GDT: 11/19/19 Minnesota @ Buffalo, 7 p.m. EST

[Randall Flagg]

To put it more concisely, the average organization has X amount of value in NHL assets, or assets with NHL potential. You always want to stay near this number, even in a rebuild. The Sabres were okay on the non-NHL asset side, but they reduced the NHL part so much that they were at, say, X/2 in organizational assets. They didn't deplete their organizational pool of talent and potential, they severed a massive chunk of it incredibly rapidly. 

And what little value they had left, was all in the non-NHL parts. Which are notoriously horrendously difficult to turn into NHL skill and talent. No matter how big your draft pick and prospect pile, very few "new" elite players enter that tier every year, the same goes for very good players. It was all they had to work with. And their talent pool is still way thinner than it should be today because of it, it's never recovered. It's gotten better, arguably every year, and they're still woefully behind because they kneecapped themselves so hard at the beginning.

You ALL see it when you make comments like "man, I want to improve the forward corps...but what do we have to trade that would actually do it, without blowing holes open elsewhere?" This is literally from the tank, because our organization looked like
4th line
4th line
AHL line
AHL line

AHL prospects, lots of draft picks

It is more or less IMPOSSIBLE to turn that into a winning NHL organization no matter how many picks you have, unless you have a string of the best drafts in NHL history, period.

They were fixable from where Darcy left them, even though it was a bad place. They took eight steps further and made it unfixable, to draft a guy nobody even likes anymore, and never had a ***** chance in the first place. Any flawed player taken in this spot, and every player outside McD or Crosby is a flawed player, wasn't going to win early in this situation, and was going to have the fans turn on them. It was set  up the moment they decided to do what they did to the roster for two years.

I guess that wasn't really more concisely 

Edited November 19, 2019 by Randall Flagg

[sabremike]

16 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

The tank was indeed a horrible move, and is ultimately what our problems today stem from. 

In order to finish below a 56 point finish for the Coyotes in the McEichel year, we had to obliterate our organizational depth to a degree that nobody has seen outside of an expansion team. 

In the two short years after the tank ended, the Sabres added:
a 56 -> 75 point center in Eichel (the latter was his pace in the second year)
a 40+ point winger in Sam
a 25+G, 40+ point winger in Kane
a ~60 point center in ROR
a 45 point winger in Kyle Okposo

Which is a talent swing in two years that you can more or less never guarantee happening again. It is incredibly rare for a team to see that much top six capable talent added in such a short span.

And that team's forward depth was still among the worst in the league. This is with getting solid depth performances during that time from additions like Gionta, Foligno's development (remember, in 16-17, the FLG line was our best possession line at times). Girgensons shifting out of a 1C role. 

Since 2015, the sheer number of depth forwards we've brought in is ludicrous, but the crater we started from was so far below average and acceptable that we haven't been able to catch up to league average in this regard yet, nearly 5 years after the tank ended. 

Take a team that didn't tank but was mired in an extended stretch of mediocrity. It could be the Hurricanes, it could be the Flames. These teams, for a long time, didn't have great management, but they eventually got to a point where their middling forward additions coupled with nice development of prospects like Aho, Pesce, Slavin (no different from Jack/Sam's development) turned them into effective forward corps, but it took each team probably 5 years of having bad forward depth to do it. This is starting from far, far above where we did, when we had a 3rd line, a 4th line, and 2 AHL lines at our healthiest. It was never going to be an easy fix unless literally every single move over a 5 year span was the correct one, which isn't something you can realistically come close to guaranteeing for any NHL team no matter how good the management. They haven't been perfect, and have NEVER fixed the forward chasm, even with plenty of GOOD moves for GOOD players at all levels of the forward group (ROR and Skinner and Kane were good-to-great top 6 additions, Mojo is a good middle 6 addition, KO was good for a year before his injury, and was fine as a 4th liner, Sheary an annoying but reasonable depth addition, Gionta had two nice years etc.) No, Coin White, Jack Roslovic, and JT Compher all together would not have made the difference. Not even Brock Boeser, and using hindsight on these draft picks we "could have kept" (in reality, having kept them, we would have entered post tank seasons with depleted TOP SIX as well as depth, which was untenable for a fan base asked to sit through 164 purposeful tanking games) is a joke considering you'd be trying to shoot down tank hindsight with the same logic. Most teams miss most picks as far as impact players go, and we're no different.

