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Not a bad pay day when the average salary is about $100,000 in the league!

Personally I think i'd rather trade the pick for a top 6 RW or top 4 LD or top 2 RD. We need to win this season to keep Eichel around.

Dahlin - ??? ??? - Risto McCabe - Joker I think Risto brings something to the party that Montour and Miller dont. Obviously there is a top RD on the market this year. However, I think Mountour might be good enough - such that we end up with 1 top D-man and 5 top four d-men. Maata would have been great, if we could have got a trade for Miller

I hope the convo went like this: Jack: I hear you want an internal cap. Are you looking to rebuild? Pegula mouth piece: No we are not looking to rebuild Jack: If the team still sucks and you didn't maximise every available resource, including money, to fix it, I am out. Pegula mouth piece: Yes fam. We will spend to the cap

Eichel probably doesnt want to rebuild. Who would? Teams called about McDavid a few years ago too. This isn't news. But hopefully, it is enough to make the Pegula's open their purse strings and take advantage of a once in a lifetime opportunity to kickstart a successful team

I thought Jeff and Eric weren’t the best of friends..?

If Edmonton offered McDavid and Drai and their first and agreed to retain 50% of their salaries for Eichel, would you do it? Obviously you would. So there is no point making great claims about how untradeable someone is. A GM should listen for EVERY player. No one is untouchable, they just have an extortionate price. If you offered #8, Eichel and Dahlin for Crosby, do you think they say no? Even though he is the face of the NHL, has brought them 3 cups etc.

Wennberg and Elvis would be a pretty good haul - fix 3C with an age-appropriate defensive dude who can step up to 2C if injuries occur. Costs more than I would like, but that might be a good bargaining ship to reduce the cost of the goalie pick up. What do Columbus need? 2nd this year + 2nd next year + Miller + b-grade prospect for Wenn/Elvis?

Yeah but both Malkin and Crosby are 1st line centres. I agree with Curt. People expect a 50 point centre to be an average third line centre because of this. And that just isn’t the case. Glad to hear a positive view on Cozens. Although I think I’d welcome someone having one about Casey 😛

Yea and I don’t want to throw away another year and probably Jack playing for the Sabres because the 2C we thought we fixed wasnt

Broadly I really like this move. It fills the gap we needed and is clearly a show of confidence in Cozens. Johnson was a fine player for us, but nothing special so the cost was great. I have two concerns with it. Firstly Staals age. He has played well last few years but you can’t not think on a rapid decline happening. Two, he was reportedly very comfortable in Minny and I worry he will be less productive because he doesn’t want to be here (a comment on Minny or Buffalo). But he is always touted as a professional and will help Jack and Dylan.

Third liners are much easier to pick up, so a much better position to be in. I would quite like McCann or Copp or someone like that on the third line - a player who could step up to the second for short stints

That seems like a high price. Casey is 5 years younger. Copp has averaged 0.3 pts/game whereas Casey is 0.34 I don't know Copp's game, but is it really so complete to overcome a 5 year age difference and worse point production as well as us providing the higher pick?

Is he anything more than a marginal upgrade on Sam? Trading one top 6 player and our precious trading assets for a broadly comparable one doesnt help our lack of depth in the top 6. Or our lack of 2C (Lindholm is C/RW like Sam)

Farewell Eichel, may you lead a team to glory

I think Murray was historically a good talent spotter. And I think he would have been better being Scouting Manager, rather than General Manager

I think the concern is from the fact JBot usually only made one 'big' move and hoped that it would fix the issue. We need several decent ones to make waves next season. Also the fact is has been over 6 months of nothingness. We're all desperate fro Sabres related material!!

This is the classic failing of seeing what the winners do one year and trying to copy them the following year. A couple years back everyone was talking about getting faster and quicker (because the Pens were that and had won back to backs). I strongly believe you win through a combination of luck (players getting hot) and having a strong team identity - i.e. the team knows what sort of hockey they can play to win games and have the confidence to stick to their game when behind.

So you can now pre-order the Royal Blue. Any idea when it is due for release? In a jersey related note - is the 50th still available?

Maybe just a difference on talent evaluation - Monahan has broken 60 points 4 times vs Ehlers 2 times. And I take C over wing in that situation. I would use FA or Cozens to fill 3C role (Monahan is decently defensively responsible) and use excess D to upgrade goaltending and maybe replace a lost pick in this draft. Ideally we get two players of that calibre somehow. If so, then I dont mind trading the future a bit. Skinner - Eichel - Kahun Ehlers - Monahan - Reinhart Olofsson - Cozens - Johansson

More I don't want to give up literally all our valuable assets for one or two moves. I'm not opposed to getting Ehlers, but I would want the 2C solidified first. I would expect Monahan or someone of his level to cost Casey + first + two seconds. Maybe more. Leaving us little to shore up our goaltending.

The Blues got ROR for the equivalent of Johnsson, Okposo, Casey and 2nd. Maybe its our turn to fleece a team... A barely 30 point player is not the 2C we need... We might as well just plug Larsson in at that rate and save the assets

No the argument is a) don't use your small pool of assets on a well resourced position when there is a gaping hole that needs fixing and doing so will compromise your ability to fix it and b) have we ever seen two Ehlers-sized moves in recent Sabres history in one off-season? If we got him, I would expect that to be the only change to the top 6 this off-season. We have one (maybe two) of Risto, Montour, Miller and Casey and the 8th / next years 1st / 2nd picks. Not a lot of wiggle room for a proper 2C who is young (especially as we also need a goalie upgrade)

This just highlights why you dont go for Ehlers and use your small pool of assets to get him until you get a 2C in place. In both your schemes you're playing an LW in top line RW spot whilst having a glaring hole at 2C. Use the assets to get a 2C and I don't think our line up looks awful

Sam is better. If we are trading for him then I hope Olofsson goes the other way. There is no point having Ovechkin, Marchand, Panarin and Draisaitl on the same team when their C/RW counter parts are replacement players. That team won't win