sabresparaavida

The only players that would make any sense to acquire with 11+ would be Kocecny and to a lesser extent Drysdale. They just traded for Drysdale, so I can’t see them moving him that quickly (he’s more of the same anyways, except right handed). Maybe 11OA Frost+Cam York? I don’t know, not seeing a potential trade that would appeal to both sides, unless Kocecny isn’t re-signing.

I’d take McDavid. Analytically, at 5 on 5, he slightly edges Crosby out straight up in the postseason, and when you take into account team relative analytics, McDavid is the more impactful player by a notable amount. On the Power play, McDavid has a bigger advantage, and on the PK they are both similar. McDavid also has already surpassed Crosby’s career PK time in the postseason. Put McDavid on those Penguins teams and the win at least the same amount of cups. Crosby on the Oilers would be at 0 still.

Nobody says that he is as good as Gretzky. But he is the closest thing in the modern league, which is why there are comparisons. McDavid at 27 has lead the league in scoring 5 times, and while he likely doesn’t catch Gretzky’s 11, he only needs 2 more to have second place, which he’s fairly likely to do. McDavid isn’t just a regular season player, leading the league in the postseason 2 of the last 3 seasons. But it takes a team to win a cup. Gretzky was great, but so were the teams he was on for the cup wins. If he could do it by himself, why didn’t he win one in his 12 seasons away from the Oilers? The Oilers still won a cup in 1990 without Gretzky.

To be fair, that’s points on 3 of the 4 oiler goals before game 4. And Gretzky had a much much better supporting cast than McDavid ever has. 6 other hall of famers on those oilers teams compared to McDavid only having Draisaitl.

If he’s Ennis without the concussions, that would be a solid addition to the team.

I’d find acquiring Laughton disappointing

Fwiw, Krebs’ last season in the WHL had an NHLE of 44 points.

This is not surprising in the slightest. The Canes have a roster that is near the top of the league for the last 4 years (3 points from the Presidents trophy last year, 2nd in the league the year before, 6 points away the year before that, 2 points away the year before that). Their roster is near completion, and if they are trading a high end established NHL player, it would be for established NHL players. They aren’t going to downgrade their roster for futures, as they are highly competitive now. They likely want a starting goalie (Ullmark?) or blue line help depending on how their free agent situation goes. Prospects or picks may be brought in, not as the main piece of the trade, but as supplemental value to even things out.

I’d think it has to be playoffs or fired for Kevyn Adams at this point. There’s a total of 1 GM in the NHL with a longer tenure than KA who has not made the playoffs with his current team: Steve Yzerman. Yzerman had a history of winning GM of the year in 2015, and laid the foundation for back to back cup wins, by drafting, signing, or re-signing pretty much all of Tampa’s key players for those runs. Kevyn Adams doesn’t have that kind of history to have a longer grace period, and keeping him another year if they miss the playoffs this upcoming season would make the Sabres an even bigger joke of an organization.

I doubt Tampa would trade Jeannot for a 3rd, they paid nearly an entire draft’s worth of picks to get him, it would surprise me if they took less than a second to trade him. I also don’t think this is more than the Eichel package, that package had 2 firsts (1st + Krebs) and Tuch who at that point was a good 2nd liner with one of the better contracts in the league, long term and less than 5 million a year, with his contract he more than made up the rest of the package here. I do think this is too much for Cirelli though, but also I don’t think we have the pieces Tampa would want. A three way trade is really the only way I could see a Cirelli trade happening.

Of course Eichel was demanding a trade, which does make it a different scenario (unless Tkachuk does the same).

Of course it’d be ~10 million over cap on a 20 man roster. (Estimates in millions for new contracts: Reinhart ~8, Mitts ~6, UPL ~5, Zadarov ~3, Girgs ~1.5)

Several forwards and UPL grew up under Granato’s watch, but was that due to Granato, or was it just them growing up?

I feel like Utah is not cold enough to have a yeti for the mascot, but that may just be me.

Absolutely not… unless there was a considerable return outside of just taking on Skinner. Having Celebrini is worth more than not having Skinner’s contract, and if getting rid of Skinner is such a big issue, we could just buy him out. A buyout this summer would save us ~14.5 million over the next 3 years, and add a 2.4 million cap hit on the 3 following years.

This is true, however he has not returned to that level of play since. He has been decisively worse the last 2 years than during his rookie season. Generally you like to see improvements from young players, not them getting worse.

The Chart showed (If were talking about the same one) that he made the long stretch pass down the ice more successfully than just about anyone. Which was around 18% IIRC.

Very, very unlikely, but the Tampa game I doubt will have any significance besides +1 or +2 points. If the Sabres were to somehow make it back into the playoffs it would be from beating the red wings in their 3 remaining games as well as a strong performance for the other 18.

The biggest difference in production this year and last is that last year he had an uncharacteristically high shooting percentage at 14.7%. The year prior it was 8.5%, and before that 6.7%. This season it is 9.4%, and probably closer to what his career average will be. His assists per game and shots per game are pretty close to last year’s numbers. Another limiting factor is that last season a lot of Cozen’s production came off the rush, and the Sabres as a whole have been a somewhat less rush heavy team this year, trying to be a more defensively responsible team.

With a 2 point game last night, that brings his total NHL points up to an average of 1 over the last 4 seasons.

Drew Srafford’s Career best was 52 points, something Mitts has already surpassed.

He also leads the team in controlled zone entires, which IMO is a pretty big weakness for this team.

Tage has 5 goals and 7 points in the last 5 games.

So the coach that took him from an afterthought and turned him into a star (the perception last year) is suddenly the coach that ruined him. Huh.

Hard to really say, as all I’ve really known is droughts (didn’t see the Bills make it till I was 15, then the Sabres). Knowing what success is like might make this nonsense more bearable, as I have something good to remember, or more painful as I realize how far they’ve fallen. I’d guess slightly easier, as there isn’t much expectation for success when you’re used to failure, and without that expectation, losing is less painful.