Drag0nDan

He's going to ask for something in the 7-8 range if you want to lock him up for more than like 3-4 years. If that's the case you'd have to at least consider it right?

This is my thoughts on gutting it. Eichel could fetch the most in a trade, but he's by far the best player we've had here in a very long time. I dont need to look at jersey sales to say that he's #1 by a long shot. Skinner's value is super low... so why move him for pennies on the dollar. Dahlin and Joki are on ELCs, I wouldn't move them when i can likely add years of team control after next year. If they're smart they lock up oloffson for like a 5ish mil cap hit, thats fairly palatable. Everyone else? I'm listening to offers. Reinhart, Montour, Risto are the big 3. It's probably a bit early to give up on mittelstadt and Thompson - but you can't also go into a season fully expecting them to contribute more than they have. If packaging them in gets you a better return, I'm for it. But this team has like no forward prospects, so its hard to consider moving the ones they do have. I just have no idea who's ready to come up from AHL, because so few players have come up in the last several years that i just assume they'll suck when they're here. Can Borgen play at the NHL? He's played 2 years at AHL- when else does he get a shot? What about Bryson? 3 year starter in college, played real well last year. Hickey? 4 years. Do we have any forwards who can play?

The team had ROR Kane and Lehner and they stunk. They had eichel and ROR and finished dead last. Both GMs (GMTM, and JB) 1 -mismanaged the cap 2 - they mismanaged young talent 3- they mismanaged trade assets 4 - both hired the wrong coaches. That to me, is why they were fired. And if you look at that, its justifiable. The scandella trade was a disaster (the blues traded a 2nd for him and extended him by the end of the year... we got to watch michael frolik play hockey). Neither GM was ever able to lock up a quality player at a below-market deal in their entire terms. IE David Pastrnak is 6.6 million for 3 more years. Everyones at or above market rate. The core is too expensive, and its not good. Its sad to say, but i'd blow this whole thing up if i could. Reinhart, Risto, Montour would all be out. I'm reluctant to extend a mittelstadt or Thompson beyond a qualifying offer, since neither has proven worth on the ice. Either could also be packaged in a trade at this point. I'm not even saying tank. Just need to re-evaluate what this team is, and whether under its current construction it can be successful.

So post-season i was thinking about this... what does this look like? FWD-Eichel, Reinhart, Skinner (NMC, must be protected), Olofsson, Mittelstadt, Thompson, Okposo D-Dahlin, Jokiharju, Montour/Risto (still holding out hope they trade one), McCabe, Borgen, Miller G-Ullmark The protected forwards are probably not even on the roster, and it doesn't make sense to protect 8 skaters unless they still have both montour and risto - or borgen shows some usefulness. I don't think it matters either way as i think this team will be reshaped a bit before 2020-2021 anyway.

Skinner's got a NMC with a bad contract. Finding a taker for the contract will be hard enough, let alone making sure he wants to go there. May as well include him in the untouchables... he'll have to be added to the list of protected for the seattle expansion too.

Yeah - gonna be tough to find a trade partner for one of the worst goalies in the NHL at a 2.75 mil cap hit... especially with a likely lowered salary cap. Holtby played like crap last year, i wonder what his market looks like.

Like - did you even ask him if something was wrong? If the eye thing was an issue you could have maybe put him on IR. Eyes are KIND OF IMPORTANT to play goalie... Not that we had much of a backup plan with Ullmark getting hurt

He didn't play a lot, but buffalo won 0 games when he started from 10/24-2/1. His stats are terrible, and even more when you consider how hot he was at the start. Take out the hot start and he was .886 sv% the rest of the year. During the 13 start losing streak it was .872. Figure an average of 30 shots a game. Thats 3.84 goals per game at his worst, or 3.40 for the remainder of the year after the hot start.

He started 30 games, and gave up 5 or more goals in 9 of them.

I mean - we're a stinky organization before the mass firings. There was drama with the layoffs/furloughs before, team never makes the playoffs, players acting like they're being saved when they get traded... not a lot going well at the moment.

If they promote from within then i guess it makes sense in a way. Maybe it was rushed - but if Mair (or someone) is who they want running their AHL and development, it makes it difficult to keep Taylor. I'm not sure i draw the "they need to win in the AHL" narrative that's been constantly pushed. I see it as - young players need to learn how to play complete hockey. I don't know that there's a huge correlation of being a good hockey player, to winning in the AHL.

