TSN: Sabres 2018 Game Plan

[Randall Flagg]

I want to move Bogo because he's both a nuisance on the ice and with his injuries, the second you want to pencil him into some non-depth role for some reason he is guaranteed to tank that plan by getting hurt. 

I think I would do that move that pi suggests. Bring in guys who can actually play defense and think at a high speed, fix the goalie position for a season (next season is important, after all) and move off of Bogosian.

At more than one point this season, I would have given Kane and Bogosian to the first bidder for nothing, so grabbing a year of good goaltending would work for me too.

 

I understand if you think that this is ludicrous, but I'm sick of micromanaging assets that way, because we've been fine at the time with almost every move made over the last 5 years up to this point because of the micromanaging angle, and it got us -all. Dump a player on a deal for a Vezina finalist? I don't care that it loses us a prospect like Hunter Shinkaruk. We'll win a lot more hockey games this season with Rinne in over the FA field and a guy who's guaranteed to be better than Bogosian in Bogosian's spot for 75+ games instead of 50. And then hey, all of a sudden since we have stable defense and goaltending, and the ripples through the lineup that comes with it, a guy like Baptiste suddenly looks a-ok and we stop losing sleep over Hunter Shinkaruk.

[dudacek]

I can see someone making this trade if they thought an upgrade in goal this season was crucial to moving the franchise forward (I do) that Rinne was the best option for doing that (not sure, but not aware of a better one) and that you considered Bogo a liability we can no longer afford (I dont)

 

But I can’t see an MBA GM thinking one year of an old goalie at $7 million is better than seven cost-controlled years of a first-round draft pick for a team that is as far away from a cup as ours.

[TrueBlueGED]

Rinne was great this year, but his previous two years he was a below average goalie on a good defensive team. He's going to be 36 a month into the season. I'm not exactly confident he'd fix the position for a season. 

[darksabre]

Rinne was great this year, but his previous two years he was a below average goalie on a good defensive team. He's going to be 36 a month into the season. I'm not exactly confident he'd fix the position for a season.

I'm not interested in Rinne.

[TrueBlueGED]

I'm not interested in Rinne.

 

Neither am I. I wouldn't lose my mind if we managed to give up Bogo in the deal, but it's not a move I'd champion either.

[Brawndo]

I can see someone making this trade if they thought an upgrade in goal this season was crucial to moving the franchise forward (I do) that Rinne was the best option for doing that (not sure, but not aware of a better one) and that you considered Bogo a liability we can no longer afford (I dont)

 

But I can’t see an MBA GM thinking one year of an old goalie at $7 million is better than seven cost-controlled years of a first-round draft pick for a team that is as far away from a cup as ours.

This

[LGR4GM]

Brock. Boeser.

[Randall Flagg]

Brock. Boeser.

guaranteed everytiem

[Brawndo]

Murray was going to take Samsonov at 23, had they not traded for Lehner, that would still have been a bad move though.

[TrueBlueGED]

Murray was going to take Samsonov at 23, had they not traded for Lehner, that would still have been a bad move though.

 

It's always dangerous to assume what Liger's point was, but I think he was saying a late-1st has value and shouldn't be tossed away in a trade for a season of a 36 year-old goalie.

[pi2000]

It's always dangerous to assume what Liger's point was, but I think he was saying a late-1st has value and shouldn't be tossed away in a trade for a season of a 36 year-old goalie.

Addition by subtraction.

[jsb]

Murray was going to take Samsonov at 23, had they not traded for Lehner, that would still have been a bad move though.

Didn't he go at 22?? So how was Murray going to take this kid at 23? I agree that this was an awful move for Lehner though but revisionist history aside most guys liked Lehner until last year on this site when he was less than stellar in his performances.

[LGR4GM]

It's always dangerous to assume what Liger's point was, but I think he was saying a late-1st has value and shouldn't be tossed away in a trade for a season of a 36 year-old goalie.

