PalmTreeMafia

Update: I'm demoting Allen, dropping Foster, promoting Lattimore, and adding Derek Barnett. 1. Garrett 2. Adams 3. Hooker 4. Thomas 5. Allen 6. Lattimore 7. Barnett 8. Howard 9. Davis 10. Williams

I voted for Norm Maciver and am hoping for a Maciver/Housley ticket. What's really appealing about Maciver is that he has been there since the beginning of the great Kane/Toews Blackhawks dynasty that has made the playoffs 9 straight times, reached the Conference Finals for 5 of those times, and won 3 Stanley Cups. Looking back at Sabres history, you'll notice that we like to draw GM's from the great dynasties in NHL history (Imlach from the 60's Leafs, Bowman from the 70's Canadiens, Muckler from the 80's Oilers, Regier from Al Arbour's Islanders). I think this is the way to do it: promote guys who have first-hand experience building NHL franchises from the bottom to the very top and staying at the top for a sustained period of time. Pros for Housley: high character guy, has paid his dues coaching at all levels of hockey (high school, juniors, international, NHL), has knowledge and credentials to rebuild our defense and open up our style of offense, works well with young hockey players, Sabres connection doesn't hurt.

Agreed. When you move every Sabre to their most natural position, our projected RW franchise depth looks like this: 1. Okposo 2. Bailey 3. Baptiste 4. Fasching 5. minor leaguers and over-the-hill vets No one below Okposo projects to a top 6 NHL forward, and you also have to assume one of the #2-4 that I listed won't work out. So yes, RW is a need position too. I would rather use a top 9 pick on BPA rather than reach for a defenseman, and Owen Tippett happens to be a guy who could fit as both BPA and an area of need.

Gorges deserves to be in this category because he is a terrible professional hockey player at this stage of his career, and he will be making $4 million next season. It doesn't matter if he averages 20 minutes on the ice or 16 minutes. Any time greater than 0 minutes is too much time on the ice for him. His leadership skills are also vastly overrated. All he did this season was complain about how much it sucks being on a team that sucks. Wow. Great leadership. So inspirational. Kulikov doesn't make this list because he's an unrestricted free agent next season and is therefore no longer a salary cap concern.

Your opinion is suspect and lacks supporting evidence. You are going to have a difficult time defending a GM whose team is right up to the salary cap and yet finished 5th worst in the league standings. That is a very poor return-on-investment no matter how you slice it. I'll tell you what, though: this thread was really meant to get everyone's attention, not to run Murray out of town just yet. His resume with Anaheim and Ottawa justified a chance as an NHL GM. Get 2-3 of the guys I mentioned out of here this summer, re-sign Kane, have a good 2017 draft, trade for a good d-man, make the playoffs next season...I'll go back to defending him.

Same. Even our GM specifically called out Moulson last year.

First of all, let's make this clear: Murray is definitely responsible for the contracts of all 4 players I called out. He gave Ennis his contract extension, and the other 3 were brought to the Sabres on Murray's watch. MAYBE I will cut Murray some slack for Moulson (who has provided some production this season, compared to last) and Ennis (2 straight horrible seasons is a long time, but who am I to judge how long he needs to recover from the Ovechkin-induced concussion?), but the contracts for Gorges and Bogosian are as inexcusable as their on-ice performances. Next, to say we're not in cap trouble is myopic. I'm looking at next summer as much as this one. Kane, Reinhart, and Eichel all need to be kept, and Murray will need to re-sign Kane this summer if he plans on keeping him. But we also need to add 3 quality defenseman and another top 6 winger to this roster...and 1-2 of these 4 needs will probably have to be young vets via free agency/trade who will be beyond their entry-level contracts. Finally, if you don't think the current on-ice product has any connection with the general manager's allocation of the team's financial resources, then I don't what else to tell you. Hopefully you can reason that shifting cap money to some areas of the roster prevents a GM from addressing other areas of the roster. The Sabres were at the cap ceiling this season, and it limited what Murray could do to address the horrific defense. Yes, my panties are in a knot. Deal with it.

These 4 players will cost the Sabres about $18 million next season. The 2017-18 salary cap is expected to be about $76 million. So basically, our brilliant GM has managed to allocate 25% of the team's cap space on 4 terrible excuses for hockey professionals who make this team worse every time they step onto the ice. This, folks, is why we can't have nice things. By nice things, I mean a team that makes the playoffs and entertains us. Remember this thread when they try to explain why we couldn't keep all three of Eichel, Reinhart, and Kane. As far as I'm concerned, it's time to give Murray the same level of scrutiny that we've been giving Bylsma for months. What a disgraceful franchise. Sick of this .

