GASabresIUFAN

That's fair. By the way, the scout's interview agrees with you and me about what Buffalo should do. Beniers!

I agree and have said as much in this thread and others. The biggest hurdle is if management wants to move on and Jack remains sidelined do they run the risk of the his NMC kicking in before they can get a good price.

I think we need more options in the polls. I want Girardi back and I like Ellis in the organization but not sure as an Asst. Ultimately this decision is up to Granato.

I agree and have been saying this since TM first started tossing away high draft picks. We needed to keep our picks, draft and develop and then supplement with vets to fill holes.

https://www.audacy.com/wgr550/sports/sabres/dreger-sabres-may-have-to-lower-asking-price-for-jack-eichel-for-more-clubs-to-truly-engage "Sabres may have to lower asking price for Jack Eichel for more clubs to truly engage" Lets the markdowns begin as predicted. Jack wants surgery, Adams reiterated today that the Sabres are against the surgery. No surprise that teams don't want to invest to heavily on damaged goods. I wouldn't either. As I said earlier KA will be lucky to get three pieces for him.

I'd like to address the bad apple theory. I think there are some, but most are just in the wrong culture. Take DIggs in Minn. Bad apple there, model citizen here. The Braves were and still are, to a certain extent, great at taking other team's bad apples and turning them into team first guys. Guys like Bobby Bonilla and Gary Sheffield were considered bad guys yet here they played well and fit into the team. ] Part of that is these guys want to be part of winning teams that therefore have a winning culture. (The winning comes first before the culture imho). They are competitors and hate losing. Jack and Sam are such guys and our team lets face it had a me first losing culture. The only fix is to build a team of guys that grow together and learn to win together. I think the Sabres for the first time in a decade have that opportunity.

It all sounds like a proper rebuild; finally. No short cuts. I'm still not convinced that Sam and Jack need to go to accomplish this team first mission, but I recognize the likelihood. The proof about Granato is last season. He took guys like Asplund, Mitts and Thompson, who most here wrote off at various times, and got them to play better hockey. He got more out of Bryson then RK, and got Dahlin, Jokiharju and Skinnner out of the dog house and back to being themselves. Now can this teacher keep that momentum going. I think so. What I'm not convinced about is whether KA and Karmanos can get the right players in here to supplement the kids and make us a better team and move one step closer to contention. Honestly it all starts with goaltending. If they don't fix that nothing else really matters.

Neither do Reinhart and ROR and they seem to do pretty well in the NHL. His speed doesn't concern me at all. My personal list is Beniers, Eklund, Power. I think the Sabres right now seem to be Power, Eklund, Beniers.

Living high on the hog with some of TP's money.

Murray may not known about his personal problems, but as the former Ast GM of the Sens Murray knew that Lehner had lingering issues from a concussion and other injuries when he acquired for a 1st and took on Legwand's contract. Lehner hadn't established himself at a No.1 goalie when acquired over 5 years in Ottawa because of a string of injuries. He was damaged goods when acquired. TM also paid a 1st for a guy, when similar goalies like Cam Talbot, were going for a 2nd or less. Furthermore he took on a bad contract. Taking this contract should have lowered the price of the deal. It was a bad deal from the start made worse by the loss of the 1st rd pick in one of the deepest drafts ever in 2015. They took Colin White (21st) with that pick, but we could have had All-stars forwards Brock Boeser (23rd), Travis Konecny (24th) or even future all-star goalie Iiya Samsonov (22nd) instead. TM's bad drafting and stupid decisions such as this trade are the foundation of why we are where we are today. PS TM acquired Halak in the Ryan Miller deal and then traded him (and a 3rd) for Neuvirth and a guy who refused to play for us named Kleska. Neuvirth was 25 when we acquired him and was very solid in Wash with a .910 and 2.67 in 134 NHL games over parts of 6 seasons. In his 29 games with us all he did was play well with a .921 save %. TM then downgraded him by trading him for Chad Johnson (then 29) and a 2016 3rd. After that deal TM went to get his guy and acquired then injured Lehner who was 24 and in 86 NHL games he posted very similar numbers to Neuvirth at .914 and 2.88. Just think had TM left well enough alone, he could have ridden the 25 year old Neuvirth for a couple of years, kept the pick and we would have had our goalie of the future in Samsanov or two top wingers.

The world and the Sabres would be a better place, although honestly the deals I dislike more where the horrible Lehner trade and the even dumber McNabb trade.

We have to trade something to get 3. If we walk away from the draft with Power and Eklund or Power and Beniers plus a forward early in the second, I don't think anyone would complain to much.

I agree, nor is it wrong for this franchise to grab the No. 1 consensus player. I think hindsight will show it to be a mistake (like Seiling over Bossy or Reinhart over Draisaitl) if we lose out on Eklund and Beniers because of it, but I don't think we can fault this franchise with so many needs from taking a guy who at worst looks like a long-term top 4 D.

