msw2112

Hey, now. Let's not overdramatize things. It was FOUR first round picks....And most of those were at the top of the draft. One was our old friend Taylor Hall, who ended up a Sabre anyway and was a huge success with the team. https://oilersnation.com/2020/07/09/throwback-thursday-this-week-in-2007-the-edmonton-oilers-signed-thomas-vanek-to-a-seven-year-offer-sheet/ "Here’s the four players that Edmonton drafted with the picks they would’ve given up: Sam Gagner in 2007, Magnus Paajarvi in 2009 and Taylor Hall in 2010. The 2008 pick was used in a later offer sheet for Dustin Penner."

Casey came on very well at the end of last season under Donny's tutelage. Let's hope he can stay healthy and show continued development.

While the Sabres have a lot of talent in the pipeline, it often takes several years for young players to develop. VO is already developed. He's a proven goal scorer. Keep him, pay him a reasonable but not outrageous salary (he's restricted, so the team has some control) and let him help the team now (this year and into next). I think that he's had a down year due to injuries and the lack of current talent on the roster. When fully healthy and playing with other good players on a regular basis, he's a good NHL player that knows how to put the puck in the net. He's arguably a 2nd-line talent, but if the team improves and becomes stacked with talented forwards (we can only hope), there's nothing wrong with having a player like that on the 3rd line. Back when the Sabres were a good team ('06-'07), they had talented guys on the 3rd line that could score. The 3rd line wasn't just JAGs. If, down the road, the young guys mature, and VO is pushed down or out of the lineup, trade him then. Teams always need goal scorers.

Maybe they are "preserving" him for the trade deadline. Just speculation on my part.

I assume, as mentioned above, that this would be to appease the playes who were denied the opportunity to play for their countries at the Olympics this year.

I don't know anything about these guys either, but the future Sabres roster has a lot of "higher-end" talent projected - Power, Dahlin, Krebs, Quinn, Couzens, etc. You also are going to need solid guys to fill out the 3rd and 4th lines and the 3rd and 4th defensive pairings. It certainly makes sense to take a shot at some of these guys. I assume that if they don't work out in the NHL, they might also be good prospects for filling out the AHL roster in Rochester.

I don't know much about hockey prospects, but Rosen was drafted around where all of the so-called experts had him on their draft boards. So there's that. Based on what little I knew about the kid (basically reading an article or 2 about draft prospects and watching some of the TV coverage), he seemed rather small and his numbers weren't great, so I would not have selected him where the Sabres did. This is truly an "only time will tell" situation. Let the kid develop and see where he ends up. If he's a bust, we can criticize the Sabres then.

If they want to use cap space to overpay a veteran player for the short term (1-2 years), I am OK with that. We need quality veterans on the roster while the kids develop. A goalie would be particularly helpful. What they should not do is take on long-term contracts for overpaid players. I'm glad that Skinner and Okposo are playing well this year and are assets to the team, but their contracts are brutal and we don't need more of those. I'm also OK with some of the cap/money laundering ideas mentioned above to gain some future assets. I don't have the brain power right now to read and understand how it all works, but I get the general idea and think it would be beneficial to the team.

I have had similar trouble picking up the games on the WGR web site or app. You hit the "Listen" button and get some kind of sports talk show, not the Sabres game. In past seasons, I've never had a problem. I did a thread about this a few weeks ago and a fellow Sabrespace member suggested going to NHL.com and the game's Gamecenter, then clicking listen (icon of headphones), and selecting Buffalo-WGR. That has worked for me. The one nuance is that on NHL.com, after selecting WGR, it takes you to a page that says "Videos." You stiil click on the white arrow to start the broadcast, even though you are listenting to audio only, not a video. It works, but it's obviously a poorly designed web page. Why would you launch an audio broadcast from a page entitled "Videos?" But it does work. You just have to overlook the stupidity.

I haven't lived in Buffalo for quite a while, but keep up on the goings on there. Never heard of this guy, but it sounds like he was part of the fabric of the community, so may he rest in peace.