Yes

[LGR4GM]

I want to move Bogo because he's both a nuisance on the ice and with his injuries, the second you want to pencil him into some non-depth role for some reason he is guaranteed to tank that plan by getting hurt. 

 

I think I would do that move that pi suggests. Bring in guys who can actually play defense and think at a high speed, fix the goalie position for a season (next season is important, after all) and move off of Bogosian.

 

At more than one point this season, I would have given Kane and Bogosian to the first bidder for nothing, so grabbing a year of good goaltending would work for me too.

 

I understand if you think that this is ludicrous, but I'm sick of micromanaging assets that way, because we've been fine at the time with almost every move made over the last 5 years up to this point because of the micromanaging angle, and it got us ######-all. Dump a ###### player on a ###### deal for a Vezina finalist? I don't care that it loses us a prospect like Hunter Shinkaruk. We'll win a lot more hockey games this season with Rinne in over the FA field and a guy who's guaranteed to be better than Bogosian in Bogosian's spot for 75+ games instead of 50. And then hey, all of a sudden since we have stable defense and goaltending, and the ripples through the lineup that comes with it, a guy like Baptiste suddenly looks a-ok and we stop losing sleep over Hunter Shinkaruk.

Specifically this, what about Pastrnak or Boeser? Keiffer Bellows. How about Shea Theodore, he was selected 26th in the draft Shinkaruk went 24th. A late 1st should be moved in a package for a good young player or should be used in the draft. Murray pissed assets away, which at the time I thought was fine, turning them into mediocre NHL players but at least they were young players and not some desperate 1 year stop gap. We need talent and we need that 1st round pick to hit.

 

Imagine in 2019 if we draft say 10th and 24th. Imagine if we got the equivalent of Mikko Rantanen and Travis Konecny? Or we could just have Rantanen and that's it because Rinne is probably gone. On a team desperate for depth and talent, I would rather use the picks than try the Murray method of gutting depth to try some magical fix. 

[Randall Flagg]

Specifically this, what about Pastrnak or Boeser? Keiffer Bellows. How about Shea Theodore, he was selected 26th in the draft Shinkaruk went 24th. A late 1st should be moved in a package for a good young player or should be used in the draft. Murray pissed assets away, which at the time I thought was fine, turning them into mediocre NHL players but at least they were young players and not some desperate 1 year stop gap. We need talent and we need that 1st round pick to hit.

 

Imagine in 2019 if we draft say 10th and 24th. Imagine if we got the equivalent of Mikko Rantanen and Travis Konecny? Or we could just have Rantanen and that's it because Rinne is probably gone. On a team desperate for depth and talent, I would rather use the picks than try the Murray method of gutting depth to try some magical fix. 

Certainly not unreasonable, but I do reject comparisons of myself to Murray - I would only trade one of the picks 32 and 24, not both, the only reason why I talk about it so much is because it's fun to try and find that one trade. And I'm not trading them hoping for a quick fix with a ~24 year old, I'm doing it to fix a mess that has festered for a long time. 

 

I understand it's not a popular idea. But I sometimes think that the board views the trade value and actual hockey value of picks as the best case scenarios that happen with them every few years, when realistically, Beau Bennett/Riley Sheahan/Jared Tinordi/Mark Pysyk/Kevin Hayes/Quinton Howden/Evgeny Kuznetsov/Mark Visentin/Charlie Coyle/Emerson Etem/Brock Nelson/Connor Murphy/Stefan Noesen/Tyler Biggs/Joseph Morrow/Matt Puempel/Stuart Percy/Philip Danault/Namestnikov/Zack Phillips/Nicklas Jensen/Rickard Rakell/Scott Laughton/Mark Jankowski/Olli Maata/Michael Matheson/Malcolm Subban/Jordan Schmaltz/Brendan Gaunce/Brady Skjei/Stefan Matteau/Tanner Pearson is what you get out of picks 20-30 over a 3 year stretch.

