of clearly identifiable problems which have not been fixed. We upgraded the D and wings some, but it's not like we added some kind of Panarin-level player there. And the biggest two problems, center and goaltending, have gone untouched. False equivalency. The stuff you referenced has no bearing on today. The ROR trade does.

I'm as encouraged by Allen's progress as I am disheartened by the Sabres' center spine. I certainly think he has farther to go than many Bills fans, but he's looking like at least an NFL starter, which is considerably better than I expected.

From a team-building perspective I agree, as it's a heck of a lot harder to find 1 elite guy than 3 average ones. But from a playing competitive hockey this season perspective, I don't think that holds up so well. How many competitive teams can you think of that only ice one center worth a damn? I'm not talking Cup contenders either. Moreover, I can't think of any teams actively trying to win that are icing 3 average centers and nothing better than that. It's a comparison to something that doesn't exist. Edit: Maybe my position is being misconstrued as a shot at Jack. It isn't. It's a commentary on how bad our other centers are.

I wouldn't care at all if the kid wasn't the de facto plan at 2C. I'd prefer to win some hockey games this year, after all.

It's also worth noting that 2nd line centers actually do move around with some regularity. We're not trying to find a franchise cornerstone here.

We're currently staring down the barrel of a second straight season with one of the worst center groups in the league. I'm looking toward the future, and it's not pretty. Hate the GM, not us.

If Mitts is as good as you think he is, then he's not going to be ruined.

Tell your boy to show me something.

Pi agrees with me? Crap. I might be wrong after all.

Every last one of those things is useless until it isn't. We traded a Selke-caliber center for 3 garbage players and 2 draft picks, yet you tell me it's impossible. Find a bad GM and trade with them. And actually, my fury over the ROR trade has nothing to do with hindsight. Go ahead and dig up the thread and read my posts, I slammed it as hard as possible from the moment it was made.

No, I mean worried as in I'm not sure he's an NHL center at all. I'm genuinely concerned we (in the general sense) got bamboozled by a short hockey tournament where his hard work was enough to push him above the pack, but he simply lacks the physical ability to do that in the NHL. He's gotta show something.

Hi Anaheim! May I interest you in one Rasmus Ristolainen? Risto + Mitts + something. Does that even get a whiff of Rakell?

This is exactly what St. Louis did last year. I know people are tired of hearing about the ROR trade, but the fact of the matter is Botterill blasted a hole in the most important position on a roster and has failed to even come close to fixing it. The trade will merit discussion until Botterill changes that. Unless something unexpected happens, it could torpedo a second season. We all laughed at Philly paying Kevin Hayes north of $7M, but the harsh truth is he'd represent an exponential upgrade to our roster. Actually, I'm about 25 regular season games from officially being worried about Mitts.

Yea I'm not having speed problems as I don't have anything connected that's old enough to matter. I just had no clue the entire network was limited by a slower device. For curiosity's sake, am I correct to assume that doesn't translate across bands? So if I put a "slow" device on the 2.4Ghz band, it won't also neuter the 5Ghz band?

Well, there's a little nugget of information I wasn't aware of.

I just don't care what athletes say. I'm actually trying to think of anything sports-related I care about less. The only thing that comes close is preseason football.