Off Season Game Plan

[GASabresIUFAN]

 

 

Some ideas-

 

 

Tampa- UFA defenseman Adrej Sustr- 6'7" 27 year old stay at home defenseman would be perfect for third pairing. Coming off a one year contract at 1.9 million. Would he come to Buffalo for 3 years at $3 million a year.

 

Anaheim- UFA Antoine Vermette- one year deal to be third line center, take some of the face off pressure off of ROR.

 

Washington- To me this is the team Buffalo should be looking at. $62 million in 14 players.

RFA's- Tom Wilson and Phillip Grubauer this summer and Andre Burkovsky next summer.

 

I like the Sustr, Vermette and Grubauer ideas.

 

I give you an additional thought. My guess is we end up drafting between 2-4. This gives us one of 2 top 6 LW we need for the future. I'd like to hope the Nylander would be the other, but I'm not holding my breath. I think there is a solution for the top 6 over the next couple of year and the top 9 even longer. Acquire Killhorn from TB. Killhorn is signed to a long-term deal is 28 and can play LW or C. He does have a NTC, but maybe Stevie Y can convince him to waive the clause to play with Jack or ROR. TB needs the cap relief to re-sign JT MIller, who i suspect Stevie Y acquired to get a little younger and replace Killhorn long-term. Killhorn is a 40+ pt guy playing 3rd line minutes in TB, could he jump to 50-60 playing on Jack's wing.? I'd give them McCabe and Fasching. Mostly this deal is about clearing cap and Stevie Y also needs some additional youth on D.

 

Killhorn Jack KO

Zadina ROR Reinhart

Wilson Mittelstadt ERod. (EDIT: Baptiste or Bailey instead of ERod)

Girgensons ERod Pominville.

 

Smith, Olofsson, O'Regan, Baptiste and Bailey all fighting for jobs as well.

Edited March 5, 2018 by GASabresIUFAN

[Weave]

Erod double shifted.  Hmmmm....  :P

[Sabre1974]

I like the Sustr, Vermette and Grubauer ideas.  

 

I give you an additional thought.  My guess is we end up drafting between 2-4.  This gives us one of 2 top 6 LW we need for the future.  I'd like to hope the Nylander would be the other, but I'm not holding my breath.  I think there is a solution for the top 6 over the next couple of year and the top 9 even longer.  Acquire Killhorn from TB.  Killhorn is signed to a long-term deal is 28 and can play LW or C.  He does have a NTC, but maybe Stevie Y can convince him to waive the clause to play with Jack or ROR.   TB needs the cap relief to re-sign JT MIller, who i suspect Stevie Y acquired to get a little younger and replace Killhorn long-term.  Killhorn is a 40+ pt guy playing 3rd line minutes in TB, could he jump to 50-60 playing on Jack's wing.?  I'd give them McCabe and Fasching.  Mostly this deal is about clearing cap and Stevie Y also needs some additional youth on D.

 

Killhorn Jack KO

Zadina ROR Reinhart

Wilson Mittelstadt ERod

Girgensons ERod Pominville.

 

Smith, Olofsson, O'Regan, Baptiste and Bailey all fighting for jobs as well.

O regan to slot into 4th line centre and baptiste on his right wing if we can get rid of pommer and I am happy with these lines. If we get Zadina and a Killhorn trade happened offcourse :)

O regan to slot into 4th line centre and baptiste on his right wing if we can get rid of pommer and I am happy with these lines. If we get Zadina and a Killhorn trade happened offcourse :)

CJ will hopefully make a push for a slot and would love to see Olofsson going for I also. Not sure what will happen with Bailey, will Botts use him as trade bait in a deal??

Edited March 5, 2018 by Sabre1974

[inkman]

Folks here are getting smarter with their loot. Pegula thinks the fan base will keep supporting your crappy product. Not going to happen anymore.

Link? Otherwise it just sounds like you are making this up.

[Drunkard]

Link? Otherwise it just sounds like you are making this up.