We intentionally made the starting line 5 years back of what usually takes years to develop from in the first place by choosing to tank, and in doing so acquired a center that more and more people turn on by the day anyway. In addition to his partner in crime, who half the fanbase has already been lukewarm towards for years. I love Jack and Sam and never want to trade them, but not even McDrai is enough to pull a team out of the abyss, and we gave up so much ground organizationally to get them and they're nowhere close to McDrai. Even if you take every single one of the big mistakes out of the last 5 years, this team isn't close to cup contention, despite the fact that the timelines of every single tank intellectual are documented here for all to see (me included) and had cup contention as starting, like, last year, after a nice playoff run the year before (when we finished in last again). 

The average tank supporter had cup contention within 5 years, liked/justified most of the team's moves along the way, got angry when some of us didn't, and then pretend now like they've had their finger on the pulse of this thing all along despite being incorrect about virtually everything

I think in theory the tank was not a bad idea, it was just executed incompetently. When we were stripping assets we should've been acquiring as many draft picks as possible (which is what teams like the Astros and Sixers did). That's what the Dolphins are doing right now as well. The draft is by far the best most effective way to acquire talent, the more picks you have the better the odds you hit the jackpot.

[Brawndo]

The rebuild failed because there was a GM put in place that did not realize how dire the prospect pool was and believed he could trade assets to make this team into a Stanley Cup Contender quicker.

Botterill’s slow and steady approach probably would have been more tolerable as Regier’s Replacement, he was interviewed by PLF for the job, BTW.   He would have probably have used at least 3 of 4 Top 31 Picks in the 2015 Draft which the Sabres owned. This team would look much different now with Boeser, Roslovic, and/or Aho on the team.  The prospect pool would be improved and the team would probably be a playoff contender right now. 

Edited November 19, 2019 by Brawndo

[Wyldnwoody44]

November 19th, 2019 

 

The day that stood still, the day that the fanbase broke for good. 

 

Honestly if we lose tonight, I feel that headline may just be correct. 

 

Tough times here in Sabre land 

[Mustache of God]

5 minutes ago, DarthEbriate said:

Good point. Who do we need to nullify on the Wild? I have no knowledge of them this season --- do they have a go-to line? An up-and-comer to keep watch on?

I think they need to outscore the Wild to win this game, but since the re-build was done incorrectly we have no talent to score outside of the player we tanked to get.

[WildCard]

Time is a flat circle

We'll win tonight, relax everyone

[Randall Flagg]

Just now, WildCard said:

Time is a flat circle

We'll win tonight, relax everyone

We're absolutely going to smoke the Wild.

[Doohicksie]

Just now, WildCard said:

Time is a flat circle

Time flies like an arrow.

But fruit flies like a banana.

[Randall Flagg]

7 minutes ago, Weave said:

2012-13. The season with Ron Rolston as HC.  Lets call that the beginning of the end.

 

We’re weeks away from calendar year 2020. Call it season 8 since the obvious end of trying to win.  8 years is a hockey player generation.  A full career for most players.  We’ve wandered the desert for the equivalent of an entire player career.

 

This team hasn't made a correct decision since Chris Drury left for NYR, losing on purpose included.  Debate all you want if the tank wad successful.  Its success is immaterial as it was a flawed decision to choose to do it, for all the reasons previously mentioned.

 

You want proof it was the wrong decision?  The proof is that it is still debated an entire generation of talent after the decision was made.

They've made a couple good moves. 

The first ROR trade, and the Skinner trade, were brilliant. 

[darksabre]

2 minutes ago, WildCard said:

Time is a flat circle

We'll win tonight, relax everyone

Yeah, that'll really put everyone at ease. 

[WildCard]

Just now, darksabre said:

Yeah, that'll really put everyone at ease. 

Until Thursday at least

[Taro T]

12 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

The tank was indeed a horrible move, and is ultimately what our problems today stem from. 

In order to finish below a 56 point finish for the Coyotes in the McEichel year, we had to obliterate our organizational depth to a degree that nobody has seen outside of an expansion team. 

In the two short years after the tank ended, the Sabres added:
a 56 -> 75 point center in Eichel (the latter was his pace in the second year)
a 40+ point winger in Sam
a 25+G, 40+ point winger in Kane
a ~60 point center in ROR
a 45 point winger in Kyle Okposo

Which is a talent swing in two years that you can more or less never guarantee happening again. It is incredibly rare for a team to see that much top six capable talent added in such a short span.