I'm ok with this. I'd take him and Beniers over Power. Beniers and Eklund are 2 & 3 on my consensus board, but I think forward over defense in this draft.

actually historically teams that break even or are just a little positive in differential make the playoffs. It's going to be an uphill climb to get even there if both Sam and Jack are traded away with only futures in return. Sadly I think this is the likely scenario. Mitts isn't ready for top line center duty and Cozens isn't ready for 2nd line duty. My prayer is that we find away to retain one of the two. If we can, then I think we have an opportunity with improvements in D and goaltending to get to break even and contend for a playoff spot. However I'm an optimist in general.

The formula is actually simple, but hard to execute. 1) Get better goaltending. This season playoff teams allowed about 2.70 to 2.75 goal per game player. The Sabres allowed 3.50. However Ullmark's GAA was 2.63. That means that in the other 36 games the Sabres allowed about 4 goals per game. Awful. Get Ullmark level goaltending for a season and you are about 70 goals improved. 2) Part of step 1 is getting more consistent D zone play from our D group. IMHO that means having at least 2 defensive first D in the top 6. 3) Improve the offense. Losing Sam and Jack unfortunately will make a short term O improvement nearly impossible unless we get at least one real center and a good winger back in the packages for those players. Personally, I think we will see continued improved O production from Mitts, Cozens, and R2 which in ordinary circumstances would help improve the offense over last year. A full year of Granato should also help, but it likely won't be enough. If I'm KA, my focus once the decisions on Jack and Sam are made, the priority is D and goaltending. That should make the team competitive most nights.

I think it does. It's ok just admit it.

Especially considering he was drafted with one of the picks TM sent back to LA in the horribly stupid McNabb trade.

Is this an admission?

Granato is the coach. Now let's get some players. KA, can we get a goalie please. We have a nice open expansion protected slot. Let's fill it soon.

No one said they did a good job, just they weren't out of left field hires. Also Phil is the D coordinator and PP coach in Arizona. He'll get another HC gig sooner then later.

I like the hire and honestly expected it at the end of the season. Don is an experienced coach at all levels especially development and proved last season he can coach in the NHL and keep a team at the bottom of the standings playing hard every night. Now can he teach these kids how to win in the NHL? We can gripe about the previous coaches (and y'all know what I think about Rasputin and his hire), but they were all valid hires to a certain extent. DB was a proven NHL Cup winning coach. Housley was a HOF player and a top NHL asst that was on most list of up and coming coaches. Rasputin had been an NHL coach and had success in Europe and was allegedly a very motivational guy. They all failed here. Looking back on it, I think the coaches were less the problem then the roster except Rasputin. Lack of depth on offense, poor goaltending, plodding defense at times etc.... I don't think anyone except Trotz could have succeeded with the crap rosters we had. That said Rasputin is the one coach who statistically destroyed offensive production from his top players.

Most of the HS kids were from Culver and Shattucks-St Mary’s. Toews, Stafford, KO, Crosby, Keller, MacKinnon, among many other played at Shattucks. Culver isn’t as deep, but Ryan Suter and Nik Dow’s played there.

How in G-d's name are 6 guys going to cover and access 300 kids across 2 continents in over 25 different leagues? It's hard enough with 20 guys and with full seasons, but when you start limiting the number of opportunities for the scouts to see the guys in person it makes it that much harder. Here are the leagues players were drafted from last year: OHL, WHL, QMJHL, USHL/USNDTP, Big 10, Hockey East, SHL, SWE-1, Sweden Jrs, SM-Liiga, Finnish Jrs, KHL, Russian Jrs, DEL (germany), Swiss-1, Czech, AJHL, OJHL, BCHL, CCHL, plus High Schools from Ontario, Minn, Wis, Mass, Conn and Indiana. That's 26 leagues right there and it doesn't include Latvians, Slovakians, and other Europeans.

I now have 9 final or June rankings. 15 players appeared on all the lists with another 5 on 8 of the 9. There are 32 players exactly who appear on 5 or more of the rankings. Tier 1 - Powers; Tier 2 - Beniers and Eklund Tier 3 - Clarke, Hughes, and Guenther Tier 4 - Johnson, McTavish, Wallstadt and Edvinsson Big Gap Tier 5 Lucius, Lysell, Sillingner and Raty Tier 6a (8 ballots, except Olausson who was on 9) - Svechkov, Lambos, Olausson, Tier 6b -Chibrikov, Coronato, Cossa, Othmann, Gap Tier 7 (7 Ballots) - Robertsson, Pinelli, Samoskevich Tier 8 (6 Ballots) - Ceulemans, Stankoven, Rosen and L'Heureux. I won't be surprised if these guys actually go before the guys in Tier 7 especially Ceulemans and Stankoven. Gap Tier 9 (5 Ballots) - Bolduc, Toumaala, Bourgault and Pastujov Gap Tier 10 (4 ballots) - Behrens and Chayka