Probably Bryson, Girgs and Okposo. Bryson is a solid young defenseman, and Girgs and Okposo are good veteran players (not great) who provide heart and leadership along with some talent. You need guys like that to mentor the young guys. I think both are under contract. The rest are probably gone, although Vinnie has good speed and some grit and is a decent middle-to-bottom 6 player.

I was never a big fan of this logo and while I like the color combination in and of itself, I don't think it ever made sense to move away from the blue and gold. Their current uniforms are the best looking ones they've had since the 70s. All that said, the goat head/black-red-gray is now nostalgic and I am good with it being a third jersey. Somewhere in the depths of my closet, I have some old goat head hats and t-shirts.

I didn't know Tage had a twin!

Obviously there are some loopholes in our tax system that allow billionaires to be taxed like ordinary folks, but I don't blame the Pegulas for this and I dont think it has anything to do with how they run their professional sports franchises. I also don't think that their failures with the Sabres are tied try trying to make a buck. They have tried a number of different ways to make the team successful (including handing out large contracts to star players), but nothing has worked yet. I think the current course looks promising.

The Sabres are in the early-to-middle stages of a rebuild, which is looking like it is on track. The side-effect of such a rebuild is losing a lot of games. While the young guys develop and the culture slowly changes for the better, they are playing hard and trying to win as many games as they can. They are not tanking - meaning they are not intentionally losing games to try and achieve a higher draft pick. If they were tanking, they would have sent UPL back to Rochester after he started playing well and gone with Dell and Subban. Now, injuries have made a mess of the goaltending situation again, but none of that was intentional. The Sabres are headed for the lottery this season and I believe the organization will do whatever it can to NOT be in the lottery next season (although they still might end up there). In two seasons from now, the lottery will be in the rear-view mirror.

I think the roster, as currently constructed, is short on talent. We have some good players, but not enough difference makers. I have not watched a lot of Sabres games this year, but I did see the third period against Boston. The Bruins entered the period down 3-1. Boston controlled the play the entire 3rd period. When their star players entered the zone, the defense backed up and you just knew the puck will be in the back of the net. And it was. They just took over the game. They tied it up at 3 and won 4-3 in OT. In contrast, I also watched the 3rd period of the San Jose game. The Sabres entered the 3rd period down 3-1. The Sabres controlled the entire period. They skated hard, hit, controlled the puck, controlled the play, etc. Most of the period was in the San Jose zone. That said, they just didn't have enough talent to put the puck in the back on the net when they needed it and lost 3-2. All this said, I do believe that with the incoming talent: Krebs, Peterka, Quinn, Power, Johnson, Samuelsson, Levi, Portillo, etc. and the further maturation of Thompson, Dahlin, Asplund, UPL, and others, and the large number of 1st and 2nd round draft picks in the bank, the Sabres WILL have that kind of talent in the next couple of upcoming season. Trust the process....

If the Sabres were somehow lucky enough to win the lottery again and draft Wright, you give him the opportunity to make the team and if he proves ready, he makes it. If not, he goes back to juniors for more seasoning. Most #1 overall picks come directly into the league, I think, athough I'm sure others on this board would be in a better position to state that than me. In full disclousre, I've never seen Wright play and don't know much about him other than that he's the consensus #1 overall pick next year.

I looked it up. Tage has 1 more point, but 2 more games played. So about the same. I'm not saying that Thompson brings all the intangibles to a team that O'Reilly does, but if Tage contines his upward trajectory and is a solid point producer for many years to come in the NHL, and Ryan Johnson signs with the Sabres and becomes a quality top-6 (or top-4) NHL defenseman, the trade won't look that bad down the road. St. Louis rode O'Reilly to Cup, but that wasn't going to happen in Buffalo. So, while the trade is still ugly at this point, there is potential for it to even out a little bit over the next several years. Also throw in the facts that Tage is 6 years younger than O'Reilly and costs a lot less....