And that team's forward depth was still among the worst in the league. This is with getting solid depth performances during that time from additions like Gionta, Foligno's development (remember, in 16-17, the FLG line was our best possession line at times). Girgensons shifting out of a 1C role. 

Since 2015, the sheer number of depth forwards we've brought in is ludicrous, but the crater we started from was so far below average and acceptable that we haven't been able to catch up to league average in this regard yet, nearly 5 years after the tank ended. 

Take a team that didn't tank but was mired in an extended stretch of mediocrity. It could be the Hurricanes, it could be the Flames. These teams, for a long time, didn't have great management, but they eventually got to a point where their middling forward additions coupled with nice development of prospects like Aho, Pesce, Slavin (no different from Jack/Sam's development) turned them into effective forward corps, but it took each team probably 5 years of having bad forward depth to do it. This is starting from far, far above where we did, when we had a 3rd line, a 4th line, and 2 AHL lines at our healthiest. It was never going to be an easy fix unless literally every single move over a 5 year span was the correct one, which isn't something you can realistically come close to guaranteeing for any NHL team no matter how good the management. They haven't been perfect, and have NEVER fixed the forward chasm, even with plenty of GOOD moves for GOOD players at all levels of the forward group (ROR and Skinner and Kane were good-to-great top 6 additions, Mojo is a good middle 6 addition, KO was good for a year before his injury, and was fine as a 4th liner, Sheary an annoying but reasonable depth addition, Gionta had two nice years etc.) No, Coin White, Jack Roslovic, and JT Compher all together would not have made the difference. Not even Brock Boeser, and using hindsight on these draft picks we "could have kept" (in reality, having kept them, we would have entered post tank seasons with depleted TOP SIX as well as depth, which was untenable for a fan base asked to sit through 164 purposeful tanking games) is a joke considering you'd be trying to shoot down tank hindsight with the same logic. Most teams miss most picks as far as impact players go, and we're no different.

We intentionally made the starting line 5 years back of what usually takes years to develop from in the first place by choosing to tank, and in doing so acquired a center that more and more people turn on by the day anyway. In addition to his partner in crime, who half the fanbase has already been lukewarm towards for years. I love Jack and Sam and never want to trade them, but not even McDrai is enough to pull a team out of the abyss, and we gave up so much ground organizationally to get them and they're nowhere close to McDrai. Even if you take every single one of the big mistakes out of the last 5 years, this team isn't close to cup contention, despite the fact that the timelines of every single tank intellectual are documented here for all to see (me included) and had cup contention as starting, like, last year, after a nice playoff run the year before (when we finished in last again). 

The average tank supporter had cup contention within 5 years, liked/justified most of the team's moves along the way, got angry when some of us didn't, and then pretend now like they've had their finger on this thing all along despite being incorrect about virtually everything

Good post.  But 1 thing lost in all the reviews of the tank is that it was effected to land Sam Reinhart.  Regier promised us suffering and went about to make it happen.  The Sabres finished DFL by 14 points which was waaaaay worse than they needed to be.

They didn't tank for MacKinnon nor for McEichel.  They tanked for the only top forward taken in the draft to go back to Juniors since Dumont was sent back by the Aisles.

Because they'd tanked the wrong year, we ended up watching a 2 year tank rather than the more typical single year tank.

The organizational depth was knocked flat.  And then Botterill ended up dumping nearly all of Murray's high end NHL ready acquisitions for nothing (Moulson & Lehner) or pennies on the $ (Kane & O'Reilly), or never really got to use them due to injuries the way Murray had expected them to be used (Bogosian & Okposo).

It was a bad strategy to start but having the GMs show up in the order they did absolutely doomed it.  (And having to lose a quality D-man just over a year from now to Seattle due to them delaying a year won't help.  It won't hurt tremendously, but it will hurt.  Had they come in this off-season, the Sabres would end up losing Hutton or nothing of value.  Neither loss would have hurt.)

At least we should finally see a playoff bubble team next year or even this year should we get a trade or 2 in the next couple of weeks.

12 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

The tank was indeed a horrible move, and is ultimately what our problems today stem from. 

In order to finish below a 56 point finish for the Coyotes in the McEichel year, we had to obliterate our organizational depth to a degree that nobody has seen outside of an expansion team. 

