UPDATE: Sam Reinhart signs 2-year extension -- $3.65MM per year

[Hoss]

3 hours ago, Thorny said:

 

Idk if I believe either of these dudes on anything. White has said a lot of stuff that never panned out and this Chad dude came out of nowhere and hasn’t had anything of note stick.

[nfreeman]

I tend to believe Chad, as if he's right I will win a glorious victory on this issue, which will completely erase all of my humiliating defeats here.

[Thorner]

18 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

I tend to believe Chad, as if he's right I will win a glorious victory on this issue, which will completely erase all of my humiliating defeats here.

Props to you if that's the case. To be fair, the rumours seem to be that Botterill has a longer contract on the table, but Sam's is the camp leaning short term. 

If you believe the rumours. 

[ALF]

17 hours ago, erickompositör72 said:

We are very lucky Reinhart played poorly the first half of last season.

Not only did it help us get Dahlin, but it will allow us to sign him long-term for less than he's worth. We may get up to 8 years of 2018 Reinhart, and I really believe that's just his new floor. Very high ceiling.

 

He needs to be a motivated and happy camper for a long term deal . I like bridge better , too many past deals went bad.

[LGR4GM]

13 hours ago, nfreeman said:

I tend to believe Chad, as if he's right I will win a glorious victory on this issue, which will completely erase all of my humiliating defeats here.

What victory are you winning? 

[nfreeman]

53 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

What victory are you winning? 

I have been theorizing that JBott wants to give Reino a short-term "prove it" contract and isn't interested in rewarding his play to date with a long-term deal.

[Hoss]

55 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

I have been theorizing that JBott wants to give Reino a short-term "prove it" contract and isn't interested in rewarding his play to date with a long-term deal.

This assumes the GM is getting what he wants with whatever deal is signed.

[nfreeman]

8 minutes ago, Hoss said:

This assumes the GM is getting what he wants with whatever deal is signed.

Your observation is probably correct -- but I think the assumption is mostly correct too, since the GM has most of the leverage with an RFA who's still several years away from UFA -- and especially if the deal ends up being a short-term one.  Sometimes a player will prefer a short-term deal since he thinks he deliver high production during that shorter term and thus earn a fatter long-term deal in his next contract, but I think that happens only in a small minority of cases.

[dudacek]

If  was Sam, I’d want to sign a one-year $4 million deal, have a whole season like the back half of last season and sign long-term next summer for in excess of $7 million. If I end up only with another 50 point season, then I sign next year for something similar to the $5 million-is that JBot is probably willing to give me long-term now.

Worst case scenario there, I lose maybe $2 million. Best case, I make an extra $10 million.

Edited August 31, 2018 by dudacek

[nfreeman]

Well, I think worst case is a bad injury that impairs his long-term earning potential.  It's not a de minimis risk.

[dudacek]

3 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

Well, I think worst case is a bad injury that impairs his long-term earning potential.  It's not a de minimis risk.

Which is why Botterill might be able to leverage a long-term deal favourable to the team if he is willing to pay a little more than what a 50-Point scorer “deserves.” 

[nfreeman]

53 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Which is why Botterill might be able to leverage a long-term deal favourable to the team if he is willing to pay a little more than what a 50-Point scorer “deserves.”  

...unless he (correctly) believes that there is no such thing as a LT deal for Reino that is favorable to the team.

[LGR4GM]

I agree with Nfreeman. I think if a long term deal existed it would have been signed. I suppose that thinking could be wrong but I get a definite bridge feeling from how things have gone. 

[Thorner]

4 hours ago, dudacek said:

If  was Sam, I’d want to sign a one-year $4 million deal, have a whole season like the back half of last season and sign long-term next summer for in excess of $7 million. If I end up only with another 50 point season, then I sign next year for something similar to the $5 million-is that JBot is probably willing to give me long-term now.

Worst case scenario there, I lose maybe $2 million. Best case, I make an extra $10 million.

I agree with this. I think Botterill wants a LT deal in the 5-5.5 range and Sam wants more, therefore is being tempted to sign a bridge. It makes the most sense logically to me given everything we have heard. 

3 hours ago, nfreeman said:

...unless he (correctly) believes that there is no such thing as a LT deal for Reino that is favorable to the team.

No such thing as a LT deal that is favourable? So if Reinhart signed for 5.5 mil per, there's absolutely no way in your eyes he lives up to it, or exceeds it and saves the Sabres money? You may not believe it likely, but it's unquestionably possible. 

---

I'll go ahead and predict a 3-year, 14.25 mil deal.  

Edited August 31, 2018 by Thorny

[nfreeman]

Well, it’s certainly possible that Reino gets a LT deal and it proves to be a good deal for the Sabres.   My point really was that whether it’s $4.5MM per year or $6.5MM per year, I think (and I hope JBott thinks) that giving Reino 5 years or more is much more likely to result in Reino proving out as a career underachiever, with negative effects on the team — and thus he shouldn’t get a LT deal, regardless of annual salary.  

[TrueBlueGED]

8 hours ago, nfreeman said:

Well, it’s certainly possible that Reino gets a LT deal and it proves to be a good deal for the Sabres.   My point really was that whether it’s $4.5MM per year or $6.5MM per year, I think (and I hope JBott thinks) that giving Reino 5 years or more is much more likely to result in Reino proving out as a career underachiever, with negative effects on the team — and thus he shouldn’t get a LT deal, regardless of annual salary.  

FWIW, even when his individual production was abysmal last year, he was still having a positive effect on teammates while on the ice together. I know that doesn't speak to the dollars and valuation aspect of your point, but it's not nothin'. 

