WildCard

Well, that's encouraging

I think he already played in a game this season, no? Wouldn't the Vikings have already done this?

Especially with this RB FA market.

I'm sure he can. Passing a physical just isn't the same as playing NFL football though. I'm not sure anything is honestly

Interesting, didn't know that, thanks for posting this. When did he say that? And I have a feeling you'd be right

Little stuff here and there with the Sabres. His taking the younger guys out to party, a few posters on here saying they knew players in real life who would go to the bars in cliques, our locker room issues in general, him missing practice to go to an NBA game, Harrington's report about Botterill saying Kane was last on first off the ice, and just all of his Winnipeg issues in general

http://lastwordonhockey.com/2017/08/13/tsp-san-jose-sharks-prospects/ (written at the start of the 2017 season)

We can only hope

Good point with the bold. I remember the Friedman articles on the NHL landscape after the McDavid deal, and there was a lot about NHL GMs staying away from FA and overpaying outside talent; they'd rather pay giant contracts to drafted, young talent for potential future performance, or maybe even start going after other team's RFAs Almost every deal though, especially for a talent like Kane, comes with a 1st. It's just incredible to me that he didn't even get that. Even if the 1st was conditional on SJ's playing performance, which we see all the time at the deadline, that would be so much better. Does anyone really think an older SJ team is going to give Kane the term and money he wants? If that was his condition, why not trade him to a team more likely to sign him long term? If there wasn't a team likely to fulfill that condition, why not use the playoff performance conditional?

I think SJ was probably the best buyer for the details you listed. And I have to say, you called it. But there were so many reports saying exactly what your quotations say: potential buyers wouldn't pay that price for Kane. I don't think it's at all unreasonable to say Botterill overplayed his hand

I'm not comparing Kane to the players those teams picked up though, I'm comparing Kane's reported asking price in November to what we received. If we had come down a little bit on the asking price earlier, maybe one of those teams that ended up picking up a winger decides to dance with us; instead they made the moves you detailed above Last move I was really upset about us making was Bylsma. Granted I loved Murray, so maybe I'm not the best judge of GMs I'm sure there's more, but the one that really sticks out as calling Murray for what he was first and often was Robviously. So, I'm gonna ask him here: what do you think about JBott? How about this move?

Still love the palyoffs though

Nashville, Boston, CBJ, Calgary, NJ, Vegas...all contending teams that got solid wingers at the deadline

There are 5 buyers when we list our price (5 is arbitrary, I don't really know). All 5 say too high. So other teams come in with different players/better offers, and now there are only 2 partners left. It becomes a buyers market

If the price was that high and nobody met it, then other people at the dance found different partners and Botterill was left in the corner waiting for a faced SJ to come stumbling over

Because we're bored and our team sucks

It's about as concrete as you're ever going to get when dealing with something like that in the sports world. Multiple TSN reporters all listed the same price for months, and nobody ever refuted it.

Same

Personally, I think Botterill asked for far too much. I think if he scaled it down a bit and traded him earlier, we could have gotten a package somewhere between what was reported he first asked, and what we actually got

A fair point. I combed that thread though, and don't see any update posts to indicate the asking price ever changed. I don't see anything to indicate Botterill's asking price would have changed, especially as dramatically as the haul he got for Kane. It seems like that's just what he could get; I would bet he would tell you the return is disappointing too

Seems he's still a little too small. Needs to bulk up

These are the best reporters in the sport, if they're reporting something like this, for months, and it was false, don't you think Botterill would have denied it? Or, don't you think they wouldn't have even reported it? These guys wouldn't have a job if they reported falsities about organizations all the time; nobody would give them any information for disparaging them. I've never known any GM in any sport to come out and say 'we want this for this' publicly. That doesn't mean multiple reports from reputable sources are incorrect TSN Insiders are not the Enquirer

https://forums.sabrespace.com/topic/25364-deadline-day-sabres-trade-speculation/?p=1017496 https://forums.sabrespace.com/topic/25364-deadline-day-sabres-trade-speculation/?p=1008240 https://forums.sabrespace.com/topic/25364-deadline-day-sabres-trade-speculation/?p=1007327 And that's just one thread I looked through It's not just to the casual fan. Botterill was reported for months to be asking Duchene level prices for Kane

That was his asking price for months and it was reported by literally every reputable reporter in the hockey world, and not once refuted by anyone else