In the two short years after the tank ended, the Sabres added:
a 56 -> 75 point center in Eichel (the latter was his pace in the second year)
a 40+ point winger in Sam
a 25+G, 40+ point winger in Kane
a ~60 point center in ROR
a 45 point winger in Kyle Okposo

Which is a talent swing in two years that you can more or less never guarantee happening again. It is incredibly rare for a team to see that much top six capable talent added in such a short span.

And that team's forward depth was still among the worst in the league. This is with getting solid depth performances during that time from additions like Gionta, Foligno's development (remember, in 16-17, the FLG line was our best possession line at times). Girgensons shifting out of a 1C role. 

Since 2015, the sheer number of depth forwards we've brought in is ludicrous, but the crater we started from was so far below average and acceptable that we haven't been able to catch up to league average in this regard yet, nearly 5 years after the tank ended. 

Take a team that didn't tank but was mired in an extended stretch of mediocrity. It could be the Hurricanes, it could be the Flames. These teams, for a long time, didn't have great management, but they eventually got to a point where their middling forward additions coupled with nice development of prospects like Aho, Pesce, Slavin (no different from Jack/Sam's development) turned them into effective forward corps, but it took each team probably 5 years of having bad forward depth to do it. This is starting from far, far above where we did, when we had a 3rd line, a 4th line, and 2 AHL lines at our healthiest. It was never going to be an easy fix unless literally every single move over a 5 year span was the correct one, which isn't something you can realistically come close to guaranteeing for any NHL team no matter how good the management. They haven't been perfect, and have NEVER fixed the forward chasm, even with plenty of GOOD moves for GOOD players at all levels of the forward group (ROR and Skinner and Kane were good-to-great top 6 additions, Mojo is a good middle 6 addition, KO was good for a year before his injury, and was fine as a 4th liner, Sheary an annoying but reasonable depth addition, Gionta had two nice years etc.) No, Coin White, Jack Roslovic, and JT Compher all together would not have made the difference. Not even Brock Boeser, and using hindsight on these draft picks we "could have kept" (in reality, having kept them, we would have entered post tank seasons with depleted TOP SIX as well as depth, which was untenable for a fan base asked to sit through 164 purposeful tanking games) is a joke considering you'd be trying to shoot down tank hindsight with the same logic. Most teams miss most picks as far as impact players go, and we're no different.

We intentionally made the starting line 5 years back of what usually takes years to develop from in the first place by choosing to tank, and in doing so acquired a center that more and more people turn on by the day anyway. In addition to his partner in crime, who half the fanbase has already been lukewarm towards for years. I love Jack and Sam and never want to trade them, but not even McDrai is enough to pull a team out of the abyss, and we gave up so much ground organizationally to get them and they're nowhere close to McDrai. Even if you take every single one of the big mistakes out of the last 5 years, this team isn't close to cup contention, despite the fact that the timelines of every single tank intellectual are documented here for all to see (me included) and had cup contention as starting, like, last year, after a nice playoff run the year before (when we finished in last again). 

The average tank supporter had cup contention within 5 years, liked/justified most of the team's moves along the way, got angry when some of us didn't, and then pretend now like they've had their finger on this thing all along despite being incorrect about virtually everything

Good post.  But 1 thing lost in all the reviews of the tank is that it was effected to land Sam Reinhart.  Regier promised us suffering and went about to make it happen.  The Sabres finished DFL by 14 points which was waaaaay worse than they needed to be.

They didn't tank for MacKinnon nor for McEichel.  They tanked for the only top forward taken in the draft to go back to Juniors since Dumont was sent back by the Aisles.

Because they'd tanked the wrong year, we ended up watching a 2 year tank rather than the more typical single year tank.

The organizational depth was knocked flat.  And then Botterill ended up dumping nearly all of Murray's high end NHL ready acquisitions for nothing (Moulson & Lehner) or pennies on the $ (Kane & O'Reilly), or never really got to use them due to injuries the way Murray had expected them to be used (Bogosian & Okposo).

It was a bad strategy to start but having the GMs show up in the order they did absolutely doomed it.  (And having to lose a quality D-man just over a year from now to Seattle due to them delaying a year won't help.  It won't hurt tremendously, but it will hurt.  Had they come in this off-season, the Sabres would end up losing Hutton or nothing of value.  Neither loss would have hurt.)

