Thorner

And one new, moulded, team storm cloud member That’s Oscar Marner Weiner

Austin

What I said doesn’t argue against your latest post

Not watching, are both those goals special teams markers for team McPowerplay or just one?

Not as good… in the regular season But to your point, Jack’s particular playoff proficiency wasn’t revealed until after the trade

Ya you could have been referring to availability in general, but I recall there being something specific about cost. My recollection is that my inference at the time was your comment was because of Byram’s performance this year. I do think some of that performance and output can come down to usage and over abundance of a type of player can affect that. I’ll see if I can find the post Think it was this one

It’s generally interesting to me how often you see “but all the other teams do so and so” used as reasoning for expected or desired conduct when the Sabres have so thoroughly proven themselves the outlier to which the usual does not apply, over a large sample size. This statement itself is a generalization but basically I’m just saying I don’t think the Sabres have the luxury of yielding to anything just because “that’s the way it is”. Up to and including things like the unusualness of dealing a prized prospect in the name of winning now, etc etc etc. Just to use an example of another area this logic theoretically applies

4 x 5 seems fine to me I dunno

Are there any other posters *under* 40?

New York Boston McDavid MacKinnon sounds pretty good for the league

I agree. But no stone unturned

I agree. I’d be skeptical of the strong degree of evaluation certainty that would necessarily follow, say, taking Robert over Peca: ie like you allude to guys at 11 are going to be ballpark in that sense so it would require an extreme case (benson I guess) to trust defaulting to a bPA pick there when positional discrepancy was glaring - - - reminds me of your comments on Byram “not normally being available” for what we paid. Cause what, Avs had a surplus? If we go ahead and take a redundant talent and we end up trading, doesn’t it likely end up a similar “normally we wouldn’t even MOVE the asset for this!” Situation I don’t like that

The idea is that you take the best player on YOUR list, but there should be more awareness of the hubris at play, here: so much of it is guessing. To act like you’ll absolutely get better value with the first choice on your list than your second or third is already dicey. In the early stages of a rebuild imo it’s all about CEILING CEILING CEILING but at the stage we are now, I am of the opinion it would absolutely make sense to “hedge” your bet by picking up an extra asset, locking/banking in some value right away, and then taking a player who has a non-negligible chance of being as good WITH the position premium there’s literally a discussion going on in another thread with a strong strong “hold your horses, finding good trades can be hard” narrative yet the prevailing wisdom of BPA still shines over here. The 2 need to be reconciled

The idea is that other teams will also value those assets less, though. It’s hard to say which it will be but trade the asset that grants the most valuable return I would also prefer to trade the things I care less about novel idea

More less one of the steps you need to get to in joining the ranks of the good teams. “We have too many prospects for nhl spaces” isn’t a unique problem to Buffalo it’s the commonplace result of icing a competent roster. We are just HYPER unfamiliar. Those players don’t need to be in the NHL. If they need to be, they’d force their way block or not It’s the difference between the teams that say “ahhh injuries, what could we have even done?” And those that finish top 16

There’s a draft literally every year. This is absolutely a (far) secondary concern to maximizing whatever trade you make, should you make one Im just trying to keep up. So “don’t expect trades”, but also, “BPA, sort it out through the trade market” Ah

I’d rather they have an opinion than toe the company line - particularly when their opinion is correct Teams absolutely value the 11th pick

Only works well in theory. Don’t know how anyone could think otherwise when you can read the trade threads detailing how JJ Peterka is off limits for us and Kaako is off limits for the Rangers etc etc. ALL we hear about is how difficult trades for ACTUAL good players are due to the mechanics of deals and the fact that players don’t want to come to Buffalo. “Collect what you can and use the trade market to balance it all out” *is* an online GM simulator thing. It only works in theory. It works in practice to an *extent* - but we aren’t the team that can go up there and take an offensively obsessed puck moving D. It’s just an added degree of difficulty and asset imbalance that it would be incredibly hubristic to saddle our GM with, when he clearly has enough to deal with already “BPA full-stop” and “it takes 2 to tango” are used one over the other on this board and clearly represent a team building issue - - - If we refuse to trade the pick outright and refuse to budge on our list, complete the trade at the draft when it’s easiest and feasible and move down a few spots: you can take the best player on your list there, with better positional fitting, for what amounts to a likely small talent analysis difference (when you are basically hoping and praying, anyways - no one really knows if you’ll get a better player at 11 or 13) and pick up an asset in the process: granting you full value

this is the type of pick that would have me quite convinced we are hooked up to a simulation designed to torment - - - For the record, BPA doesn’t strictly apply anymore. You can’t just apply a generalization across all cases indiscriminately: the sabres are *clearly* an outsider case at this time, deserving of a nuanced approach. We already NEED to move prospects, you can’t just go up there and take the exact same guy in the mold of your 2 best assets and the guy you just traded your best C for

What I think of the remaining 8 teams

You only get crap offers if there aren’t multiple teams competing. I’d imagine something like a high first rounder would have plenty of interest. There’s no selling low on a pick, there’s no sabres stench on it A bunch of teams were out on Eichel from the get go cause of the preferred surgery aspect

If it’s a legitimate question at some point we’ve done well on that front imo

On the other hand