The ROR trade sucked thread

[Doohicksie]

On 5/22/2019 at 8:33 AM, jahnyc said:

One open question is how much of an impact the team's reluctance to pay O'Reilly his bonus had in the making of this particular trade and the value that we could have received in return from the Blues or other teams if we were willing to pay the bonus and then trade O'Reilly.

I suspect it was common knowledge among GMs that the Pegulas chaffed at paying ROR's bonus which created the artificial deadline.  And they used it against the Sabres.

[Huckleberry]

9 minutes ago, SwampD said:

“I think it’s a good deal for Buffalo, too,” said Armstrong.

What a load of crap.

I don't mind the first round pick coming back for O'Reilly , Even thompson in the deal is ok.

But if I'm Jbott I never do a deal with Armstrong again, he shafted buffalo by adding Berglund.   Who he knew always had a list of teams he didn't want to go to.  Buffalo probably was on that list and if he had informed the player the deal would have not gone through seeing he would have taken the first flight home most likely.

At the time I thought it was good deal seeing we got two serviceable middle six players back in my mind.    But neither should be playing in the NHL ever again.

What we gave up to get him and McGinn.   2nd round pick / zadorov (bottom 4 LHD) / Grigorenko (KHL but looked at as 3C at the time) / Compher (middle six C/W).

So basically we are down a middle six player to make it a good trade for us.    The picks are close in each others neighbourhood. 

[Doohicksie]

9 hours ago, #freejame said:

I’ll put money on it that RoRs toxic, self-centered, toxic attitude prevents the Blues from winning back to back cups. They should probably go ahead and deal him. The guy is a cancer, they need to move him ASAP. 

[Huckleberry]

14 minutes ago, WildCard said:

/thread

There is much better to celebrate with than Guinness.

[...]

39 minutes ago, #freejame said:

Does the fact that 29 other GMs could have (probably should have) offered better packages for RoR also make them poor talent evaluators? Too much onus is put on JBott for the deal. I’m not convinced he wasn’t told to make a trade happen. 

 

34 minutes ago, That Aud Smell said:

This is a good post - for at least a couple of reasons.

The absence of an active market for the eventual Conn Smythe winner reflects horribly on several GMs.

People here have posted to the effect that the Tim Hortons incident and Cal O'Reilly's rough handling of Nylander may have contributed to the Pegulas being done with 90.

 

34 minutes ago, woods-racer said:

Always two sides to every deal. We blame Botterill for not getting more. RoR was damaged goods a year ago after his comments. No one wanted him. The Blues *took a chance*. 

 

26 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Or maybe gives credence to the premise there were real concerns about whatever was behind Ryan being shopped.

Despite the evidence we see of it all the time, fit remains underrated.

 

22 minutes ago, Crusader1969 said:

Does anyone else remember that ROR was once again part of a last place team that was about to get blown up before Binnington arrived on the scene? there seems to be no middle ground wth ROR, with the Sabres goaltending last season, im sure we'd be exactly in the same place we are.

 

 

19 minutes ago, darksabre said:

I said back before O'Reilly was traded that, if it happened, it was never going to be for reasons you could look at on paper. And I also said the return wasn't going to be what people wanted because of that.

His production was never an issue. It was always "other things" that were going to see him out the door, and I think every GM in the league knew it when O'Reilly was on the block.

My assertions continue to be correct, but whatever I guess.

 

Some sanity.  Thank God.  

 

[nucci]

Go ahead and keep defending what will go down as one of the worst trades in Sabre history.

[SwampD]

10 minutes ago, ... said:

 

Some sanity.  Thank God.  

 

Sanity?

More like Sabres PTSD psycho-babble over-rationalization BS.

[jad1]

42 minutes ago, darksabre said:

I said back before O'Reilly was traded that, if it happened, it was never going to be for reasons you could look at on paper. And I also said the return wasn't going to be what people wanted because of that.

His production was never an issue. It was always "other things" that were going to see him out the door, and I think every GM in the league knew it when O'Reilly was on the block.

My assertions continue to be correct, but whatever I guess.