 

I chose 2010-2012 because that's enough time for these guys to basically become who they will be their whole careers. And sure, Kuznetsov and Rackell are freaking amazing, and you need to keep your picks in hiopes of drafting them, but also, listing out names like Boeser isn't enough on its own to sway me. I'm aware that you can find gems everywhere in the draft. from this list you would need to keep that pick 15 years in a row to statistically be likely to hit a player of their level, and even then Rackell or Kuznetsov would be a complement to our franchise pieces. 

 

I'm not Tim Murray because I don't just want to throw all of our assets away at 3 players, but I would take one of our "extra" picks and use it to facilitate that move, because we are already looking at Eichel's first 5 years down the toilet, and keeping a grab bag from the list above if it could have been used to

a.) get what is likely to be at least league average goaltending after allowing the 2nd most goals in the league despite being 6th-15th in various shots-against metrics

b.) remove another anchor that has dragged this team down because this team chooses to rely on him

 

is frustrating and is statistically likely to not have been worth it. 

 

My view is just that the turnaround has to start happening yesterday, there are 3 or 4 tremendously big and fixable gaps on this team still staring at us, and I'm worried that Botterill is content to keep 2-3 of them when he doesn't have to, but at least we'll draft a guy with a 3.5% chance at being great, 10% chance at being good, and 20% chance at playing 100 NHL games.

Edited May 29, 2018 by Randall Flagg

[LGR4GM]

Certainly not unreasonable, but I do reject comparisons of myself to Murray - I would only trade one of the picks 32 and 24, not both, the only reason why I talk about it so much is because it's fun to try and find that one trade. And I'm not trading them hoping for a quick fix with a ~24 year old, I'm doing it to fix a mess that has festered for a long time. 

1) We are talking about 2019. Both picks are unknown and 24th was used for illustrative purposes. 

2) You are not fixing a mess. You are putting a bandaid on a chronic disease. It doesn't move us forward as a franchise unless you count kicking the can down the road moving us forward. Rinne is 36. 36 year old goalies are on their final legs. You are giving up a good asset for 1 year of a 36 year old goalie. 

I understand it's not a popular idea. But I sometimes think that the board views the trade value and actual hockey value of picks as the best case scenarios that happen with them every few years, when realistically, Beau Bennett/Riley Sheahan/Jared Tinordi/Mark Pysyk/Kevin Hayes/Quinton Howden/Evgeny Kuznetsov/Mark Visentin/Charlie Coyle/Emerson Etem/Brock Nelson/Connor Murphy/Stefan Noesen/Tyler Biggs/Joseph Morrow/Matt Puempel/Stuart Percy/Philip Danault/Namestnikov/Zack Phillips/Nicklas Jensen/Rickard Rakell/Scott Laughton/Mark Jankowski/Olli Maata/Michael Matheson/Malcolm Subban/Jordan Schmaltz/Brendan Gaunce/Brady Skjei/Stefan Matteau/Tanner Pearson is what you get out of picks 20-30 over a 3 year stretch.

I would rather have those players than 1 year of Rinne. Especially 36 year old Rinne. 

 

 

I chose 2010-2012 because that's enough time for these guys to basically become who they will be their whole careers. And sure, Kuznetsov and Rackell are freaking amazing, and you need to keep your picks in hiopes of drafting them, but also, listing out names like Boeser isn't enough on its own to sway me. I'm aware that you can find gems everywhere in the draft. from this list you would need to keep that pick 15 years in a row to statistically be likely to hit a player of their level, and even then Rackell or Kuznetsov would be a complement to our franchise pieces. 

 

 

I disagree because this assumes that drafting a player is just a statistical odds game and we know that isn't true. Good draft teams find and develop players with regularity. 

 

I'm not Tim Murray because I don't just want to throw all of our assets away at 3 players, but I would take one of our "extra" picks and use it to facilitate that move, because we are already looking at Eichel's first 5 years down the toilet, and keeping a grab bag from the list above if it could have been used to

a.) get what is likely to be at least league average goaltending after allowing the 2nd most goals in the league despite being 6th-15th in various shots-against metrics

b.) remove another anchor that has dragged this team down because this team chooses to rely on him

 

 

1) You can't say you aren't Tim Murray and then turn around and talk about trading "extra picks". That is exactly what he did. He literally traded an extra 1st for a goaltender in 2015. 