If my understanding of the draft lottery rules is correct, we can only pick 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, or 9 this year....so no 4 or 5....someone correct me if I'm wrong...

I'm beyond tired of this excuse. We better not hear it from the mouths of Dan Abysmal or the Dwight Schrute doppelganger on Monday afternoon. This team played just as bad when everyone was healthy as they did at the beginning of the year.

The Bandits are now currently the worst team in the league. Way to go, Terry and Kim. You are the proud owners of THREE underachieving, uninspired, unwatchable sports franchises.

I prefer Girgensons to Larsson, but I'd like to keep both for a while longer if possible. I'm also not opposed to trading either one for the help on defense that is sorely needed. I think both still have upside that a different head coach could tap into, and I definitely don't want to lose either for free in the expansion draft or through free agency.

I really like the idea of drafting OJ Howard, and not just because of his KILLER name. I think he's the only blue-chip player in the draft this year who plays offense. We can run 2 TE sets with him and Clay. He can take a lot of heat off double-teaming Watkins. He's a big target for Taylor over the middle and in the red zone. His blocking skills only help our run game, especially when on the weaker right side. After 57 years, this franchise still has never had a dominant player at the TE position. OJ would be that player. Here's my top 10 list for the draft: 1. Garrett 2. Allen 3. Adams 4. Hooker 5. Foster 6. Thomas 7. Howard ---------division between elite and really good--------------- 8. Davis 9. Lattimore 10. Williams

You clearly know more than just physics. Great post. Reinhart and Kane are both critical pieces to this new Eichel-led Sabres dynasty. Regarding Reinhart: put him at center and watch him flourish. Eichel - Reinhart - O'Reilly - Asplund. Could be best center group in the league in a few years. Regarding Kane: we can afford him. Remember that Gorges will be off the books in 2018. Hopefully Vegas picks up Ennis. Moulson's final year of his contract goes down in cost. Bogosian...well... it...we can still afford Kane. Want to talk trades? How about trading Bylsma? That clown is ruining this franchise. He needs to go.

Bumping this to the top. Anyone with any news whatsoever please post...rumors are great too...

Austin and Falk are decent injury call-up options, but they have no business being regular NHL top-6 guys. I'd be perfectly happy signing Kulikov to a 1-2 year "prove-it" contract. The freak injury he sustained this year is a perfectly valid excuse for his poor performance. Murray still needs to swing a trade for a top-4 D-man. I don't see anyone worth pursuing in free agency. Risto, McCabe, and Guhle are fine by me. Bogo sucks, but with that contract, what can you do about it?

Only 10 players in the league are currently averaging 1.00+ points per game (one of them being Jack Eichel), and you need to be averaging 1.20+ to hit 100. The only way I see the Sabres accomplishing this during the Eichel Era would be if Reinhart seriously steps up his game. Eichel with 40 goals and 60 assists, Reinhart with 30 goals and 70 assists, a left winger like Kane popping in 35+ goals....eh, not likely.... Regarding the topic of era naming, I prefer to define an "era" as a period marked by a rise and then a fall. And looking at the franchise's history, I see roughly 6 of them divided between these years: 1970, 1979, 1987, 1995, 2003, 2014. The first was the Punch Imlach Era defined mostly by the French Connection. The second was the Scotty Bowman Era defined mostly by an aging roster that could just never hit elite level. The third was Gerry Meehan's rebuild that was highlighted with an offensive juggernaut line of future Hall of Famers, but it wasn't enough to get beyond the Montreals and Bostons. The fourth was characterized by Hasek and then a bunch of hard working types to fill out the rest of the roster, but was ultimately crippled by a corrupt and cheap owner who didn't care about winning a Stanley Cup. The fifth was the post-bankruptcy/post-lockout group that had the same GM, the same head coach, a similarly cheap owner, and a similar philosophy as the previous era of building around a great goaltender...but this time with smaller, faster, and ultimately mentally soft skill players. This brings me to the sixth era which I'd say began with the "tank" for Eichel. The blueprint is bigger, tougher, younger, and elite at the center position. In my opinion, this era is merely a top-2 defenseman, a change in coaching philosophy, and a couple more years of experience away from being the best chance our beloved franchise has ever had at winning a Stanley Cup.