You are most likely correct. And this is the most disappointing thing about Botterill and the current franchise.

Edited June 13, 2019 by jad1

[Georgia Blizzard]

To St Louis fans everywhere, YOU'RE WELCOME.

[Doohicksie]

30 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

There is much better to celebrate with than Guinness.

If there were Guinness and Bud Light in the tub full of ice, he made the best choice he could.

[SwampD]

5 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

If there were Guinness and Bud Light in the tub full of ice, he made the best choice he could.

Guinness after playing hockey tastes amazing.

[Huckleberry]

7 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

If there were Guinness and Bud Light in the tub full of ice, he made the best choice he could.

Wodka tampons sound more appealing than those two ?

[Radar]

26 minutes ago, jad1 said:

You are most likely correct. And this is the most disappointing thing about Botterill and the current franchise.

My hunch is this was the owners call in trading ROR. So I'm giving Botterill some benefit of doubt here. Either way it's done and over with.

[PalmTreeMafia]

34 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

I don't mind the first round pick coming back for O'Reilly , Even thompson in the deal is ok.

But if I'm Jbott I never do a deal with Armstrong again, he shafted buffalo by adding Berglund.   Who he knew always had a list of teams he didn't want to go to.  Buffalo probably was on that list and if he had informed the player the deal would have not gone through seeing he would have taken the first flight home most likely.

At the time I thought it was good deal seeing we got two serviceable middle six players back in my mind.    But neither should be playing in the NHL ever again.

What we gave up to get him and McGinn.   2nd round pick / zadorov (bottom 4 LHD) / Grigorenko (KHL but looked at as 3C at the time) / Compher (middle six C/W).

So basically we are down a middle six player to make it a good trade for us.    The picks are close in each others neighbourhood. 

That's certainly one way to look at this disaster. We basically traded Compher and Zadorov for Thompson and the 2019 31st pick over a 4-year period. There are two main points of sadness in this story:

1. Regier bombing on the 12th overall pick in 2012 and 16th overall pick in 2013. This is pretty much what he did for almost an entire decade (2005-2013), thus setting up the darkest era in franchise history.

2. Botterill turning around and recklessly destroying the one thing Tim Murray did right during his brief, miserable GM tenure (aside from commanding the Eichel tank).

And beyond simply losing a really good player at a position of need, there are three major lingering concerns that do not bode well for the future:

1. How much do the Pegulas meddle in transactions like this one?

2. How confident are we that Botterill knows how to build a roster, given this trade and the fact that he didn't bother to replace O'Reilly's production during the season?

3. Exactly how deep do the locker room problems go on the current Sabres roster? We were led to believe that O'Reilly - along with Lehner and Kane - were the main issues. Yet all three flourished as soon as they left Buffalo. We even took in another (Skinner) whose team broke their 9-season playoff drought as soon as he left. O'Reilly's Blues were able to bounce back after a rough first half of the season, while the Sabres imploded as soon as December arrived.

[...]

My question is what do we gain from recognizing/admitting/knowing, in hindsight (especially), that the Sabres lost that trade?  What do we do with this insight?

[darksabre]

6 minutes ago, ... said:

My question is what do we gain from recognizing/admitting/knowing, in hindsight (especially), that the Sabres lost that trade?  What do we do with this insight?

Bitch about how Botterill is a stupid failure without being able to see into the future to know if that actually ends up being the case?

[Brawndo]

2 hours ago, #freejame said:

Does the fact that 29 other GMs could have (probably should have) offered better packages for RoR also make them poor talent evaluators? Too much onus is put on JBott for the deal. I’m not convinced he wasn’t told to make a trade happen. 

I do believe there was an order from the top to trade him prior to the bonus being paid. 

We know that St Louis, Montreal,  Islanders, Arizona and Carolina were interested, with the latter two wanting a post July 1st Deal. 

The rumor is that Carolina was willing to include Elias Lindholm as part of trade to the Sabres, and the fact he and Noah Hanifin were moved at the Draft gives more credence to this. Imagine if the deal had been ROR for Lindholm and Skinner or ROR and Risto for Lindholm/Skinner/Hanifin. 

