Berglund, Sobotka, & a Season Preview

[Drunkard]

12 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Why do people automatically assume everyone over the age of 30 is automatically a contract albatross?

 

They usually are (minus a few superstars that seems to have struck some sort of Faustian deal with father time).

See practically every major UFA acquisition since Free Agency has come into play. Fans celebrate as their teams lands some big UFA fish (usually a 27-28 year old) to a huge deal and within about 3 years (usually around 30-31) the team is regretting it, while there is still a half decade of declining years left on the contract. At least the league has limited contracts to only 8 years now though. Before that they were regretting the contracts for much longer.

Edited August 28, 2018 by Alkoholist

[dudacek]

Sobotka makes $3.5 million - an average contract. Girgensons makes $1.6 a cheap contract.

Girgensons got 15 points, Sobotka 31. Kinda looks like two guys at market value,  no?

If you are talking term, Sobotka is on a three-year deal. Girgensons, two.

Edited August 28, 2018 by dudacek

[dudacek]

Moulson was an albatross. Kyle Okposo probably will become one, the question is when

At $3.9 Berglund isn’t yet and if he can continue putting up 35-40 points over the next three years he won’t be.

Hunwick doesn’t make enough to matter.

Edited August 28, 2018 by dudacek

[LGR4GM]

32 minutes ago, Alkoholist said:

I know Eichel is signed for 8 more years. I'd just rather not waste half of it waiting for Patrik Berglund's contract to come off the books.

Very few non-goalie players get better after the age of 30. The best we can probably hope for is their production to plateau which would still put most of them as overpaid relative to their production. I would have rather gone full bore with the youth movement rather than overpay for a handful of aging veterans. Guys like that are almost always available and usually for much cheaper than we paid for them.  

We basically did that for the 3 previous years and it didn't work. You keep say "not waste waiting for Berglund's contract to come off the books", you haven't even seen what role they have for him or how he will play for the Sabres. Seems odd to me. What if he puts up 4 35 point seasons while being a PK guy and 3rd/4th line center? Seems worth 3.9mil to me especially with the cap going up. 

Edited August 28, 2018 by LGR4GM

[LGR4GM]

I will say out of all the contracts on the Books, Okposo's and Berglund's are the most concerning going forward. 

[nfreeman]

3 hours ago, Alkoholist said:

I guess it's good that we unloaded O'Reilly for that basket of lesser old guys. Between Berglund, Sobotka, Pominville, Hunwick, and Okposo we're really starting to fill out the team with declining veterans.

Serious question:  do you think they should not have made any changes to their core?  Or do you think a different member of the core (like Reino or Risto) should've been traded?  Or do you think JBott should've gotten a better package for ROR (despite him being openly on the market for months)?  Or other?

 

1 hour ago, Alkoholist said:

Splitting hairs there. I could have easily said when Eichel is 24 and Reinhart is 25. The point is we didn't need to add a bunch of veterans to multi year deals. Guys like that could have been acquired for cheaper than our second best player. We wasted the ELCs of a bunch of good young players already (Ristolainen, Eichel, and Reinhart) and the clock is ticking on the cheap years of Dahlin and Mittelstadt. I just don't like the idea of passively waiting around for the next crop of dead wood and their contracts to age off the roster.

The ELCs of the first 3 guys you named were wasted when the decision to tank was made, which was before JBott arrived. 

Having some vets on moderately priced contracts does not mean that the ELC years of Dahlin and Casey will be wasted.  And as Liger pointed out, taking on some of those contracts was part of the purchase price for guys like Scandy and Sheary.

[LGR4GM]

Just now, nfreeman said:

The ELCs of the first 3 guys you named were wasted when the decision to tank was made, which was before JBott arrived. 

It was wasted when Tim Murray failed to build a team after they drafted Eichel. They also didn't do good at player development. 

[Drunkard]

5 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

We basically did that for the 3 previous years and it didn't work. You keep say "not waste waiting for Berglund's contract to come off the books", you haven't even seen what role they have for him or how he will play for the Sabres. Seems odd to me. What if he puts up 4 35 point seasons while being a PK guy and 3rd/4th line center? Seems worth 3.9mil to me especially with the cap going up. 