 

I don't have a link but Chz reported a while back that the season ticket holder waiting list has evaporated to zero. If that's true (and I no reason to doubt it) then it appears either some fans are sick of losing, they are tired of paying STH prices when they see tickets for much cheaper on the secondary market, or too many amateur scalpers are tired of taking a bath on their attempts to subsidize going to their cherry picked games by selling off their tickets to other games.

I would guess that it's a combination of all three.

Edited March 5, 2018 by Alkoholist

[GASabresIUFAN]

Erod double shifted.  Hmmmm....  :P

LOL, You’ve seen one college utility guy, you’ve seen them all. I actually meant to put Baptiste or Bailey in the 3rd line RW slot.

[inkman]

I don't have a link but Chz reported a while back that the season ticket holder waiting list has evaporated to zero. If that's true (and I no reason to doubt it) then it appears either some fans are sick of losing, they are tired of paying STH prices when they see tickets for much cheaper on the secondary market, or too many amateur scalpers are tired of taking a bath on their attempts to subsidize going to their cherry picked games by selling off their tickets to other games.

 

I would guess that it's a combination of all three.

Oh I have no doubt the fan base is eroding due to the aforementioned reasons, I'm just not sure the Pegulas are "fine with it". I'm sure it's more than irksome to them. Then again it sounds like I'm just making this up. :lol:

[Drunkard]

Oh I have no doubt the fan base is eroding due to the aforementioned reasons, I'm just not sure the Pegulas are "fine with it". I'm sure it's more than irksome to them. Then again it sounds like I'm just making this up. :lol:

 

Yeah, I assume that part is speculation. It will be interesting to see if the evaporation of the STH waiting list moves the needle for the Pegula's or if they'll remain tone deaf to the grumbling of the fans and raise ticket prices for next season anyway. With the safety net gone, they may need to re-think their strategy because it looks like at least a portion of those empty seats will no longer be paid for if the waiting is truly gone and people get fed up with the ever rising prices.

[CallawaySabres]

4 people just left my season ticket group today....

[Samson's Flow]

4 people just left my season ticket group today....

We decided very early on this year that we weren't buying any more tickets from our season ticket group. Not when the secondary market is $6/ticket

[Sabres Fan in NS]

This season ticket thing is becoming a problem.  And how many non season ticket folks are out there and actually say ... 'hey, lets go to a Sabre game tonight'?

 

I just hope JBOT does not do something boneheaded like making ill advised trades to try to speed up this re-build of a re-build.

 

+++++

 

DAMN PHONE!!

Edited March 5, 2018 by N S

[Taro T]

This season ticket thing is becoming a problem. And how many non season ticket folks are out there and actually say ... 'hey, lets go to a Sabre game tonight'?

 

I just hope JBOT does not do something boneheaded like making ill advised trades to try to speed up this re-build of a re-build.

 

+++++

 

DAMN PHONE!!

The rebuild is what the rebuild is.

 

Short of lucking into Dahlin or Quenneville or trading away Eichel, very little that happens on the ice can affect STH sentiment.

 

Raising ticket prices (or lowering them ;)) WILL STRONGLY effect the size of the '18-'19 ticket base. The ball is in the Sabres court. Let's see what Brandon does with it.

[PerreaultForever]

With all due respect to what Pominville once was, I think he is clearly past it now. In order for this team to be good next year, it has to be good enough that Pominville won't crack the lineup. 

[inkman]

With all due respect to what Pominville once was, I think he is clearly past it now. In order for this team to be good next year, it has to be good enough that Pominville won't crack the lineup.

I'd love to see him in Rochester!!

[GASabresIUFAN]

Let the blood bath begin

1) let all UFAs walk expect Nelson. Say goodbye to Pouliot, Nolan, Josefson, Johnson, Falk and Gorges. Re-sign Nelson for 2 years at 650k per season one way deal.

 

2) Make a decision to move on from Pommers, Bogo, Baloo, and RFA Lehner. How? waiver or buyout or trade, even if we eat 50% of the contracts in the trade.