The July 1st Deadline severely hampered potential deals. 

By Marc Bergevin’s own admission he would not trade 3rd Overall, Brady Tkatchuk would be a Sabre, nor Ryan Poehling and a 2nd Round Pick plus for ROR. 

Chayka is on video asking if there were any assets from the Penguins that he could acquire that would make the deal happen. 

I do believe that Botterill was originally asking for Robert Thomas or Jordan Kyrou at the Draft and even Armstrong wouldn’t even do that. 

Also add on the fact that that Berglund was blindsided by the trade I do believe that the final deal was a rush job to meet the imposed deadline. 

That being said, Jason Botterill was the GM who made the trade call, he was on the conference call on July 1st, so he is the focus of the ire of the Hockey Media and Sabres Fans. 

 

In terms of Botterill being on the hot seat, I do not believe he is.  Krueger’s Deal is for three seasons and Botterill has three left on his, barring a total collapse in the next 24 Months, they finish their deals. I doubt that Krueger takes the job if he  did not have reassurance that Botterill was safe from the Pegulas.. 

And yes the trade sucks. 

Edited June 13, 2019 by Brawndo

[Scottysabres]

5 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

I do believe there was an order from the top to trade him prior to the bonus being paid. 

We know that St Louis, Montreal,  Islanders, Arizona and Carolina were interested, with the latter two wanting a post July 1st Deal. 

The rumor is that Carolina was willing to include Elias Lindholm as part of trade to the Sabres, and the fact he and Noah Hanifin were moved at the Draft gives more credence to this. Imagine if the deal had been ROR for Lindholm and Skinner or ROR and Risto for Lindholm/Skinner/Hanifin. 

By Marc Bergevin’s own admission he would not trade 3rd Overall, Brady Tkatchuk would be a Sabre, nor Ryan Poehling and a 2nd Round Pick plus for ROR. 

Chayka is on video asking if there were any assets from the Penguins that he could acquire that would make the deal happen. 

I do believe that Botterill was originally asking for Robert Thomas or Jordan Kyrou at the Draft and even Armstrong wouldn’t even do that. 

Also add on the fact that that Berglund was blindsided by the trade I do believe that the final deal was a rush job to meet the imposed deadline. 

That being said, Jason Botterill was the GM who made the trade call, he was on the conference call on July 1st, so he is the focus of the ire of the Hockey Media and Sabres Fans. 

 

In terms of Botterill being on the hot seat, I do not believe he is.  Krueger’s Deal is for three seasons and Botterill has three left on his, barring a total collapse in the next 24 Months, they finish their deals. I doubt that Krueger takes the job if he  did not have reassurance that Botterill was safe from the Pegulas.. 

Everything in this post has me seeing red except that last paragraph. That one has me deeply depressed as I have lost all faith in Botterill as a GM. I'm also very unsatisfied with the Pegula ownership scenario, the honeymoon is long since in the rear view mirror, divorce is looking beyond tempting, but like a New York divorce court cynic I realize as a hockey fan that divorce will cost me everything.

So like an unhappy spouse forced to stay in a relationship out of hockey self preservation, I wander through day after day in a state of depression wondering when it will all end.

Edited June 13, 2019 by Scottysabres

[TrueBlueGED]

9 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

I do believe there was an order from the top to trade him prior to the bonus being paid. 

We know that St Louis, Montreal,  Islanders, Arizona and Carolina were interested, with the latter two wanting a post July 1st Deal. 

The rumor is that Carolina was willing to include Elias Lindholm as part of trade to the Sabres, and the fact he and Noah Hanifin were moved at the Draft gives more credence to this. Imagine if the deal had been ROR for Lindholm and Skinner or ROR and Risto for Lindholm/Skinner/Hanifin. 

The July 1st Deadline severely hampered potential deals. 

By Marc Bergevin’s own admission he would not trade 3rd Overall, Brady Tkatchuk would be a Sabre, nor Ryan Poehling and a 2nd Round Pick plus for ROR. 

Chayka is on video asking if there were any assets from the Penguins that he could acquire that would make the deal happen. 

