All About July 1 wishes

[LGR4GM]

I know its hard to trade up in any draft. It doesn't happen a lot but some times circumstances make it possible. Why do I mention this? I also know the sabres do not seem willing to move up in the draft, but they should bump themselves up. They need to draft a center and I think after about 12-14 picks those guys who will be pretty good, may be gone.

 

Carolina, drafts 12, they have an internal cap thats lower than the actual 1. They spend enough to be competitive but not to the limit. The canes have some holes on forward and some major ones on defense as it looks like a couple of there UFA will be released because they will simply be to expensive. The sabres should use this to their advantage. The canes would only be moving back 4 spots, surely we have a defender and our first rounder than make it worth it for them to move back that many. I do not think the sabres will really explore this route as they want to trade for an immediate impact player but I am thinking to the Myers draft, what if we didnt move up that 1 spot? Would LA now be bragging about there 6'8" all star defender? I am unsure what it would take to crawl up 4 spots but I think its feasible to try.

[LastPommerFan]

Am I the only one who thinks our problems are 80% defensive, and that the centerman that we NEED could be had in the $3M-$4M range or with a Young D-Man & 2nd round pick trade?

[Weave]

Am I the only one who thinks our problems are 80% defensive, and that the centerman that we NEED could be had in the $3M-$4M range or with a Young D-Man & 2nd round pick trade?

 

I don't know if you are the only one but if I were GM my priorities would be, #1 center, top pair defenseman, #3 center, 2nd pair defenseman. In that order. I'd also look to upgrade one of my top 3 RW's as well.

[wacollin]

To be fair, he had consistantly improved since he took over as the true #1 starter in 2007. This year was the first year that he went backwards. Next year will show whether he can regroup and improve, or if he will fade like so many others.

 

 

Took my next statement, it's the body of work. I also think he got a lot more confident, probably too much. We will see where next year takes him... One could argue he also became cocky during the last year, or more so anyway.

[LastPommerFan]

I don't know if you are the only one but if I were GM my priorities would be, #1 center, top pair defenseman, #3 center, 2nd pair defenseman. In that order. I'd also look to upgrade one of my top 3 RW's as well.

 

Now you're going to make me put together even more data and statistics...

 

:nana:

[Derrico]

I don't know if you are the only one but if I were GM my priorities would be, #1 center, top pair defenseman, #3 center, 2nd pair defenseman. In that order. I'd also look to upgrade one of my top 3 RW's as well.

 

Don't always agree with you weave by I sure do in the order you provided. Having a legit #1 center should elevate Vanek and would allow Roy to drop to line 2 in which I think he's a good #2 guy just not #1 material. Top pair Dman to play 25 minutes a night with Myers would be awesome and a #3 center would also be great so we can put Hecht back on the wing were he belongs.

[Taro T]

I don't know if you are the only one but if I were GM my priorities would be, #1 center, top pair defenseman, #3 center, 2nd pair defenseman. In that order. I'd also look to upgrade one of my top 3 RW's as well.

If they hit the 1st 3 items on your list, the 4th and 5th might take care of themselves.

[Ghost of Dwight Drane]

I don't know if you are the only one but if I were GM my priorities would be, #1 center, top pair defenseman, #3 center, 2nd pair defenseman. In that order. I'd also look to upgrade one of my top 3 RW's as well.

 

$7.5 mil, $5.5 mil, $2.8 mil, $3 mil

[Ghost of Dwight Drane]

If they hit the 1st 3 items on your list, the 4th and 5th might take care of themselves.

 

Like when Briere, Campbell and Drury were on the team?

 

 

Where's the whistling smiley when I need it?

[Ghost of Dwight Drane]

Let's be honest here. There is just no room to get good in a hurry. If you want to believe this team is a contender with their current makeup, fine, God bless you. But years and years of poor decision making and building a team for regular season play while being penny-wise and pound foolish has us trapped. The only real chance to have made inroads was to dump anything and everything at the trade deadline. Now you have a subpar free agent summer and another year of contract albatross. The idea of sending guys to the minors is cute and all, but other than Morrisson....it won't happen. Hecht is Lindy's captain for Hockey Heaven's sake.

 

There looks to be a good amount of possible young prospects, but they aren't going to fetch you a difference maker on their own. The only players on this team who have a positive net value for another team looking at trading with the Sabres in conjunction with salary are Myers, Ennis, Gerbe, Weber. I think in the real NHL world Sekera is overrated, and Butler was pretty much given up on at midseason. Roy has value, but after that injury and the fact they rushed him back only to look like Shaq getting back on defense....you will not get full value for him at this point.

