Thorny

If Raimi does Spider-Man 4 he’s gotta be the villain I’m as pleased w/Byram’s recent play as much as anyone but it’s disappointing he apparently needs to be stapled to a franchise defender to make it happen

People always say “how didn’t they win when they had all 3” but they never had all 3 when Jack and Sam weren’t fledgling players on their ELCs it wasn’t nhl playoffs leading scorer and 2-way menace JACK EICHEL and 50 goal man SAMSON playing with ROR it was “on some nights he’s a negative overall impact” Yeichel, and on some nights “is he even an NHLer?” Reinhartdtt lining up with him. (Remember, have to think back to circa 2017-18: Reino was sitting at a cool 11 points headed into the January 1 winter classic; his third nhl season and 4th post draft) 11 points. At a crucial stage, those 2 coming off their ELCs and poised for the development we saw, Botterill traded ROR At an even more crucial stage, Adams just gave up and traded the 2 of them none of the sabres failures are shrouded in mystery. They are all a poorly written open book to be perused and dissected by us fans and willingly ignored by management

We traded Eichel and Reinhart JUST as they were entering their primes so a lot of the improvement in another environment we saw was going to happen here anyways. People have gotten so into the habit of downplaying Eichel’s defensive improvement from 19-20 in the name of accrediting his improvement to leaving buffalo/new coach but 19-20 happened, Jack was 23, and he finished 8th in mvp voting largely because his D improved by leaps and bounds that year. We develop players and trade them and a big part is that young players are cheaper

I don’t like to toot my own horn when I can avoid it (ok, who am I kidding), but, I was screaming this at the board 3 full years ago: I told everyone exactly what was going to happen. Adams rode in on a purported (bogus - told you) mandate to fix the culture and in so doing cemented the sabres culture as “team that doesn’t care about winning”

Exactly. It’s youth. We are too young - and we are young by choice. We are bad on purpose. - - - It’s not insane we are in last. It’s insane we have at least SEVEN POINTS LESS than *every* other team in the conference but 1. truly the worst season I can remember the sabres putting to record. The fact the GM is still employed is mind boggling when you consider the owner isn’t going to fire himself. These are absurd, absurd results. You have to give someone else a try.

Investing in how the team might succeed despite the owner not caring about doing so, nor committing the resources necessary to make it happen is wiener behaviour and I won’t really do it. I can’t bend over that far for this organization. they, or, failing that, this board, will continue hearing it, from me

this is crucial: At some point we can’t just throw our hands up and say “no one will come.” You need to recruit. There has to be some level of personal, what’s the word, oh ya: ACCOUNTABILITY for the situation. They can’t pretend the issues are beyond them when a huge issue in recruiting, for example, is the idea we aren’t serious about winning, and we are *willingly* spending way below the cap. They are simply not giving recruitment an honest try. It’s not “no stone unturned” at all. They simply are content to fallback on whatever thesis results in an operation that involves NOT SPENDING

Sorry, that’s my mistake, was thinking it was your post I originally responded to. You don’t need to answer the question lol The issue here is this logic also applies to the players we’d want to trade Quinn for or any of the others mjd listed

Is it essentially mandated we parrot the company line? Doesn’t leave much room for discussion. And frankly grands an awful lot of write-off leeway to management and co. It’s literally in their job descriptions to convince and recruit. We don’t have the luxury of abandoning the pursuit of players with a NMC because it’s a “lost cause”. It’s literally management’s duty to press the issue. Certainly as a message board poster the bar for reasonable consideration is, then, met. Not to mention 75% of the league doesn’t have the clause. it me be there’s no viable trade available.. but your response was actually a non-sequitur to the point I raised

Which of those first rounders gets just as much in a trade? It’s always great when the assets we are more wanting to trade happen to be just what the other team needs, amirite?

