Doohicksie

Which is even worse... giving up Mitts for an underperforming asset.

I think he could have brought Mitts in at $6M without messing the rest of the cap up. He's gonna have to pay Byram now instead. The thing that baffles me is that, according to the Mitts camp, the team never even approached them about extending him. Mitts was the perfect Swiss Army Knife forward: Can play wing or center, was okay centering the 3rd line but when Tage was injured he filled in very creditably as 1C. Why would you NOT want that kind of player on your roster? If Casey would have signed for $6M I think you do that all day long. McLeod is making $4.2M and is about a 30 point player at 3C. You get almost twice that production out of Mitts and he seemed content as the 3C who rotated up to the top 6 when needed. It gave the HC great flexibility for juggling the roster, especially when injuries occurred. Another comp would be FLA 3C Anton Lundell, who makes $5M and is about a 30-35 point player. When I look at it all these different ways I'm just aghast that Kevyn so readily parted with Mitts. Think what Lindy could do with his forward lines if he still had Mitts.

I still haven't worked out in my mind why Kevyn thought this was a good trade, and why he thought Byram is a good fit for this team. I just don't see it.

Clifton? Muel? (Not "veteran" enough for you?)

It could be just that, for whatever reason, Quinn and Cozens aren't clicking this year; maybe swap 2RW with 3RW, swapping Zucker and Quinn and keeping NAK on 2LW.

I suggested something similar, but it was more of a straight up swap of 4C with 2C. @Porous Five Hole's idea actually keeps Cozens in the top six which is different from my suggestion. I think either is worth trying. Let's see what practice lines look like the next few days.

Ah yes, Dallas.... where careers go to die in obscurity.

Absolutely. Reino was my favorite Sabre when he was here; I never liked Eichel (in terms of the person, not in terms of the player). After that, Mitts was one of my faves. Part of it was their demeanor, but part of it was that they were both very good players.

At this point in time I think dealing both Reinhart and Mittelstadt were Kevyn's biggest mistakes. What would the dynamic have been if Kevyn moved Eichel but signed Reinhart long term? We can only wonder.

When Kevyn came in, he wanted to do yet another rebuild. Eichel wanted no part of it and then the neck thing reared its ugly head. But even before the injury was the 1-year bridge deal to Reino. To me, that was the first sign that Kevyn wanted to rebuild. He was determined to jettison Eichel and also seemed to think dealing Reinhart away was part of that plan. After being on a 2 year bridge, Kevyn signed him to a 1 year bridge which seemed to indicate Kevyn was going to move on from Reinhart. That's my perception anyway.

He said neither he nor his agent were ever approached by Kevyn to extend him. I also think he said he would have preferred to stay a Sabre.

I was going to say the same.

Cozens to 4C, Krebs to 2C, with Quinn and NAK. Or if you want to look at it differently, Quinn to the 4th line, Lafferty/Benson to the 2nd line. Krebs is never going to be a true 2C but as a temporary measure to shake things up... yeah, maybe.

I'm not ready to admit that giving Mitts away to get Byram was a good move. It's starting to evolve that the reason isn't Byram himself (I think he fits Lindy's system okay), but that without Mitts the offense has holes. If the second line was clicking I wouldn't be missing Casey. That was, by the way, why I liked Mitts so much: You could play him at any Top Nine forward position and he would do well and elevate his teammates. Maybe Zucker or McLeod is that guy now, but I haven't seen enough of either one yet.

So going into last night's game they were 3rd place in their division. With the loss to Florida they dropped to 7th in the division, 12th in the conference. Does that affect anyone's view of whether they make the playoffs? I think they make it. I think Sabres will continue to grow as the season plays out. A team like the Panthers is already mature, knows there system, and the handful of new guys are just following along. The fact that they couldn't close the deal after hanging with the Panthers for two periods doesn't concern me that much.