 

The way I see it, it will take a full 3 years, just to get to the point where you can then start to make this team good. With all the feel good rah-rah stuff out the window, if this team starts slow again...there is no white knight. Just a history of falling short and self-doubt. The front office is assuming the team is on the upswing....which in reality, they may have just peaked in the short term. If that is the case, it will be interesting to see if they go into panic mode or figure out that maybe their initial plan of status quo was folly.

 

These next 2 years could have made for a quick turnaround if they made the prudent decision to sell at the deadline. Now there is no room, nobody wants your junk, and it will take mortgaging most of your prospects to get someone in here that can really help.....and that is if Darcy can identify what real help is....which I am not confident in. In addition, when the bevy of overpriced players start to have their contracts expire, relief comes just at the same time as the "new core" of young guys who have outplayed their current deals start to venture into UFA territory. The boogey man is constantly breathing down your throat.

 

I know many think I am negative just to be negative, but I really feel this team is set up to be stagnant again for the next few years. Not horrible, just not really good. I am interested to see the reactions of everybody as this occurs, because I am not sure what they will be. Sadly, I can see the Bills winning more playoff games than the Sabres do playoff series over the next 3-4 years. They at least admitted they had screwed the pooch and cleaned house, loading up on younger hungry guys. Modrak being neutered and leaving was the key signal to me they are on the right track.

 

Sorry to ramble, but as much as I can be cutesy here, I really do not see this team getting anywhere near the top level soon.

[tom webster]

This is so wrong. If I wasn't at work I would show you how but there is plenty of room and plenty of good talent here. Two players and continued development and this team is as good as any.

[shrader]

Why is there suddenly no room? It's probably easier to move certain players now than it would have been at the deadline. The cap's about to go up and teams have a much cleaner slate to work with in terms of their payroll. It's a hell of a lot easier to plan for a specific salary when you have a whole year to work with instead of just a month or two. We see it every year where teams load up early and then deal with the cap issues later in the year.

[LastPommerFan]

Let's be honest here. There is just no room to get good in a hurry. If you want to believe this team is a contender with their current makeup, fine, God bless you. But years and years of poor decision making and building a team for regular season play while being penny-wise and pound foolish has us trapped. The only real chance to have made inroads was to dump anything and everything at the trade deadline. Now you have a subpar free agent summer and another year of contract albatross. The idea of sending guys to the minors is cute and all, but other than Morrisson....it won't happen. Hecht is Lindy's captain for Hockey Heaven's sake.

 

There looks to be a good amount of possible young prospects, but they aren't going to fetch you a difference maker on their own. The only players on this team who have a positive net value for another team looking at trading with the Sabres in conjunction with salary are Myers, Ennis, Gerbe, Weber. I think in the real NHL world Sekera is overrated, and Butler was pretty much given up on at midseason. Roy has value, but after that injury and the fact they rushed him back only to look like Shaq getting back on defense....you will not get full value for him at this point.

 

The way I see it, it will take a full 3 years, just to get to the point where you can then start to make this team good. With all the feel good rah-rah stuff out the window, if this team starts slow again...there is no white knight. Just a history of falling short and self-doubt. The front office is assuming the team is on the upswing....which in reality, they may have just peaked in the short term. If that is the case, it will be interesting to see if they go into panic mode or figure out that maybe their initial plan of status quo was folly.

 

These next 2 years could have made for a quick turnaround if they made the prudent decision to sell at the deadline. Now there is no room, nobody wants your junk, and it will take mortgaging most of your prospects to get someone in here that can really help.....and that is if Darcy can identify what real help is....which I am not confident in. In addition, when the bevy of overpriced players start to have their contracts expire, relief comes just at the same time as the "new core" of young guys who have outplayed their current deals start to venture into UFA territory. The boogey man is constantly breathing down your throat.

 

I know many think I am negative just to be negative, but I really feel this team is set up to be stagnant again for the next few years. Not horrible, just not really good. I am interested to see the reactions of everybody as this occurs, because I am not sure what they will be. [crazytalk]Sadly, I can see the Bills winning more playoff games than the Sabres do playoff series over the next 3-4 years. [/crazytalk] They at least admitted they had screwed the pooch and cleaned house, loading up on younger hungry guys. Modrak being neutered and leaving was the key signal to me they are on the right track.

 

Sorry to ramble, but as much as I can be cutesy here, I really do not see this team getting anywhere near the top level soon.

 

fixed it for you...

