jahnyc

On the surface, this is a very bad look. JBot has made a couple of good trades (for Skinner and Jokiharju), but the rest have been inconsequential or awful. I continue to think he is in way over his head with this part of his GM responsibilities, given that we have previously discussed his poor timing or evaluation of the market for O"Reilly and Kane and now we have this trade as another marker.

I think our pipeline is very weak, particularly at forward, which is kind of shocking given the amount of time that has been devoted to building this team after some horrible years. The reality is that we have almost no strong forward prospects in our system or as recent draft picks, other than Cozens. Something is not right with our scouting and player assessments. Our drafts are not producing prospects in the lower rounds and the players that were part of our return package in trades (Thompson, Danny O'Regan and CJ Smith) have not been good enough to play for a below average Sabres team. I am not optimistic that things will improve significantly in the near term.

I am finding it difficult to be enthusiastic about the near term prospects for this team as currently constructed. There has been some roster surgery, but probably not enough for us to expect that this team will compete for a playoff spot in a tough division. Unless Ullmark improves significantly, the goal tending is weak, our forwards are overall below average, and we don't have prospects in Rochester that we can safely say will form the nucleus of a strong team in the near future or that are ready to contribute immediately. Not the ingredients for optimism and this comes after so many seasons of really poor results.

The situation with Risto feels a bit too similar to the situations with Kane and O'Reilly. Sabres will be trading the player and we get our hopes up for a significant return. Unfortunately, it did not happen with Kane or O'Reilly, and I doubt it will with Risto. It just seems that when a team is openly shopping a player for an extended period and the player does not want to play for the team, the prospect of getting a decent return for the player is negatively impacted and diminishes the longer the situation continues.

We seem to be at around the cap assuming we sign the rest of our restricted free agents. How are we going to be helpful to teams that need to shed salaries (i.e., players) to create space if we are currently at around the cap?

I would like to know whether the Sabres are pursuing Gardiner. If yes, do we think he is he waiting out the situation with Marner to see if the Leafs have cap space to sign him?

I think many of us are tired of being patient. I also understand that we do not have a choice, but this rebuild has taken a long time and seems to still have a long way to go. Would give us some hope if we could acquire some decent free agents, but I get that they may not want to play for the Sabres for any number of reasons, including our inability to improve and make the playoffs. As we have seen, making trades can help or hurt, and same with free agent signings. What this team should have by this point is a strong pipeline of young talent. Until that happens, and is clear to all of us, the Sabres will continue to struggle.

I am a bit concerned about the Risto situation because it feels similar to the pre-trade situation with O'Reilly. Player expresses frustration with team situation and losing, not clear if player wants to continue with Sabres, lots of buzz that player is being heavily shopped and the sense of some pressure in terms of timing to make trade (in the case of Risto, this may be because of the start of free agency and the team wanting to know what the needs are post-trade). This seems to be a recipe for another potential disaster. With a new coach, wouldn't it make more sense to see if Risto can be a part of the needed improvement in the team's overall performance? If it still is not working, Risto always can be traded at a later time, including before the trade deadline this upcoming season.

I think he really fumbled those questions about Risto. Seems possible that RIsto did ask out of Buffalo based on his response and he did not really address the first question.

I do think it is weak. I also understand that certain recent picks, such as Dahlin and Mittelstadt, are already playing for the Sabres, which may contribute to my perception of the pipeline, but I do not see a lot of sure fire quality NHL players in the group. For example, if you look at the Amerks, which is an obvious source for near-term potential talent for the Sabres, Nylander and Asplund had relatively disappointing seasons last year (or at least seasons that do not suggest that they are ready to be in the lineup for the Sabres). Not sure how the Sabres view O"Regan and Smith, but I don't believe they are viewed as potential top six forwards. Olofsson will get his shot with the Sabres next year, but he may be the only addition at forward. I think we need to see better results from young players with the Amerks to feel more confident about the pipeline in the near-term.

More than a fair point and true that the previous wave of prospects failed to make an impact. I just don't have a lot of confidence that Nylander, Pilut and Thompson, even if they make the team out of camp, will be quality players in the near term (and maybe the long term as well).

I don't want to seem overly negative, but given the long period of this rebuild, it is disappointing that our prospect pool is not much stronger at this point. The only prospect with a likelihood to contribute to the Sabres this season is Olofsson. In some ways, this may not be a fair assessment of the overall situation, since many of the current Sabres, such as Dahlin and Mittelstadt, were recent draft picks and can could be considered prospects, but I do think our prospect pool should be stronger and deeper after years of finishing near or at the bottom of the standings. Another unpopular view is that some of our recent top picks have been mild or significant disappointments given where they were drafted. I think Reinhart is playing pretty well, but at times I feel like we should be expecting more from a second overall pick in the draft. I am not sure if Nylander will develop, and I have no idea what kind of player Mittelstadt will become. If this assessment is accurate, I don't think it is all on the specific players. There are other variables and considerations, including the quality of teammates, coaching and mentoring, that play role in the development of players, but, at a minimum, if the Sabres are going to have success in the future, we need to hit on our draft picks in the top 10 of the draft.