Given how he was regarded when he was drafted - a generational player who was the best defenseman in the draft since Dennis Potvin - he has not lived up to expectations. That said, he's a young, talented guy who should improve with time, age, and seasoning. I could see his blossoming into a top notch NHL player aligning with the Sabres team emerging into a solid NHL team in 2023. I also think that Granato has changed the culture enough that the losing isn't going to weigh on the guys as much as it did the last group, plus, playing an up-tempo, aggressive style is more fun than the Kreguer play-not-to-lose style. It won't last forever, but if the team can get through this season and finish next year above .500 and in the playoff mix, they should be OK. If the losing drags on through the rest of this season and the entirety of next season, it will start to weigh on the guys.

Not necessarily obscure, but you can't overlook Miroslav Satan as one of the all-time great names in sports. Doug Bodger in and of itself isn't a crazy name, but I had a buddy in college from Pittsburgh who was a Bodger fan when Bodger was with the Pens. He said that the font on the Pens' jerseys made the "d" look like an "o" so it looked like "Booger." Some other good names were Bill Hajt (pronounced "Height") and he was very tall. Rick Seiling was a guy with a "high ceiling" but never reached it. Darren Puppa is another good one. Not a Sabre and not even a hockey player, but one of my all-time favorites is former major league pitcher JJ Putz. Again, these names are not obscure, but are fun.

I have no information on this topic, but in my opinion, the Pegulas would not want to sell. After many years of failures, the team finally seems to be moving in the right direction. They have a GM in place who appears to be competent and is someone they know and trust. They have a coach who appears to be competent, has shown an ability to develop players, and a lot of young talent in the pipeline. They've made it through (arguably) the worst of the pandemic, despite the current brief shutdown. The future looks pretty good for the franchise. After football season, if the team continues to play better, as they have been, they will sell more tickets, and if the team continues on its current trajectory, the fans will come back even more over the next couple of seasons. The value of the frachise should increase substantially in the next couple of years.

I'd start with the Bruins. Next come the Leafs and Habs. Then the Sens. Then Philly. Then Pittsburgh. After that, I don't really have strong feelings one way or the other. Bruins and Habs are old Adams Division rivals and have always been in the Sabres' division. The Leafs were in the old Adams Division with Buffalo in the 70s, but then were not in the Sabres' division for a long time (from 1981-1998). The Sens have been in the Sabres' division most or all of their life, although they haven't been in the league that long, from a historical basis. Philly has not been in the Sabres' division, but they are an old Conference rival that has often been a playoff oppenent in years when the Sabres were good. Pittsburgh has been extremely successful in two regimes, the Lemieux-Jagr era and the Crosby-Malkin era, plus they knocked us out of the playoffs way back in 1979, one of the more traumatic games from my youth. .

Milller is an obvious move. I don't see any team offering more than a 3rd for him. I also don't see much of a market for any other veterans and I don't think we should be looking to move any young talent. Most of the veterans are replacement level guys, so other teams already have comparable players and don't need to sacrifice and asset to obtain them. I'd keep KO, Girgs, and Pysyk, as they are solid veterans who have some talent and provide leadership, which we need to have for the younger guys. Skinner is also playing much better this year and has above-replacement-level talent, but no team will go near that contract.

I didn't see last night's game, but listened to the radio broadcast of the 2nd half of it. From what I heard, and from what the statistics say, the Sabres played one of their best, most complete games of the season. They got both 1) NHL-level competent goaltending; and 2) real offense IN THE SAME GAME! I think that Winnipeg even played their starting goalie. Maybe we are on to something. The way UPL started the season, nobody saw this coming. UPL and Tokarski, plus Anderson, if and when he comes back, could actually provide the NHL quality goaltending we've been so badly needing. It's only one game, but it is encouraging and something to build on. Plus, UPL has now peformed well for 3 or 4 games in a row, so maybe it's not an anomoly.

Let's start by winning ONE game and go from there.