[Derrico]

Let's be honest here. There is just no room to get good in a hurry. If you want to believe this team is a contender with their current makeup, fine, God bless you. But years and years of poor decision making and building a team for regular season play while being penny-wise and pound foolish has us trapped. The only real chance to have made inroads was to dump anything and everything at the trade deadline. Now you have a subpar free agent summer and another year of contract albatross. The idea of sending guys to the minors is cute and all, but other than Morrisson....it won't happen. Hecht is Lindy's captain for Hockey Heaven's sake.

 

The way I see it, it will take a full 3 years, just to get to the point where you can then start to make this team good. With all the feel good rah-rah stuff out the window, if this team starts slow again...there is no white knight. Just a history of falling short and self-doubt. The front office is assuming the team is on the upswing....which in reality, they may have just peaked in the short term. If that is the case, it will be interesting to see if they go into panic mode or figure out that maybe their initial plan of status quo was folly.

 

I know many think I am negative just to be negative, but I really feel this team is set up to be stagnant again for the next few years. Not horrible, just not really good. I am interested to see the reactions of everybody as this occurs, because I am not sure what they will be. Sadly, I can see the Bills winning more playoff games than the Sabres do playoff series over the next 3-4 years. They at least admitted they had screwed the pooch and cleaned house, loading up on younger hungry guys. Modrak being neutered and leaving was the key signal to me they are on the right track.

 

Sorry to ramble, but as much as I can be cutesy here, I really do not see this team getting anywhere near the top level soon.

 

For the first bold - If you admit (which I and everyone else agrees) that this year is a slim free agent market, why would you dump all of your players and salary at last years deadline? So we can overpay for mediocre players in the Free Agent market that you admited was slim?

 

Second bold - We don't have much more than three years because Miller's window only has maybe 4 or 5 years remaining. Maybe we'll trade for a tender but I don't see anything on our roster right now (as well as I still think Enroth played in limited action)

 

Third Bold - You're telling me that a 3 win team has the right idea and good thing they've cleaned house? You're willing to give the BILLS front office the benefit of the doubt without seeing any results but spend an entire rant on the Sabres inability to do anything?

[Ghost of Dwight Drane]

fixed it for you...

 

Sadly, 1 may be the number to get it done

[Ghost of Dwight Drane]

For the first bold - If you admit (which I and everyone else agrees) that this year is a slim free agent market, why would you dump all of your players and salary at last years deadline? So we can overpay for mediocre players in the Free Agent market that you admited was slim?

 

Second bold - We don't have much more than three years because Miller's window only has maybe 4 or 5 years remaining. Maybe we'll trade for a tender but I don't see anything on our roster right now (as well as I still think Enroth played in limited action)

 

Third Bold - You're telling me that a 3 win team has the right idea and good thing they've cleaned house? You're willing to give the BILLS front office the benefit of the doubt without seeing any results but spend an entire rant on the Sabres inability to do anything?

 

Miller having 4 years is all the more reason to doubt.

 

If you include Stafford who is about to get $4mil let's say, you could have NOT traded for Boyes, Collected a 2nd for Montador, a 2nd for Connolly, and a 1st and 3rd for Stafford. Guys like Hecht and Pominville had a market as well as Leopold. You could have dumped $20 million in salary on top of Montador and Connolly who walk for nothing, collected a multitude of picks which could have been used to go and get a difference maker this offseason, or parlayed them into Hemskey and/or Penner. Just by cleaning out the dead/overpayed contracts, you give yourself total flexability this year and sit on making giant strides into next year. It isn't so much about who is out there now, but having a once in 10 year sellers market where 20 teams were looking for help.

 

By admitting that you didn't have the horses to get it done this year, you would have scored a mint and with a little innovative work, could have set yourself up to explode forward in '12-'13. The team went all-in on "fuzzy feeling". That got you 6 weeks of a high, and possibly 3 years of stagnation.

 

The Bills have done a great job of identifying slackers and overpriced guys on their roster. They admitted they were in a mess from years of mismanagement, brought in a few no-nonsense old school boys to right the ship, pleaded for patience while in return they would promise hard work and scrappy effort until the right players could be brought in and built upon the next few years. Modrak and Guy were correctly found to be the weak links and were taken out. I respect that a heck of a lot more than coach-for-life saying "This is a Stanley Cup contender"....."This is a playoff team"....."I never said we would make the playoffs"......all in a 8 week span.

 

Just like anything else in life, the quickest way to recovery is to first admit you have a problem. Getting to the playoffs only disguised the Sabres as functional drunks. Meanwhile, the Bills are off the sauce and found the big J.

[SwampD]

This is so wrong. If I wasn't at work I would show you how but there is plenty of room and plenty of good talent here. Two players and continued development and this team is as good as any.

