SabresBaltimore

Fair enough. As I said, I'm bad at this. When I first wrote my list I was doing option A and protecting all 3..but then I realized that I'd have to protect both Gorges and Bogosian and it basically messed up everything. I'm not super happy with my list. I'm at a loss as to how to handle it really. I'd be curious to see what your list would look like.

So I brought this up in the Keep/Trade Kane thread, but in addition to the end of free agency, we have the Expansion draft to worry about later this year. I did a quick search, and I didn't see a thread on this. My apologies if I simply missed it. Here are the rules: So if you were TMGM, what's your list? I'm terrible at this kind of thing, but I'll give my list anyways. I'm more curious what everyone else would do. If like me you don't know whose under contract until when I found this site (http://www.spotrac.com/nhl/buffalo-sabres/yearly/cap/) helpful. Someone said Sam and Jack are protected under the first/second year clause. I want to protect both Risto and Mccabe, so I think we need to do option B. Forwards 1) Ryan O' Reilly 2) Kyle Okposo (required anyways) 3) Johan Larson (resign) 4) Marcus Foligno (resign) Defense 1) Rasmus Ristolainen 2) Jake Mccabe 3) Zach Bogosian (Required) 4) Josh Gorges (Required?) Goalie We currently have 0 goalies under contract who qualify. I'm not sure what we do here. Resign one, both? Which to keep, I'm not sure. I'd assume GMTM will resign both and protect Lehner. I might be leaning towards Nilsson, but it would depend on value of potential new contracts. Meeting Exposure Requirements These guys i'd leave vulnerable to meet the exposure requirement list: Possible Defense We need to sign someone to fit this bill? Neither Frason or Kulikov are under contract, and the rest don't meet the eligibility requirements.. Possible Forwards 1) Matt Moulson 2) Tyler Ennis (pending eligibility; assuming he gets to 47+ games this season; he had only 23 in 15/16, and only has 12 this season with 42 games left, which means he needs can only miss 7 more games) 2) Nicolas Deslauriers Goalie See above...

I guess my original question was more like, will the Sabres use one of their saves on Kane, or leave him vulnerable. The rules Our defense isn't that deep, I'd imagine we go with option A. I'm not up on the contracts, and I'm not sure if Sam and Jack are considered 2nd year or 3rd year (previous season, or current?). We have to protect Okposo and we'll definitely protect RoR. What other forwards though?

So if that's the case, do we try to trade him now for a known quantity? Or keep him around to help protect others on the roster? What do we get in compensation (if anything) if they take one of our players? I'm either blind or can't seem to find it.

Here's a question, is he vulnerable for the Vegas Expansion draft?

I've been very happy with his recent play, but for the majority of his time here he's been a disappointment. I'd prefer to see him traded while his stock is high before it comes crashing back down again. Especially if we can get a good defensemen for him. I don't know enough about whose out there to speculate on what that trade would be, but hopefully GMTM is shopping him around for someone he likes. That said if they keep him, I'm OK with it so long as he keeps up this level of play. I'm not optimistic though..

It could be as soon as Thursday or Friday from what I read.

I just hope we're not their bounce back game like with Chicago. At least this one is at home. It looks like Philly is much better at home (13-6-3; 65% points) than on the road (8-9-3; 47.5%). We're pretty much even (8-8-3 home, 7-7-6 road; 50% of points for both).

This is the only game I get to watch this week, so I'm hoping it's a good one. Philly's been playing well this season after a slow start. I'm hopeful we're finally starting to find our game. I just hope we don't fall behind again. We do that too often.

That was really cool. Thanks for sharing.

Well nevermind then. lol.

Or go to bed really early so you can wake up and watch the 3rd period before work?

Maybe. I think the one area that Nilsson appears better to me is his rebound control. But I think that important to Lenher's game though. I feel like he's more likely to make a ridiculous save because of how aggressive he plays. Meanwhile Nilsson is a lot more controlled, and probably less likely to wow you. But at this point, I don't care about being wow'ed by highlight real saves. I just want to see them string together some winning streaks.

Agreed. Otherwise TMGM is just as bad as Doug Whaley and EJ Manual. Sometimes you have to move on from a bad decision. Although for me personally the jury is still out on Lehner. He's been hung out to dry with a lot of games with no offense from the rest of the team to speak of. But I'm tired of being patient. I don't expect this team to contend for a cup, but they should be contending for a playoff spot, not doing worse than our tank teams. I see them beat the Rangers and hold them to 1 goal, while scoring 4 and it pisses me off to think about all the other games where we did worse against teams that probably wont make the playoffs.