It's just pessimism based on how disappointing the team has been. Fool me twice and all that.

Yeah, maybe they'll surprise me. I'm not going to hold my breath on that one though. I'm hoping they put together a MEH line filled with all my non-favorites (Sobotka, Berglund, and Okposo) and just give them all the grunt work but they'll probably have each guy on separate lines because every line needs an anchor (yeah yeah I haven't even seen 2/3 of them play for the Sabres but that's how I feel at the moment).

Maybe Eichel will play like a $10 million per year player as well and Housley will win the Jack Adams. We'll have to wait and see.

At this point the only reason I'll probably even bother to watch is Lord Casey (pbuh).

[LGR4GM]

Id watch because Rasmus Dahlin. 

[MakeSabresGrr8Again]

49 minutes ago, Alkoholist said:

I know Eichel is signed for 8 more years. I'd just rather not waste half of it waiting for Patrik Berglund's contract to come off the books.

Very few non-goalie players get better after the age of 30. The best we can probably hope for is their production to plateau which would still put most of them as overpaid relative to their production. I would have rather gone full bore with the youth movement rather than overpay for a handful of aging veterans. Guys like that are almost always available and usually for much cheaper than we paid for them.  

And how do you know your youth will be any better than .......let's say......Cody Hodgson who was only 23yrs old and signed his albatross deal???

[Drunkard]

6 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

Serious question:  do you think they should not have made any changes to their core?  Or do you think a different member of the core (like Reino or Risto) should've been traded?  Or do you think JBott should've gotten a better package for ROR (despite him being openly on the market for months)?  Or other?

 

The ELCs of the first 3 guys you named were wasted when the decision to tank was made, which was before JBott arrived. 

Having some vets on moderately priced contracts does not mean that the ELC years of Dahlin and Casey will be wasted.  And as Liger pointed out, taking on some of those contracts was part of the purchase price for guys like Scandy and Sheary.

I wouldn't have traded Eichel, Reinhart, O'Reilly, Scandella, or Ristolainen. The rest of the roster (excluding the young promising guys/propsects like Mittelstadt, Guhle, Ullmark, etc.) I could take or leave. I would have at least talked to Kane about an extension which they failed to even explore based on what little information leaked out, although I still probably would have traded him around xmas when he was tearing it up and not held out for the 4 pieces that must include a 1st nonsense that was widely reported. I'd rather have (for example) one good prospect rather than a basket of lesser pieces. I'd rather have gotten a team's second best prospect (assuming they had a decent prospect pool) than what we got for Kane which looks like a nobody and a draft pick that might be ready to contribute in 2022 or somewhere along those lines.

I definitely feel like they sold low on O'Reilly. Trading a quarter for 3 nickels and a slug that you hope turns into a dime or quarter is something that good teams up against the cap need to do, while bad teams like Buffalo should be looking to add to their talent not trading away one of their 5 most productive players.

Also, I'm perfectly fine with the Scandella and Sheary trades as well as the Skinner one. I'm ok with taking on an anchor in order to secure a player they wanted. Taking on Pominville was a win because not only did we get Scandella but we moved out Ennis who is almost as big of an anchor as Pominville. I'm fine with taking on Hunwick to secure Sheary as well. Those anchors were necessary to secure the guys we really wanted. In and of themselves they aren't so bad but when you aggregate them together with Berglund and Sobotka it makes me feel like we may have enough anchors to sink the boat.  

[Drunkard]

19 minutes ago, MakeSabresGrr8Again said:

And how do you know your youth will be any better than .......let's say......Cody Hodgson who was only 23yrs old and signed his albatross deal???

You don't. The difference is young guys are cheap and cost controlled so you're not locked into any serious term with them. Even the Cody Hodgson contract was able to get bought out at only 1/3 the contract value, precisely because he was so young when he signed it and when we terminated it.

[MakeSabresGrr8Again]

15 minutes ago, Alkoholist said:

You don't. The difference is young guys are cheap and cost controlled so you're not locked into any serious term with them. Even the Cody Hodgson contract was able to get bought out at only 1/3 the contract value, precisely because he was so young when he signed it and when we terminated it.

The point is that you are taking risks no matter what. How do we know Jack won't have chronic issues with the ankle (or worse) and his contract becomes an albatross.