I do believe that Botterill was originally asking for Robert Thomas or Jordan Kyrou at the Draft and even Armstrong wouldn’t even do that. 

Also add on the fact that that Berglund was blindsided by the trade I do believe that the final deal was a rush job to meet the imposed deadline. 

That being said, Jason Botterill was the GM who made the trade call, he was on the conference call on July 1st, so he is the focus of the ire of the Hockey Media and Sabres Fans. 

 

In terms of Botterill being on the hot seat, I do not believe he is.  Krueger’s Deal is for three seasons and Botterill has three left on his, barring a total collapse in the next 24 Months, they finish their deals. I doubt that Krueger takes the job if he  did not have reassurance that Botterill was safe from the Pegulas.. 

And yes the trade sucks. 

1) There may have been an order from the top to trade him before he got paid the bonus, but that doesn't mean that the order to trade in the first place originated at the top. I think it's likely Botterill decided to trade him (for whatever reason) and at that point was told he had better do it before the bonus. But we'll never know. Anyway, I don't think there's a way to look at the trade that makes either Botterill or Pegula look good--it's bad all 'round. However the trade came to be, it's incumbent upon Botterill to fill the giant hole it created. 

2) Sir, the collapse already happened. The question is whether Botterill can reconstruct fast enough.

[That Aud Smell]

3 hours ago, Neo said:

My spider sense is tingling.  Ralph Krueger, leader of men and builder of teams, I introduce Captain Jack Eichel

Same.

What exactly was ROR's insoluble problem with Eichel? I don't think it was something as facile as personalities that didn't mesh. I theorize that ROR saw in Eichel a guy with far more natural ability and talent than ROR ever had, but who, quite unlike ROR, was unwilling and/or unable to do the incredible amount of work needed to hoist The Cup. #Floating #Coasting

The story is not yet written, though. There's still time.

[jad1]

45 minutes ago, ... said:

My question is what do we gain from recognizing/admitting/knowing, in hindsight (especially), that the Sabres lost that trade?  What do we do with this insight?

The seemingly cosmic ways the Sabres were screwed in this unbelievably bad deal is mind-boggling.  Discussing it as part of the current events makes sense at this time.

If people are still obsessing on it after the draft and FA (where hopefully Botterill will acquire a couple of legit 2nd liners), then we can play the move-along card.

 

[Weave]

1 minute ago, That Aud Smell said:

Same.

What exactly was ROR's insoluble problem with Eichel? I don't think it was something as facile as personalities that didn't mesh. I theorize that ROR saw in Eichel a guy with far more natural ability and talent than ROR ever had, but who, quite unlike ROR, was unwilling and/or unable to do the incredible amount of work needed to hoist The Cup. #Floating #Coasting

The story is not yet written, though. There's still time.

This is my take. And it’s also my take as to why there was a disconnect with Brian Gionta as well.  And I said as much 2 offseasons ago.

[TrueBlueGED]

56 minutes ago, ... said:

My question is what do we gain from recognizing/admitting/knowing, in hindsight (especially), that the Sabres lost that trade?  What do we do with this insight?

I think there's considerable value in understanding the processes that led to making, and subsequently losing, the trade. That can inform evaluations and discussion of other moves, both actual and potential.

[dudacek]

8 minutes ago, That Aud Smell said:

Same.

What exactly was ROR's insoluble problem with Eichel? I don't think it was something as facile as personalities that didn't mesh. I theorize that ROR saw in Eichel a guy with far more natural ability and talent than ROR ever had, but who, quite unlike ROR, was unwilling and/or unable to do the incredible amount of work needed to hoist The Cup. #Floating #Coasting

The story is not yet written, though. There's still time.

I think there may also have been a streak of jealousy and frustration in there with the insecurity.

”Why is Sam practicing/hanging/following that douche and not me?”

[Doohicksie]

1 hour ago, Marchand'sNose said:

O'Reilly's Blues were able to bounce back after a rough first half of the season, while the Sabres imploded as soon as December arrived.

Let's see how the Sabres do when UPL gets called up to play goal.