[dudacek]

@nfreeman, why the resistance to commit to Sam long term, regardless of the money, as opposed to say Risto, or Eichel?

Its not like those guys were any more consistent leading up their second deals, and the trend among GMs is to lock up comparable players through their primes.

What about Reinhart screams “this guy will stop trying if he gets more than two or three years security?”

Edited September 1, 2018 by dudacek

[Randall Flagg]

I think where/how Reinhart gets played is one of the most interesting questions for the early part of this season. 

[TrueBlueGED]

6 minutes ago, dudacek said:

@freeman, why the resistance to commit to Sam long term, regardless of the money, as opposed to say Risto, or Eichel?

Its not like those guys were any more consistent leading up their second deals, and the trend among GMs is to lock up comparable players through their primes.

What about Reinhart screams “this guy will stop trying if he gets more than two or three years security?”

In fairness to Freeman, he was adamantly against signing Risto long term. He even lost a charity bet to me over it! 

[MakeSabresGrr8Again]

3 minutes ago, TrueBlueGED said:

In fairness to Freeman, he was adamantly against signing Risto long term. He even lost a charity bet to me over it! 

But with Dahlin taking some of the pressure off and probably minutes away from Risto, he just might prove to live up to his contract. Not that he's been bad or anything, just over played IMO.

[Randall Flagg]

If we just start giving Risto's minutes to Dahlin I will pull my hair out 

Put the kid in nice sheltered situations and let him organically work his way up the depth chart. If he can handle it then he'll be there soon enough completely naturally. We shouldn't just assume it like we've done to butcher/hinder thousands of other players' development over the last decade

[nfreeman]

Eichel hasn’t been worth anywhere near what the Sabres went through to get him, but he’s still been far more consistent than Reino IMHO.  

Reino has long stretches of Staffordesque complete invisibility.  Eichel has short stretches (albeit lots of them) of non-dominance.  

Apples and oranges IMHO.  

As for whether there is something in particular about Reino that makes me think the fire won’t burn within him if he gets too much too soon — first, I think that is true for most people, not just Reino.  Second, I can’t past the fact that he didn’t show up for the first half of last season, when the Sabres had a new coach and new GM and were clearly at a crossroads with that roster.  That just can’t be rewarded.

And as Blue notes I opposed it in Risto’s case too (and one could argue that my view there has been vindicated).  

[dudacek]

40 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

If we just start giving Risto's minutes to Dahlin I will pull my hair out 

Put the kid in nice sheltered situations and let him organically work his way up the depth chart. If he can handle it then he'll be there soon enough completely naturally. We shouldn't just assume it like we've done to butcher/hinder thousands of other players' development over the last decade

If we end up with something like 25 for Risto, 20-22 for Scandella, Dahlin and Bogosian, 18 for McCabe and 15 for Nelson, I’d approve.

id like to see some more balance up front too (which seems inevitable with ROR gone).

The top guys aren’t good enough to justify the workload they’ve been getting and the bottom guys should and have to do more.

[Randall Flagg]

30 minutes ago, dudacek said:

If we end up with something like 25 for Risto, 20-22 for Scandella, Dahlin and Bogosian, 18 for McCabe and 15 for Nelson, I’d approve.

id like to see some more balance up front too (which seems inevitable with ROR gone).

The top guys aren’t good enough to justify the workload they’ve been getting and the bottom guys should and have to do more.

That's more reasonable, and I'd try to level it out even a little more. 

I'm worried we see Dahlin-Risto for 26 a night from day 1, or Dahlin-Scandella at 24 to bump risto back, where it'd be cooler to see Dahlin-Guhle (presuming Guhle is ready and earns a spot) at 18 offensive minutes per night even if that means giving Bogosian/McCabe a little more than they can chew for 10'games until Dahlin's feet are under him.

Of course, if in game 3 it's clear Dahlin is our best / second best defenseman, start introducing him slowly to tougher situations and more minutes. And if he keep playing great then we can treat him like our premiere defenseman, though still not like we've been treating risto (who has been in Suter/Karlsson/Hedman minutes for three years now)

Rasmus can get those when he's a Norris candidate

[nfreeman]

1 hour ago, dudacek said:

If we end up with something like 25 for Risto, 20-22 for Scandella, Dahlin and Bogosian, 18 for McCabe and 15 for Nelson, I’d approve.

id like to see some more balance up front too (which seems inevitable with ROR gone).

The top guys aren’t good enough to justify the workload they’ve been getting and the bottom guys should and have to do more.

Endorsed.

1 hour ago, Randall Flagg said:

That's more reasonable, and I'd try to level it out even a little more. 

I'm worried we see Dahlin-Risto for 26 a night from day 1, or Dahlin-Scandella at 24 to bump risto back, where it'd be cooler to see Dahlin-Guhle (presuming Guhle is ready and earns a spot) at 18 offensive minutes per night even if that means giving Bogosian/McCabe a little more than they can chew for 10'games until Dahlin's feet are under him.

Of course, if in game 3 it's clear Dahlin is our best / second best defenseman, start introducing him slowly to tougher situations and more minutes. And if he keep playing great then we can treat him like our premiere defenseman, though still not like we've been treating risto (who has been in Suter/Karlsson/Hedman minutes for three years now)

Rasmus can get those when he's a Norris candidate

These are near-locks, IMHO.

This is going to be like when Jimbo disembarked from that plane from Houston, with those Vic Ferrari shades and "I'm da man" attitude.