 

[Drunkard]

1 minute ago, MakeSabresGrr8Again said:

The point is that you are taking risks no matter what. How do we know Jack won't have chronic issues with the ankle (or worse) and his contract becomes an albatross.

 

It very well could. The difference is he'll be 28 or 29 when it ends and not 35 or older so the chances of it happening are less. That's one of the reasons I'm so pissed off at the O'Reilly trade. Sure he was signed to big money but the contract ends when he's 31 or 32 and most of the money had already been paid out. It would have been easy to dump it on a cap floor team in a couple years if he got hobbled by injuries or his production fell off a cliff.

[nfreeman]

25 minutes ago, Alkoholist said:

I wouldn't have traded Eichel, Reinhart, O'Reilly, Scandella, or Ristolainen. The rest of the roster (excluding the young promising guys/propsects like Mittelstadt, Guhle, Ullmark, etc.) I could take or leave. I would have at least talked to Kane about an extension which they failed to even explore based on what little information leaked out, although I still probably would have traded him around xmas when he was tearing it up and not held out for the 4 pieces that must include a 1st nonsense that was widely reported. I'd rather have (for example) one good prospect rather than a basket of lesser pieces. I'd rather have gotten a team's second best prospect (assuming they had a decent prospect pool) than what we got for Kane which looks like a nobody and a draft pick that might be ready to contribute in 2022 or somewhere along those lines. 

I definitely feel like they sold low on O'Reilly. Trading a quarter for 3 nickels and a slug that you hope turns into a dime or quarter is something that good teams up against the cap need to do, while bad teams like Buffalo should be looking to add to their talent not trading away one of their 5 most productive players. 

Also, I'm perfectly fine with the Scandella and Sheary trades as well as the Skinner one. I'm ok with taking on an anchor in order to secure a player they wanted. Taking on Pominville was a win because not only did we get Scandella but we moved out Ennis who is almost as big of an anchor as Pominville. I'm fine with taking on Hunwick to secure Sheary as well. Those anchors were necessary to secure the guys we really wanted. In and of themselves they aren't so bad but when you aggregate them together with Berglund and Sobotka it makes me feel like we may have enough anchors to sink the boat.  

So that means essentially you were ready to try again with the same core as last season (albeit with different goaltending).  Would you have fired Housley this summer?  If not, why would next season have been better than last?

As for the "they should've gotten more for ROR and Kane" -- the discussion on this has been had repeatedly.  Suffice it to say again for the record that I disagree that it was possible to do so.

 

[pi2000]

4 hours ago, Alkoholist said:

I guess it's good that we unloaded O'Reilly for that basket of lesser old guys. Between Berglund, Sobotka, Pominville, Hunwick, and Okposo we're really starting to fill out the team with declining veterans.

How about instead of trying to fill the leadership void with declining veterans you hire an experienced head coach who can lead these young kids the way they need to be lead.  

[WildCard]

3 minutes ago, pi2000 said:

How about instead of trying to fill the leadership void with declining veterans you hire an experienced head coach who can lead these young kids the way they need to be lead.  

We tried. Babcock left us for another man and Danny boy is quite possibly actually d!ckless

Edited August 28, 2018 by WildCard

[pi2000]

32 minutes ago, WildCard said:

We tried. Babcock left us for another man and Danny boy is quite possibly actually d!ckless

Tippett was available, as was Sutter.    

[WildCard]

Just now, pi2000 said:

Tippett was available, as was Sutter.    

Sutter might as well be the scarecrow from Wizard of Oz

[Drunkard]

1 minute ago, nfreeman said:

So that means essentially you were ready to try again with the same core as last season (albeit with different goaltending).  Would you have fired Housley this summer?  If not, why would next season have been better than last?

As for the "they should've gotten more for ROR and Kane" -- the discussion on this has been had repeatedly.  Suffice it to say again for the record that I disagree that it was possible to do so.

 

Yes, I would have held onto the core and added pieces to it. Imagine having a center spine with Eichel, O'Reilly, and Mittelstadt while actually adding competent wingers like Skinner and Sheary to play with them. The core was productive, it's the ancillary pieces like Larsson, Girgensons, Pominville, Pouliot, Wilson, Josefson, etc. that didn't do squat. Move out the bums who can't produce, even if it means you're just re-arranging deck chairs on the titanic. That's better than moving out one of the handful of guys that actually produces.