I think they looked at Carolina's operation as a team that's gotten by with a lot less. I find it hard to blame coaches for the PK struggles - having a goalie with an eye patch was certainly not ideal. The PP started hot, but never really developing a PP2 unit really hurts there. I'm not sure its the coaches fault that there wasn't a capable player on the roster able to center that line.

If that's the case - maybe they're trying to promote hard workers and cut the people who were seemingly coasting? Nobody wants to go to a company that fires people like that- but if they promote good dedicated people, they might be trying to create an environment where they reward good performance.

Last piece is the important piece... it'll fade, but right now its unlikely that players/coaches/scouts would want to come here. The light workload piece also triggers me... were these guys coasting?

Frolic and Simmonds cost cap room this season too... again... The cap guru didn't have that foresight?

You're probably right, didn't realize how many picks in the next 2 drafts are already gone. 2 and 6 gone this year in the skinner deal. 2 in 2021 for miller, 3 in 2021 for Vesey, and 5 in 2021 for Wayne Simmonds for like a day. Not a lot of bullets in the gun the next 2 years. Looking forward, I'd probably like to get picks back at this point.

I think we probably just bring back most of the RFA's, spend a lot less on AHL (if there is one), and figure out a way to upgrade 2C. I think its probably montour/risto + mittelstadt and some picks - i'd probably keep the first rounder this year (we pick relatively high and the targets were probably already established before the firings). But i'd be open to moving several (lack of scouting staff) this year.

Felt that way about pominville when he first came up - and he had torn up the AHL for like 2 and a half years. He was constantly skating with the puck and getting swallowed up. Learning to play better without the puck, when to pass, and then learning that with NHL speed. Takes time, and JB missed the mark on his development. Ennis was kinda like that too, except he legit never figured out how to play offense without the puck on his stick. By the time he got sent down i was wondering if it was casey asking

Yeah. 2C goes a long way to helping this team. If you can line up a team with olofsson-jack-kahun (possibly a reach to put 2 youngsters with jack, but he really does elevate the people around him) and skinner-2C-reinhart you're looking at a solid top 2 lines. MoJo moves to the 3rd line where he probably should be (with the ability to play up the lineup in a pinch). Not sure how else that shakes out - but you have thompson, okposo, maybe Larsson, Lazar for those final 4 spots - plus asplund/mittelstadt. Getting 2C is going to cost them though. Probably Risto/Montour, Mittelstadt is the starting point. If that's the case, how do the D-pairings look after the fact? Righties: Montour, Risto, Joki, Miller Lefties: McCabe, Dahlin Oh man... i don't wanna know what happened to the younglings junior sabres....

Businesses should all run independently of one another. If the Bills make money, and the Sabres lose money - it doesn't make sense to rob peter to pay paul. You figure out how to stop losing so much money with the Sabres. If this was 2 sales business units - say A vs. B. Would you move A people/profits over to the B group to help prop it up? Or would you re-invest in those people/profits to try and grow A. Typically A is the answer here. B would be where you are doing layoffs - bring in new people and ideas, as well as some cost cutting. I'd say the same thing about his oil business - it's a long game there, don't sell stuff to pay for the sabres misfortunes.

I get that they aren't like in the business of making huge profits with a hockey team. But this whole thing hurts them even more - they clearly are hearing rumblings of 2020-2021 without fans (massive hit to revenue). They've already been losing money for a few years now it would seem (Excessive player/coach/gm buyouts, lower season ticket numbers and corresponding rate hikes). Yes they are looking at the bottom line - because a 300 million dollar investment shouldn't be losing money YoY, while not growing in value. Lots of leagues probably fold from this too - since many have no TV contracts. Scouting and the league in general are going to get weird. I wonder if they end up with more of the soccer mindset with drafted prospects being available to loan out to foreign leagues, or if college hockey will see an increase.

If the thoughts are - draft well, build a core, extend that core... that's like the main successful strategy that works in all sports. Keep the players around that make it go, and augment it. Stop trying to just band-aid issues with free agents.

I feel like teams were able to exploit the defense a bit. Get caught chasing behind the net, not rotating quickly enough, and just generally not stopping cross ice passes. Also felt we were a bit passive in pressuring teams so they could just a- take the zone easily and b- maintain the zone. Goaltending was also a bit of an issue, felt like short side was a gaping hole all the time.