 

2) I don't need to spend a first on a 36 year old average goalie. He played on a good team and had a year that was statistically over his career average. You are buying high on a player almost guaranteed at that age to regress towards his career average. 

 

3) No one relied on Bogo this year because he basically didn't play. When he did play, I would not call him an anchor. 

My view is just that the turnaround has to start happening yesterday, there are 3 or 4 tremendously big and fixable gaps on this team still staring at us, and I'm worried that Botterill is content to keep 2-3 of them when he doesn't have to, but at least we'll draft a guy with a 3.5% chance at being great, 10% chance at being good, and 20% chance at playing 100 NHL games.

Again, you assume we are a bad drafting team. Under Regier and video scouting we definitely were not great. However, I would take a 10% chance on getting a guy being a good NHL player in the late first because that will be the guy we need in 3 years to put us over the top if we actually become good. No one will remember that 1 year of Rinne but when Rasmus Hockey Player gets called up from Rochester and contributes in the playoffs that will matter. 

[TrueBlueGED]

Certainly not unreasonable, but I do reject comparisons of myself to Murray - I would only trade one of the picks 32 and 24, not both, the only reason why I talk about it so much is because it's fun to try and find that one trade. And I'm not trading them hoping for a quick fix with a ~24 year old, I'm doing it to fix a mess that has festered for a long time. 

 

I understand it's not a popular idea. But I sometimes think that the board views the trade value and actual hockey value of picks as the best case scenarios that happen with them every few years, when realistically, Beau Bennett/Riley Sheahan/Jared Tinordi/Mark Pysyk/Kevin Hayes/Quinton Howden/Evgeny Kuznetsov/Mark Visentin/Charlie Coyle/Emerson Etem/Brock Nelson/Connor Murphy/Stefan Noesen/Tyler Biggs/Joseph Morrow/Matt Puempel/Stuart Percy/Philip Danault/Namestnikov/Zack Phillips/Nicklas Jensen/Rickard Rakell/Scott Laughton/Mark Jankowski/Olli Maata/Michael Matheson/Malcolm Subban/Jordan Schmaltz/Brendan Gaunce/Brady Skjei/Stefan Matteau/Tanner Pearson is what you get out of picks 20-30 over a 3 year stretch.

 

I chose 2010-2012 because that's enough time for these guys to basically become who they will be their whole careers. And sure, Kuznetsov and Rackell are freaking amazing, and you need to keep your picks in hiopes of drafting them, but also, listing out names like Boeser isn't enough on its own to sway me. I'm aware that you can find gems everywhere in the draft. from this list you would need to keep that pick 15 years in a row to statistically be likely to hit a player of their level, and even then Rackell or Kuznetsov would be a complement to our franchise pieces. 

 

I'm not Tim Murray because I don't just want to throw all of our assets away at 3 players, but I would take one of our "extra" picks and use it to facilitate that move, because we are already looking at Eichel's first 5 years down the toilet, and keeping a grab bag from the list above if it could have been used to

a.) get what is likely to be at least league average goaltending after allowing the 2nd most goals in the league despite being 6th-15th in various shots-against metrics

b.) remove another anchor that has dragged this team down because this team chooses to rely on him

 

is frustrating and is statistically likely to not have been worth it. 

 

My view is just that the turnaround has to start happening yesterday, there are 3 or 4 tremendously big and fixable gaps on this team still staring at us, and I'm worried that Botterill is content to keep 2-3 of them when he doesn't have to, but at least we'll draft a guy with a 3.5% chance at being great, 10% chance at being good, and 20% chance at playing 100 NHL games.