Buyout of Pommers costs about 2.25 next season and 1.67 next season. Waivers and sending to the AHL saves 1 mill only.

Buying out Bogo creates a 4 year cap hit, but saves $4 mill for the next two year and only costs 2 mill per season in years 3&4. Not the end of the world, but injured players can’t be bought out. The best result for the Sabres is that he doesn’t pass a physical and is but on LTIR for the next two years.

Baloo should be waived if he can’t be traded. If he gets claimed we save all 2.4 mill. If he doesn’t we save $1 mill and maybe Taylor can fix him like he fixed Nelson.

Lehner? Qualifying him costs $4 mill. That is a huge commitment if you can’t trade him. It might be better to just walk away and stick pins in the TM voodoo doll.

 

3) Re-sign all the major forward RfAs: Bailey, Smith Wilson, Baptiste, Fasching, O’Regan and Griffith. Also get prospects like Asplund and Olofsson signed. Then clean the slate and give them a real opportunity to make the team. I’m telling them this in the exit interview so that they know that a summer of hard work could just payoff. Olofsson is my dark horse to make the team without playing in Roch. I didn’t list Sam here as I expect him to get a long-term deal or 3 year bridge deal. I’m estimating $5 mill per season for 3 years.

 

4) Defense i’m looking for 1 or 2 top 4 D. Obviously this won’t be easy, especially if we don’t get the first pick, but getting DeHaan might be enough. Others have mentioned Pateryn. Jbot pulled Marco out of the hat last summer. Could he find a similar deal this summer?

 

5) Forwards - while some expect someone like Sam, KO or ROR to get traded as part of the major shakeup. I’m expecting Jbot to take a more measured approach. I expect Larsson to be traded and maybe Girgensons also.

Depending on how the draft goes the lineup could look completely different even without a major deal. What if we draft Svechnikov? What if Nylander and Casey also make the team?

So now your forwards are

Svechnikov Eichel Okposo

Wilson ROR Reinhart

Nylander Mittelstadt Baptiste

Girgensons Erod Bailey

 

That is a very different team then we saw this year.

 

Goaltending

Ullmark is signed and gets al least 50% of next years net. The question is who splits time with him? The UFA crop isn’t all that inviting. Grubauer would be ideal, but don’t hold your breath.

Edited April 5, 2018 by GASabresIUFAN

[Weave]

Had anyone compared all of GAs offseason epic posts to see how often they change?

 

I can’t even begin to read past the 4th paragraph, let alone check for consistency/ repeating himself. :p

[GASabresIUFAN]

Had anyone compared all of GAs offseason epic posts to see how often they change?

I can’t even begin to read past the 4th paragraph, let alone check for consistency/ repeating himself. :p

I try to be consistent. I do keep going back and forth on Pommers next season. I have back tracked on qualifying Lehner. Who is taking him from us with a $4 mill cap hit. Edited April 5, 2018 by GASabresIUFAN

[Weave]

I try to be consistent. I do keep going back and forth on Pommers next season. I have back tracked on qualifying Lehner. Who is taking him from us with a $4 mill cap hit.

So.... repeating yourself. :)

 

Who has the time to type that out once or twice a day?

Edited April 5, 2018 by We've

[GASabresIUFAN]

So.... repeating yourself. :)

Who has the time to type that out once or twice a day?

My mom is ill and I’m stuck in a hospital room.

[dudacek]

My mom is ill and I’m stuck in a hospital room.

:(

[Eleven]

My mom is ill and I’m stuck in a hospital room.

 

That sux.  Best wishes.

[GASabresIUFAN]

:(

She fell and broke her hip. Not pretty.

[Weave]

My mom is ill and I’m stuck in a hospital room.

 

That explains the time.  Sorry to hear.

[Sabres Fan in NS]

She fell and broke her hip. Not pretty.

 

Sorry to hear that.

 

Thoughts and Prayers being sent your way.

[GASabresIUFAN]

Thanks for the well wishes. I’ll pass them along . She is a big Sabres fan. Loved to chant Harris is a bum to the old ref Wally Harris.