I'm not saying it does. But it's at the heart of the debate. Their stats otherwise aren't significantly different. So the question here is, why are we winning more with Nilsson? In theory the team playing in front of them has been mostly the same (although maybe not with all of our injuries). We need to win a lot more to salvage this season. Somehow Nilsson is winning more. If Lenher had played those 12 games, would the results have been the same? If Nilsson had played more than 12 games, would the team have a better record? Stats can only get you so far. So the best I can say is, give Nilsson more starts and see if his stats (and win ratio) hold up.

But he had a great pre-season! :rolleyes: Apparently that counts a lot with either GMTM or Disco Dan? :wallbash:

Personally I'm ready to move on from Gorges. He's got another year on his contract, so maybe we can move him for something. I do think getting him was a good move, as him being here has been valuable to the development of our young kids, but he should be a middle 6 pairing at best for a playoff team. And if he still has an A, he should give it up. I think for next season our letters should be: RoR - C, Eichel - A, Risto - A, although I do want Gionta back another year or two in a bottom 6 role. I think both Gionta and Gorges are veteran enough players to be willing to give up the letters, and just be vocal leaders instead.

I started with Dark Tower back in high school, and worked my way back to read most of the books that have tie-ins, especially the major ones like the Stand. I read a lot of the Stand during a particularly boring class in Grad School. Another good appearance of Flagg is in Eyes of the Dragon.

Randall Flagg shows up in many forms (with many names) in Dark Tower and other King Novels. He's the main antagonist in The Stand for instance. I believe he's originally from The Stand in fact and King later decided to merge him into the Dark Tower.

Also, if you look at points earned: Lenher: 16+5=21/50 = 44% Nilsson: 12+3=15/24 = 62% Boston is currently on pace to hit 90 points for the season. Let's say to make the playoffs as the 3 seed for our division we need 95 points. That means we need 59 out of a possible 90 points (66%). Nilsson is a lot closer to that right now. Of course that may not hold up under a larger sample size, or he may be having a fluke season. If it's the latter, I'm fine with that, but then we should ride the hotter goaltender. And if it's the former, well we're probably not making the playoffs anyways so I'd rather see that now before his contract is up.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not saying Nilsson is definitely better. I'm saying I want him to play more to see if he is or not. This season: Lehner is 8-12-5 (32%) with .921 sv%, 2.51 gaa, 0 shut outs Nilsson is 6-3-3 (50%) with .928 sv%, 2.35 gaa, 1 shut out Lehner's career numbers are 43-52-23 (44%) with a .917 sv%, 2.74 gaa and 3 shut outs Nilsson's career numbers are 25-25-7 (44%) with a .906 sv%, 2.94 gaa and 2 shut outs The number of games makes it hard to compare straight up, but Lehner is preforming worse in terms of wins and sv%, but better in terms of gaa than his career average. Nilsson on the other hand is crushing his career stats. But he's only played 12 games. I want more data. Is this year a fluke? Is he getting the better matchups? Does the team play harder in front of him for some reason? I think Nilsson deserves some more starts. Maybe he's just a really solid backup. I think having a solid backup is just as important to making the playoffs as having clutch starter.

That's exactly what I'm worried about. :wallbash:

Byslma called it a "maintenance day" and expects him to play tonight.

Man both games last night were pretty good, although the game kind of got away from Sweden after the Canadians swapped goalies. It should make for two more great games tonight. That Russian goalie was fantastic, I think he's a Caps prospect. I'm expecting to see him down here before too long, although the Caps are already pretty solid at goaltender. I think he was definitely the better goalie last night though. I can't believe the Russian coach didn't stick with the player who had 2 goals in the game and was 2/2 in the shootout in round 7. It's also impressive the US player went 3/3 including 2 in a row like that. The pressure had to be insane. I'll be rooting for Sweeden (and our 2 prospects) to bounce back take the Bronze, and flipping between the Gold medal game and the Sabres/Hawks game tonight. Should make for another great evening of hockey.

This is going to be a tough one. Chicago is slumping at 1-4-1 in their last 6, but we haven't beaten then in our last 9 games, and haven't won in Chicago since 2007 apparently. I hope O'Reilly is back. It sounds like he's healthy. If he plays it sounds like Reinhart could move down to the third line, keeping him at center. Hopefully that would mean Eichel moves down to the second line. I think I'd rather see him with Kane and Bailey, and O'Reilly and Okposo have good chemistry. I don't like Grant on the 3rd line though. I'd rather have Moulson. Then again, I don't like Grant on any line at this point. I'd rather we have someone up from Rochester. I'm hoping Nilsson gets the start tonight, mostly because I want to see what he's got. I just noticed Gorges is back with Risto. I hope that was simply because McCabe had the day off of practice. McCabe's supposed to play tonight, and I want him with Risto down the stretch.