 

The whole of this is certainly fair. But while you may not be going for a quick fix with an unproven 24 year-old, you're still going for a quick fix--just with a 36 year-old. IMO this is just as bad as what Murray did, albeit from the opposite end of the spectrum. Want to give up a real asset for Holtby who fixes the hole and has a future? Sure, that makes sense. Doing so for someone at the end of the road is a lot more questionable. The Leafs didn't build a wonderful pipeline with players like Dermott and Johnsson by trading away picks for quick, and temporary, fixes.

Edited May 29, 2018 by TrueBlueGED

[LGR4GM]

 

My view is just that the turnaround has to start happening yesterday, there are 3 or 4 tremendously big and fixable gaps on this team still staring at us, and I'm worried that Botterill is content to keep 2-3 of them when he doesn't have to.

The turnaround should have started happening but there was no depth scoring on this team and the goaltending was atrocious. We wouldn't be fixing the GT for more than maybe, maybe 1 year. There are 3-4 gaps. You call them fixable. I think that of the 4 gaps I can think of GT is the most easy to address. Depth scoring is more complicated. I think Botterill fixing 2 of the 4 in one offseason will be pretty good work. 

[TrueBlueGED]

The turnaround should have started happening but there was no depth scoring on this team and the goaltending was atrocious. We wouldn't be fixing the GT for more than maybe, maybe 1 year. There are 3-4 gaps. You call them fixable. I think that of the 4 gaps I can think of GT is the most easy to address. Depth scoring is more complicated. I think Botterill fixing 2 of the 4 in one offseason will be pretty good work. 

 

I'd argue goaltending is both the easiest to fix and the easiest to botch. Such is life with goalies. As a result, I do think there's value in trying to get some level of certainty back there. I'm just not a fan of that certainty coming from an old guy, regardless of how good he was this season.

 

How am I doing at straddling the line on this one? :lol:

[Randall Flagg]

1) We are talking about 2019. Both picks are unknown and 24th was used for illustrative purposes. 

2) You are not fixing a mess. You are putting a bandaid on a chronic disease. It doesn't move us forward as a franchise unless you count kicking the can down the road moving us forward. Rinne is 36. 36 year old goalies are on their final legs. You are giving up a good asset for 1 year of a 36 year old goalie. 

 

Nowhere did I say Rinne was a long-term solution. I did say that at the cost of a lottery ticket, the combined impact of at least league-average goaltending plus not wasting a roster spot on a bad injured player, like we are about to do, has a good chance at having more value to this organization right away and in the future, because it's a relatively low chance that player ever plays 100 games, and a pretty high chance that the move, along with others, helps us win starting this October, which will go farther in developing our own players and fixing our organizational outlook than we realize because it's been so long since we've won. I'm not advocating dumping every asset we have, trading all our picks, our prospects, for Evander Kanes and Zach Bogosians. But we have an extra one right now, and if something comes along that makes us better, we have to do it. All our prized piece knows is losing and last place. Let's not do that to Dahlin as well.

I would rather have those players than 1 year of Rinne. Especially 36 year old Rinne. 

 

Those players I listed? You'd rather have Tyler Biggs then finally having a stabilizing presence in net for a year, while hopefully Ullmark actually learns something and then is ready to take the reigns in his 25/26 year old season, rather than throwing him to the flames? Alright.

I disagree because this assumes that drafting a player is just a statistical odds game and we know that isn't true. Good draft teams find and develop players with regularity. 

 

Good teams still have a very low success rate after the top 10. Every team does. They'll literally tell you that the bold is essentially true after a certain point.

1) You can't say you aren't Tim Murray and then turn around and talk about trading "extra picks". That is exactly what he did. He literally traded an extra 1st for a goaltender in 2015. 

 

Tim traded 2 first rounders in one draft. I want to trade one first rounder or one second rounder in the next few years, which will put us back to the set amount that we would have in the first place. If we're a supposed good organization that can actually do something with our picks, then we'll still have the opportunities. In the meantime, if dudacek is right, have fun with another season of Lehner softies, I guess. 