As for beating the dead horse either, you flat out asked me, and I answered.

[nfreeman]

3 minutes ago, Alkoholist said:

Yes, I would have held onto the core and added pieces to it. Imagine having a center spine with Eichel, O'Reilly, and Mittelstadt while actually adding competent wingers like Skinner and Sheary to play with them. The core was productive, it's the ancillary pieces like Larsson, Girgensons, Pominville, Pouliot, Wilson, Josefson, etc. that didn't do squat. Move out the bums who can't produce, even if it means you're just re-arranging deck chairs on the titanic. That's better than moving out one of the handful of guys that actually produces.

As for beating the dead horse either, you flat out asked me, and I answered.

As to the 1st paragraph:  this is not illogical, but it ignores the human element, which appears to have been problematic. 

As to the 2nd:  I didn't mean to imply that you were beating a dead horse -- just that the "he could've gotten more/no he couldn't" conversation has been had multiple times, so I wasn't interested in beating that horse either.

 

 

[erickompositör72]

8 minutes ago, Alkoholist said:

Yes, I would have held onto the core and added pieces to it. Imagine having a center spine with Eichel, O'Reilly, and Mittelstadt while actually adding competent wingers like Skinner and Sheary to play with them. The core was productive, it's the ancillary pieces like Larsson, Girgensons, Pominville, Pouliot, Wilson, Josefson, etc. that didn't do squat. Move out the bums who can't produce, even if it means you're just re-arranging deck chairs on the titanic. That's better than moving out one of the handful of guys that actually produces.

As for beating the dead horse either, you flat out asked me, and I answered.

I don't think it's out of left field to speculate that ROR asked to be traded. One could even suggest he did implicitly with the "losing passion for the game" comment

[pi2000]

3 hours ago, Alkoholist said:

Yes, I would have held onto the core and added pieces to it. Imagine having a center spine with Eichel, O'Reilly, and Mittelstadt while actually adding competent wingers like Skinner and Sheary to play with them. The core was productive, it's the ancillary pieces like Larsson, Girgensons, Pominville, Pouliot, Wilson, Josefson, etc. that didn't do squat. Move out the bums who can't produce, even if it means you're just re-arranging deck chairs on the titanic. That's better than moving out one of the handful of guys that actually produces.

As for beating the dead horse either, you flat out asked me, and I answered.

I agree 100%.  

Buffalo had the least productive bottom 6 in the entire league... and it wasn't even close.    So what do they do to turn things around?    Trade their best all-around player.   Brilliant.

Rebuild the bottom six with some up and coming prospects/FA/trade, add a couple wingers (Sheary/Skinner) and a goalie in FA and you're in a much better position.   The three pronged attack of O'Reilly, Eichel and Mittlestadt would've given team's fits.  

I'm still not sure who will kill penalties or take key draws.     Trading O'Reilly means that guys like Girgensons and Larsson will stick around just to play PK.

[LGR4GM]

Lol, zemgus and Larson aren't going to be kept just for the pk. If they don't make the actual team, they go. Larson is already 1 foot out the door. 

Edited August 28, 2018 by LGR4GM

[dudacek]

14 minutes ago, pi2000 said:

I agree 100%.  

Buffalo had the least productive bottom 6 in the entire league... and it wasn't even close.    So what do they do to turn things around?    Trade their best all-around player.   Brilliant.

Rebuild the bottom six with some up and coming prospects/FA/trade, add a couple wingers (Sheary/Skinner) and a goalie in FA and you're in a much better position.   The three pronged attack of O'Reilly, Eichel and Mittlestadt would've given team's fits.  

I'm still not sure who will kill penalties or take key draws.     Trading O'Reilly means that guys like Girgensons and Larsson will stick around just to play PK.

There is no doubt the Sabres will miss O’Reilly, but I think you are overstating the blow to the top six.

They've essentially swapped out ROR, Kane, Pouliot, Nolan and Josefson for Mittlestadt, Skinner, Sheary, Berglund and Sobotka