While I may agree with your post in theory, please don't use "continued development" as one of your tools. Every team has "continued development" and that has been sold to us for years as our way out of the playoff doldrums. As the yokels say, "That dog doesn't hunt anymore."

[Ghost of Dwight Drane]

This is so wrong. If I wasn't at work I would show you how but there is plenty of room and plenty of good talent here. Two players and continued development and this team is as good as any.

 

This franchise has been banking on "Continued Development" for over a decade now.

 

I look forward to your Al Gore style lecture on the Sabres. Much like Global Warming....I have a sense it's going to have a lot to do with copious amounts of methane.

[shrader]

While I may agree with your post in theory, please don't use "continued development" as one of your tools. Every team has "continued development" and that has been sold to us for years as our way out of the playoff doldrums. As the yokels say, "That dog doesn't hunt anymore."

 

But it can't be ignored. A big part of the potential future of this team is the continued growth of players like Myers and Ennis. Sure, there's always the possibility that some of them get traded, but at some point, there are going to be young guys on the team who are depended on to be a part of a championship run.

[Weave]

This is so wrong. If I wasn't at work I would show you how but there is plenty of room and plenty of good talent here. Two players and continued development and this team is as good as any.

 

No freaking way. You really think we are two players away from equalling Vancouver? I think 2 players *might* get us even with Boston, but Pittsburgh will have Malkin and Crosby back next year and Tampa is only getting better. And if Philly gets their goalie...... Even a new #1 center and top pair D-man still leaves us behind the top teams in both conferences. The talent depth needed to compete with those teams just isn't on this roster. Guys like Ennis, Pommer, Stafford, Boyes and 5 of our 6 defensemen just aren't Vancouver/San Jose/Pittsburgh/Philly quality players.

 

I completely understand where Dwight is coming from as I also believe it would have been better to move players like Connolly and Montador (and Hecht or Pommer if there was interest) at the deadline. But I'm willing to see how this offseason plays out before calling it a mistake.

 

And I think 3 full seasons is the likely timeline too. IMO if we are going to build a contender we need to upgrade 2 center positions, 2 defense positions (and no I don't think development is going to be enough here), and a RW. Given the contract situation with Pommer, Hecht, soon to be Stafford, and Gaustad, I think we are going to need to shed some salary before collecting all that high end talent. I doubt we will be successful in trading it away.

 

I don't know about the Bills winning more playoff games than Sabres win series, but I do like that they are admitting the depth of their mistakes and are cutting them loose. Again, we'll see what the offseason holds. If the Sabres start jetisonning some of these perennial also-rans my outlook will improve exponentially. Right now I can't get beyond barely cautious optimism.

[shrader]

I like how we're bouncing back and forth between two different time lines here. There seems to be a blurred line where the statement "we want to win the Cup within 3 years" suddenly means that we will win it in 2012.

[spndnchz]

I like how we're bouncing back and forth between two different time lines here. There seems to be a blurred line where the statement "we want to win the Cup within 3 years" suddenly means that we will win it in 2012.

 

...or looking back after it's all over saying it should've been different. You can't trade players away for picks when you're going into the playoffs. They're some of the best players on this team. You don't give them away as you're headed into the playoffs. That would've been just plain stupid.

[tom webster]

Yes I do think 2 players. I guess to truly argue the point however, what constitutes good and what is a bevy? Even this team's bad contracts are held by players that have value which can't be said by most teams.

Finally, you put a number one center and a number one defenseman on Buffalo and they will be a bonafide contender depending on health

[Ghost of Dwight Drane]

But it can't be ignored. A big part of the potential future of this team is the continued growth of players like Myers and Ennis. Sure, there's always the possibility that some of them get traded, but at some point, there are going to be young guys on the team who are depended on to be a part of a championship run.

 

Right...the Myers who will cost you $7 million a year and Ennis $4 right about the time the old guard of overpayed players move on and now need to be replaced by $1 million 23 year olds who may or may not develop.

 

There is nothing wrong with valuing and building around young guys. It is the ability to identify the timeframe where you have your maximum shot at the brass ring by making a move on unquestioned leaders and difference makers to put you over the top. Otherwise, it becomes a cycle of mediocrity +/- a few slots. Sound familiar?

[Weave]

...or looking back after it's all over saying it should've been different. You can't trade players away for picks when you're going into the playoffs. They're some of the best players on this team. You don't give them away as you're headed into the playoffs. That would've been just plain stupid.

 

Umm, this isn't hindsight. This very subject was hotly debated in the days leading up to the deadline. And it turned out as predicted, 3 extra home games in April in exchange for draft picks foregone.