At least we should finally see a playoff bubble team next year or even this year should we get a trade or 2 in the next couple of weeks.

12 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

The tank was indeed a horrible move, and is ultimately what our problems today stem from. 

In order to finish below a 56 point finish for the Coyotes in the McEichel year, we had to obliterate our organizational depth to a degree that nobody has seen outside of an expansion team. 

In the two short years after the tank ended, the Sabres added:
a 56 -> 75 point center in Eichel (the latter was his pace in the second year)
a 40+ point winger in Sam
a 25+G, 40+ point winger in Kane
a ~60 point center in ROR
a 45 point winger in Kyle Okposo

Which is a talent swing in two years that you can more or less never guarantee happening again. It is incredibly rare for a team to see that much top six capable talent added in such a short span.

And that team's forward depth was still among the worst in the league. This is with getting solid depth performances during that time from additions like Gionta, Foligno's development (remember, in 16-17, the FLG line was our best possession line at times). Girgensons shifting out of a 1C role. 

Since 2015, the sheer number of depth forwards we've brought in is ludicrous, but the crater we started from was so far below average and acceptable that we haven't been able to catch up to league average in this regard yet, nearly 5 years after the tank ended. 

Take a team that didn't tank but was mired in an extended stretch of mediocrity. It could be the Hurricanes, it could be the Flames. These teams, for a long time, didn't have great management, but they eventually got to a point where their middling forward additions coupled with nice development of prospects like Aho, Pesce, Slavin (no different from Jack/Sam's development) turned them into effective forward corps, but it took each team probably 5 years of having bad forward depth to do it. This is starting from far, far above where we did, when we had a 3rd line, a 4th line, and 2 AHL lines at our healthiest. It was never going to be an easy fix unless literally every single move over a 5 year span was the correct one, which isn't something you can realistically come close to guaranteeing for any NHL team no matter how good the management. They haven't been perfect, and have NEVER fixed the forward chasm, even with plenty of GOOD moves for GOOD players at all levels of the forward group (ROR and Skinner and Kane were good-to-great top 6 additions, Mojo is a good middle 6 addition, KO was good for a year before his injury, and was fine as a 4th liner, Sheary an annoying but reasonable depth addition, Gionta had two nice years etc.) No, Coin White, Jack Roslovic, and JT Compher all together would not have made the difference. Not even Brock Boeser, and using hindsight on these draft picks we "could have kept" (in reality, having kept them, we would have entered post tank seasons with depleted TOP SIX as well as depth, which was untenable for a fan base asked to sit through 164 purposeful tanking games) is a joke considering you'd be trying to shoot down tank hindsight with the same logic. Most teams miss most picks as far as impact players go, and we're no different.

We intentionally made the starting line 5 years back of what usually takes years to develop from in the first place by choosing to tank, and in doing so acquired a center that more and more people turn on by the day anyway. In addition to his partner in crime, who half the fanbase has already been lukewarm towards for years. I love Jack and Sam and never want to trade them, but not even McDrai is enough to pull a team out of the abyss, and we gave up so much ground organizationally to get them and they're nowhere close to McDrai. Even if you take every single one of the big mistakes out of the last 5 years, this team isn't close to cup contention, despite the fact that the timelines of every single tank intellectual are documented here for all to see (me included) and had cup contention as starting, like, last year, after a nice playoff run the year before (when we finished in last again). 

The average tank supporter had cup contention within 5 years, liked/justified most of the team's moves along the way, got angry when some of us didn't, and then pretend now like they've had their finger on this thing all along despite being incorrect about virtually everything

Good post.  But 1 thing lost in all the reviews of the tank is that it was effected to land Sam Reinhart.  Regier promised us suffering and went about to make it happen.  The Sabres finished DFL by 14 points which was waaaaay worse than they needed to be.

They didn't tank for MacKinnon nor for McEichel.  They tanked for the only top forward taken in the draft to go back to Juniors since Dumont was sent back by the Aisles.

Because they'd tanked the wrong year, we ended up watching a 2 year tank rather than the more typical single year tank.

The organizational depth was knocked flat.  And then Botterill ended up dumping nearly all of Murray's high end NHL ready acquisitions for nothing (Moulson & Lehner) or pennies on the $ (Kane & O'Reilly), or never really got to use them due to injuries the way Murray had expected them to be used (Bogosian & Okposo).