The Quinn example is a good argument for why both optimism being warranted and caution when projecting out for next year are both apt. When considering team building in the immediate future (in the name of achieving a goal, presumably playoffs), i don’t believe the issue is one where said optimism strictly applies for the better Re: Quinn: we aren’t (see: shouldn’t be) in the business of development years anymore. It’s great Quinn appears to be coming along, im optimistic on his future, but it doesn’t change the fact we were counting on him for a full season of production in the name of helping facilitate a playoff berth: that was supposed to be the goal. Obviously his season in totality has fallen drastically short on that front. So we have to look at Quinn both in the context of an individual level and what the team expected of him. The latter is a management flaw. We can be optimistic about Kulich, but in the spirit of addressing the thread supposition, I think counting on a full season of solid production from Kulich next year in any kind of important role is negligent team building, optimism/pessimism neither here nor there

Thompson is a 1C, by leaps and bounds. If Thompson as 1C isn’t getting your team to finish *16/32* the issue is assuredly assuredly with the rest You can just feel it, eh? The creeping narrative. no. Lol. We do not need to “find a way to draft a 1C”. Nic DeLorean was traded ages ago, we don’t need to time travel back to 2015 build a competent team. Stop scape goating the few good players. This regime is pathetic if Tage at 1C isn’t good enough for them to build out the rest. We have 2 first overalls on D and a 3rd lol

GMs don’t want to be the guy to get “embarassed” by dealing the pick that becomes the star it’s all about job security to these guys if a GM struts up to the podium and takes the consensus pick, no one is going to blame the guy if the pick doesn’t amount to what is expected: they went with what the world said They are risk-averse. Got out on a limb and it backfires, you’ll get lambasted. We can be sure in cases of similar analysis the safe course is default, rather than what’s actually considered to be best for team in greatest likelihood

Well yes obviously by “more” I’m referring to quality and not shear quantity. “Win now assets relative to how we project the team to be affected in the macro in 2025” i think it’s actually the pick, the mystery box being OVER valued by GMs that results in few swaps of those assets, rather than an overvaluing of the cars already driven off the lot

Right it’s just originally you opined the pick would probably be worth more in a trade. So clinging to that I suggested I’d rather trade the pick (get the better return) and also roster the better 2025 player in power. If dealing power returns more win-now assets than dealing the pick, it might change my calculation Essentially I’d award 2 points to any aspect of the trade (s) combination that results in better on-ice aptitude for now, and award 1 point to any aspect of the trade combo that results in better projected aptitude in the “future” term

If there’s truly a substantial gap in perception that SCREAMS trade. (Should we land the pick) consider there are infinite parallel universes (there are): yet, in not one does a team select a left shot D man at first overall 3 times in a row Legit can’t happen lol

Any time you have the ability to pencil in a Juri Kulich to a prominent role based on an extrapolation of some rookie-ish stats put up while there was no pressure on team and said player ala Jack Quinn, you have to do so

Ya I mean if you have the confidence to think Schafer is going to eclipse Power at the fledgling age of 20 to the tune of being sure about it to extent that it’s worth having a significantly weaker player in the meantime for a few years, and probably a weaker return, so be it. Personally i can’t even fathom carrying about laying that 2-years-from-now brick before coming anywhere close to laying the bricks for a playoff berth in the now, but it’s to each their own the ability to push the timeline back for it being our true window, AGAIN, with sending Power out in favour of an 18 year old, would be undeniably appealing to a regime looking to keep costs down and expectations low

That’s 2 years away! And you said Quinn would be our best F this year, so That’s not a shot. We just can’t mess with this logic anymore it doesn’t matter what we firmly believe will happen several years down the line: what matters is, in good conscience, assembling the team next year we think BEST has the opportunity to win

Ymmv then but I’m definitely moving the pick. If your analysis is correct and the pick would fetch more - option 1, trade the pick: better return assets for now, better defender for right now (Power) option 2, trade power: weaker return assets for now, weaker defender for right now (Schaefer) im not sacrificing a better outlook for next year, two fold, in exchange for the chance Schaefer ends up better than OP down the line Not close to be honest given how crucial it is for this team to win, for once

Did Adams hack your account EEE

What has more value in a trade, the pick as is or Power?

Maybe in theory, but this is absolute fantasy land. This gets suggested every year and it never happens We want to willingly increase the degree of difficulty of a build we can’t get going, as is, by saddling Kevyn Adams with the need to make a great trade involving Power? incredibly hard pass. We talk on the daily that Adams has his back against the wall in trades. Like a lamb to the slaughter if we send him out into negotiations with teams knowing we need to trade a specific D man

Bob’s rankings are out, particularly of note with the Sabes in the running for 1 overall. #1 is, of course, a left shot D-man

We have no interest in making the playoffs next year if Kulich lines up in the top 6 to start the year Like, zero but to answer your question: no it’s not a desired stat line for a C on this particular team, because we don’t seem to have any traditional playmaking centres