 

2) I don't need to spend a first on a 36 year old average goalie. He played on a good team and had a year that was statistically over his career average. You are buying high on a player almost guaranteed at that age to regress towards his career average. 

 

Your post tone continues to suggest that I think Rinne is some sort of long-term solution. I'm aware of his age. I would not pursue another contract with him. I just believe that the total impact of losing Bogosian for two years and adding Rinne for one year has a very good chance of being better for this franchise than San Jose's undetermined 2019 first round pick. Before we can start to have a sustainably winning franchise, we need to do about 4 things, and two of them are to stop relying on bad players/letting better players compete for those spots, and stabilize the goaltending situation, as I am a subscriber to dark's theory that goaltending matters more than just raw numbers of pucks stopped versus missed. This trade is more likely to do that than that player is to have an impact with the Sabres down the road.

 

3) No one relied on Bogo this year because he basically didn't play. When he did play, I would not call him an anchor. 

 

Bogosian was comically bad this year when he played, actually. I'm collecting film and stats right now for a tangentially related project, so more on that later. He cannot think NHL hockey in the same way that Beaulieu cannot think NHL hockey.  And Botterill has said in an interview that Bogosian will be a key piece in reducing Ristolainen's role next season. The only thing worse than using Risto the way we did going forward would be giving some of those minutes and situations to freaking Bogosian. We are only a couple decisions like this away from being a lottery team yet again.

Again, you assume we are a bad drafting team. Under Regier and video scouting we definitely were not great. However, I would take a 10% chance on getting a guy being a good NHL player in the late first because that will be the guy we need in 3 years to put us over the top if we actually become good. No one will remember that 1 year of Rinne but when Rasmus Hockey Player gets called up from Rochester and contributes in the playoffs that will matter. 

 

This is where the fun of discussion comes in and what these forums are all about, eh? Totally reasonable take. I feel the other way, and have no proof, just fun attempts at thought experiments.

 

Luckily, we still have the hope that Botterill has better options available for fixing goalie and D. It was fun to defend this trade idea from pi, but it's not one I would have thought of and done myself, just one I convinced myself to like (and I really do, now) for the sake of arguing with Liger  :P 

 

[Brawndo]

Didn't he go at 22?? So how was Murray going to take this kid at 23? I agree that this was an awful move for Lehner though but revisionist history aside most guys liked Lehner until last year on this site when he was less than stellar in his performances.

Actually he was going to take him at 21 which was the pick that was traded to Ottawa. I had Boeser on the brain. Someone dug up the Lehner Trade Thread recently and the reaction, was mostly negative to the trade. I termed the trade as GMTM’s First WTF Move.

 

I’m not a proponent of using a first round asset on a goalie, only in extreme circumstances

[LGR4GM]

@Flagg

 

My entire point is that it is a short term bandaid which is a waste of an asset. Yes, I would rather a 30% shot at a NHL player then 1 year of 36yr old Pekka Rinne. 

Edited May 29, 2018 by Skurk Liger

[Taro T]

@Flagg

 

My entire point is that it is a short term bandaid which is a waste of an asset. Yes, I would rather a 30% shot at a NHL player then 1 year of 36yr old Pekka Rinne.

 

And again, it isn't just 1 year of Rinne, it is also 2 years of KNOWING (as opposed to expecting) Bogosian won't be available and making arrangements to put in pen somebody else into that slot.

 

Personally, don't want to spend a probable late 1st on that. Wouldn't blink at dropping a 2nd that year to make that deal.

[Mustache of God]

We've already learned the hard way trading away a 1st round pick for a goalie was a terrible idea, and Murray justified that by saying "he's an RFA so we have some control for years". Trading a 1st for 1-year of a 7m schmillion dollar goalie is, in my mine, insane.

[Randall Flagg]

We've already learned the hard way trading away a 1st round pick for a goalie was a terrible idea, and Murray justified that by saying "he's an RFA so we have some control for years". Trading a 1st for 1-year of a 7m schmillion dollar goalie is, in my mine, insane.

Agreed - thank god nobody has suggested this.