It was a bad strategy to start but having the GMs show up in the order they did absolutely doomed it.  (And having to lose a quality D-man just over a year from now to Seattle due to them delaying a year won't help.  It won't hurt tremendously, but it will hurt.  Had they come in this off-season, the Sabres would end up losing Hutton or nothing of value.  Neither loss would have hurt.)

At least we should finally see a playoff bubble team next year or even this year should we get a trade or 2 in the next couple of weeks.

[LGR4GM]

I've always stated my support for the tank and have no problem stating I thought in the 3-5 year range post tank we would be better and even a contender. Yet again though the point of bringing of the tank again isn't to actually talk about it, it is to put down those who wanted it while making those who didn't feel good. So here we are again. Thanks Nfreeman, I am glad you feel vindicated. Cheers. 

[WildCard]

Well we know @Taro T is on mobile now ? 

[DarthEbriate]

4 minutes ago, WildCard said:

Time is a flat circle

We'll win tonight, relax everyone

I'll translate: "Suffering" leads to losing. Losing leads to higher draft picks. Higher picks lead to reliance on higher picks without a full roster to support. An incomplete roster leads to… suffering.

All that said, let's go win a game tonight! Let's go Buffalo!

[WildCard]

1 minute ago, DarthEbriate said:

I'll translate: "Suffering" leads to losing. Losing leads to higher draft picks. Higher picks lead to reliance on higher picks without a full roster to support. An incomplete roster leads to… suffering.

All that said, let's go win a game tonight! Let's go Buffalo!

Thanks but no need haha I've read/heard everything I ever need to about the tank debate

[Randall Flagg]

There was a very lively debate here in 2015 whether or not to bring in ROR. The reason some people were hesitant was because we had Zemgus Girgensons - we didn't need ROR! That seems silly now, but at the time, it was a valid consideration - we just had a very young two way forward put up a 20 goal, 40 point pace season on a garbage team. In that light, you want to be careful about how much you spend on a similar type of player. 

I guarantee the front office had that discussion many times before the trade as well. The fact that it was a concern, and yet turned out the way it did for both players, is EXACTLY why you cannot set yourself so far back like we did. You cannot possibly get all of that stuff right, even if you're the smartest GM in the league. You will whiff and whiff a lot. When you whiff from our starting point, you never get out. 

However, if you're a competent organization, you can whiff on a Dougie Hamilton trade, and then three straight first round picks in which you acquire DeBrusk, Zboril, Senyshyn rather than Barzal, Boeser, Aho etc., have everyone who just rooted for their own team to tank laughing in your face all summer, and still be a cup contender year in and year out despite drafting errors that make our trading of first rounders look like GM of the Year moves. Those picks we could have kept make no difference in where we are right now, just like whiffing on management decisions for a two year stretch didn't hurt an otherwise competent franchise in any meaningful way. 

Edited November 19, 2019 by Randall Flagg

[Brawndo]

Gilmour will rotate between forward and defense tonight

[LGR4GM]

4 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

Gilmour will rotate between forward and defense tonight

There it is. Great job Buffalo, you finally hit peak stupidity. 

[WildCard]

6 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

Gilmour will rotate between forward and defense tonight

lmao what? That can't be real 

[sabremike]

1 minute ago, WildCard said:

lmao what? That can't be real 

So we've officially reached " Billy Martin ordering Mike Pagliarullo to go to the plate and bat from his opposite stance despite him having never done so in his entire life" territory?

[darksabre]

11 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

Gilmour will rotate between forward and defense tonight

Bless us, every one.

[Taro T]

1 minute ago, darksabre said:

Bless us, every one.

Fortunately, the Wild are really bad right now and the Sabres should win in spite of themselves.

[Randall Flagg]

Bizarrely confident that Gilmour will be that 2nd line forward we desperately needed 

[Doohicksie]

6 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

Bizarrely confident that Gilmour will be that 2nd line forward we desperately needed 

Wouldn't that be a hoot?  I really wanted to see Bogo banging around the forecheck.  I bet Gilmore gives a great effort tonight.  He seems to have a good attitude, just happy to be in the league.  If he can carve out a spot as a winger on a team with sketchy forward depth, it would be a dream come true for him I think.  Per the Sabres on FB:  "I'm really excited, actually...I think with my skating and everything, I can get up ice and backcheck well and hopefully help the team win."

Edited November 19, 2019 by Doohickie