The last Bandit juggernaut was in 2008 when they last won the championship. At that point, the team was mostly just a bunch of old vets while the rest of the league was beginning to move toward an up-tempo transition game that relied more on youth and speed. I think the current GM/HC at the time (Darris Kilgour) was great at what he did, but he was also a bit stubborn and behind the times. He doubled down by trading high draft picks for older established vets. This strategy seemed to no longer work in the league, and it led to his eventual firing by 2013. My own personal assessment of the current GM (Steve Dietrich) and HC (Troy Cordingly) are that they are very good at what they do and were forced to rebuild a Bandits franchise without the usual assets that a rebuilding franchise has (Kilgour famously traded away draft picks to the point that the team didn't have a first round pick for 4 straight years - 2013 through 2016). The Bandits managed to reach the finals last year for the first time since 2008, and they did so with a nice mix of young guys, players in their prime, and older vets. They played admirably against a team that just seemed to be flat out better than the rest of the league. I'm not entirely sure what's wrong with this year's team. Injuries have been a minor problem, but not nearly to the extent to justify getting absolutely blown out like they have been all year. Maybe the roster could use more pure shutdown defenders. There's still slightly over half a season left to get things turned around, and their second best forward (Ryan Benesch) should be coming back soon from IR. So if I want to be fair, it's hard for me to blame Terry on any of the Bandits' current problems. If he is cursed, it could be the cosmic karma for getting rich off of destroying the Pennsylvania lands with his fracking ventures.

I don't see how Murray is ever going to get that top-2 d-man that we need at this point. Maybe by trading one or more of our future first round picks? I really don't want to trade Kane, but maybe that's the necessary sacrifice for a top d-man. It's a shame Murray burned through all of our post-Regier trade assets without adding any defensemen beyond Risto, McCabe, and Guhle. And so much salary cap dead wood on next season's roster: Ennis and Gorges at about $4 million, Moulson at $5, Bogosian at $5.5...unbelievable.

Yeah, I get the same sense that Bylsma is safe for a while longer. At least through the beginning of next season. Which is fine by me at this point. It gives me some more time to focus on my life this year rather than waste it on this sinking ship of a franchise. I've got better things to do than continue watching an overrated coach cripple the development of his talented young forwards.

Yes, the Bandits have absolutely fallen off the performance cliff this season in a way that even surpasses the Bills and Sabres (I don't follow the Amerks). The Bandits had a great season last year and made it to the finals, and pretty much the same team from last year returned intact. So on paper, they look strong. And yet most of their 8 games played this season have followed the same pattern: show up listless and get utterly blown out for most of the game, then come back to some extent to make it look respectable, but then lose. They actually played their first complete game last weekend and followed up with a really solid trade for a lefty forward (Pat Saunders), so it's hard to say whether last weekend was an aberration or whether the first 7 games were the aberration. In summary: yes, Terry Pegula is a Terry-bly incompetent owner and everything he touches turns to sh!t. And I doubt he's even aware that he owns the Bandits, which could ultimately work in their favor...

I'm going to go with the 1G/3D/7F format: 1. Lehner 2. Ristolainen 3. McCabe 4. Gorges 5. R. O'Reilly 6. Okposo 7. Kane 8. Larsson 9. Carrier 10. Girgensons 11. Ennis

I see Kane as a top line LW. Or rather, I should say that I see Kane's ceiling as that of a top line LW.

They're not locks. But I prefaced my statement with "in my opinion" because I think Ottawa and Toronto are playoff-caliber teams, and I don't think we can count on them collapsing to the point that we can realistically leapfrog them.

Here's what really matters: After 3 seasons of the new playoff format, we know that 93 points is the bare minimum to make the playoffs in the Eastern Conference. So the Sabres likely need to accumulate at least 44 points in 35 games, which is roughly 1.25 ppg, just to enter the playoff conversation. A pace of winning 2 out of every 3 games from here on out should suffice. In my opinion, the top 7 teams look to be already settled: Caps, Penguins, Blue Jackets, Rangers, Canadiens, Senators, and Maple Leafs. So the Sabres will be in a dogfight with 8 other teams for that final spot. The hottest of the 9 during the home stretch will make it in. For what it's worth, I added up the overtime losses in the Eastern Conference from the past 3 seasons. In the first season, there were 165 OTL with 93 points as the minimum for playoff entry. In the second season, there were 175 OTL with 98 points as the minimum. Last season, there were 152 OTL with 93 points as the minimum. This year, there have been 107 OTL with about 58.2% of all Eastern Conference games already played....putting the entire conference on pace for about 184 OTL after a full season....so it's reasonable to assume that the Sabres will need a few more points beyond 93 to ensure a playoff spot.