Other than Risto and maybe McCabe, and excluding our "core" players (Jack, Skinner, Dahlin, Montour and Reinhart), we just don't have many assets that are attractive to other teams for a trade. I don't think it is reasonable to expect Bogo, Okposo, Girgs, Larsson, Sobotka, Scandella or even Nylander to be tradable at this point. These may be some of the players that we would like to see traded, but the possibility of receiving any real value for them seems small.

So who did he want if he was trying to move up?

Shannon is right in that the Sabres do not have any quality depth. They do not have a second line (or, arguably, a third line) center and they can use an upgrade in goal. Given the overall weakness in our pipeline (at least in my view), I do not think we are very close to being a playoff caliber team.

I really do not understand this interest in Vesey. I do not think he is a top six forward and we all know that he did not want to sign here after we traded for his rights. Makes no sense to me.

ROR getting the Conn Smythe is just the cherry on top of the hot fudge sundae. What an awful trade.

I do not know what the underlying locker-room dynamics may or may not have been, but the trade, in terms of value received in return, was awful. Not only because we received almost no contributions from the players acquired, but also for the bad contracts that were part of the package back to us. I think we were lucky that Berglund walked away, and, as a result, we received significant cap savings. He would have been way overpaid for a fourth line player. We still have one more year of Sobotka at $3.5 million and Berglund would have cost us $3.85 million per year in cap space through 2021-22 if he had continued to play for the Sabres. This was a poor deal based solely on the contracts we acquired as part of the trade. One open question is how much of an impact the team's reluctance to pay O'Reilly his bonus had in the making of this particular trade and the value that we could have received in return from the Blues or other teams if we were willing to pay the bonus and then trade O'Reilly.

We need a lot of upgrades at forward, but it feels like the defense is more settled now, and has potential to be a strong unit next year, assuming that we do not trade Risto. Our top line generally looks good. The other three lines have all been disappointing. I really hope that we see improvement with Mittlestadt, but I am not feeling confident about that at this point. I also do not believe that we have much in Rochester that will be of immediate help next season, or maybe at all. JBot has much work to do to fix the middle six without many easy answers.

Not sure I like the way this sounds. At this point, the Sabres need Skinner a lot more than he needs the Sabres. All bets are off if he hits the offseason without a signed contract with the Sabres.

What a terrible trade. Not only did we not receive anything of value in return other than a first round pick likely in the lower end of the round, we took on bad contracts for Berglund and Sobotka that had years remaining. It is pure luck for JB that Berglund decided to leave the Sabres and forego the remaining amounts due under his contract.

I hope JB knows whether Skinner really wants to re-sign with the Sabres, assuming the money is right. The worst possible result would be if we do not trade him before the trading deadline and then he does not re-sign. If we know he will not re-sign with the Sabres, he should be traded before the deadline.

I really have no idea whether PH is a good or bad coach, but I do think this team is full of players that have not developed, never will develop or are past their prime (i.e., Girgensons, Larsson, Elie, Sobotka, Okposo and Scandella). Mittelsadt has had a very disappointing season, exposing our weakness at center after Eichel, and I do not think that Reinhart is playing like what would be expected from a second overall pick in the draft. I am not sure a different coach could do much better with the current roster.

It is amazing to me that after years of misery including two last place overall finishes that we don't have a stronger prospect pool, particularly wingers who can score. The Kane and O'Reilly trades failed to provide us with players that were ready to immediately contribute in a significant way and now we have to hope that the draft picks we received will be hits and eventually develop. At this point, if JB can land a player that can contribute now, he should, even if it means giving up one of our first round picks. JB has made one very good trade in getting Skinner and a poor trade in terms of what we received in the O'Reilly trade. I get it that trading O'Reilly may have been a must, but taking on the contracts of Berglud and Sobotka was kind of shocking to me (although we are fortunate from a financial perspective that Berglund decided to leave the team). Mittelstadt was not ready to be a number two center and now we lack quality depth at center after Jack. Still feels like we are a ways away from being a consistent, good team.

I would have hoped that we would sign at least one decent free agent forward, preferably one that played LW. I wonder if we pursued any available free agents. Probably tough to get a quality free agent to come here because of our last place finish.