Non Sabres Deadline Trades/Rumors

[sabills]

29 minutes ago, Derrico said:

It doesn’t matter.  We buy all the defensemen!!!!!!

[Stads]

Can we start some Eklund-style rumors? This is getting really boring.

[nfreeman]

Suggested to me off-line by another Sabrespace poster:  Risto and Reino for Laine.

Who says no?

I think Winnipeg says no.

I know it subtracts the Sabres' best RW and best trade chip for an upgrade at #1 RW -- but holy mackerel that top line the Sabres would have.

[WildCard]

Just now, nfreeman said:

Suggested to me off-line by another Sabrespace poster:  Risto and Reino for Laine.

Who says no?

I think Winnipeg says no.

I know it subtracts the Sabres' best RW and best trade chip for an upgrade at #1 RW -- but holy mackerel that top line the Sabres would have.

I want nothing to do with Laine

[steveoath]

Just now, WildCard said:

I want nothing to do with Laine

Seconded

[Thorner]

4 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

Suggested to me off-line by another Sabrespace poster:  Risto and Reino for Laine.

Who says no?

I think Winnipeg says no.

I know it subtracts the Sabres' best RW and best trade chip for an upgrade at #1 RW -- but holy mackerel that top line the Sabres would have.

Reinhart is a much better hockey player than Laine. 

[Randall Flagg]

5 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

Suggested to me off-line by another Sabrespace poster:  Risto and Reino for Laine.

Who says no?

I think Winnipeg says no.

I know it subtracts the Sabres' best RW and best trade chip for an upgrade at #1 RW -- but holy mackerel that top line the Sabres would have.

If by "upgrade" you mean 1000+ minutes of garbage ES hockey and a pile of PP goals, then sure it's an upgrade. 

That trade makes our team far worse at sustainable, winning hockey shift in and shift out 

[WildCard]

Laine's stats since entering the league (note the decrease in EV G):

 

And he just gets lazier and lazier

 

Edited August 5, 2019 by WildCard

[Randall Flagg]

Sam had 5 more ES goals than Patrik last season and 15 more points overall, and that gap in counting stat production is way smaller than the gap between their abilities to positively impact the game at even strength in more ways than just the finish of the play.

Sam had as many ES points as Patrik had total points, over half of which came on the power play

Edited August 5, 2019 by Randall Flagg

[Thorner]

He's also played on a great team with great linemates. Questionable work ethic, can't skate. He's maddening to watch here in Winnipeg and I'm not even a Jets fan. 

[North Buffalo]

1 minute ago, WildCard said:

Laine's stats since entering the league (note the decrease in EV G):

 

McCabe might need to be put in that trade not Risto... doubt Laine would be happy here

[nfreeman]

3 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

If by "upgrade" you mean 1000+ minutes of garbage ES hockey and a pile of PP goals, then sure it's an upgrade. 

That trade makes our team far worse at sustainable, winning hockey shift in and shift out 

The 2 guys the Sabres would be giving up haven't exactly contributed to "sustainable, winning hockey" during their careers here.

Laine was, in a down year, 4th in ice time among forwards on a 99-pt team last year.  He had 15 ES goals last year and 24 the year before.

He's maybe the 2nd-best goal-scorer in the NHL at age 21 (won't be 22 until next April), is 6'4", 206 lbs and is materially faster than Reino.

I don't want to trade Reino, but IMHO it would unquestionably be a major upgrade.

[WildCard]

1 minute ago, nfreeman said:

The 2 guys the Sabres would be giving up haven't exactly contributed to "sustainable, winning hockey" during their careers here.

Laine was, in a down year, 4th in ice time among forwards on a 99-pt team last year.  He had 15 ES goals last year and 24 the year before.

He's maybe the 2nd-best goal-scorer in the NHL at age 21 (won't be 22 until next April), is 6'4", 206 lbs and is materially faster than Reino.

I don't want to trade Reino, but IMHO it would unquestionably be a major upgrade.

I would honestly not trade Reinhart for Laine straight up

Reinhart is a better player by every single measure outside of power play goals

Not only that, Reinhart doesn't come with work ethic concerns, or a $10M+ price tage

Reinhart is also very flexible on where/what he can do/play

[Thorner]

13 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

The 2 guys the Sabres would be giving up haven't exactly contributed to "sustainable, winning hockey" during their careers here.

Laine was, in a down year, 4th in ice time among forwards on a 99-pt team last year.  He had 15 ES goals last year and 24 the year before.

He's maybe the 2nd-best goal-scorer in the NHL at age 21 (won't be 22 until next April), is 6'4", 206 lbs and is materially faster than Reino.

I don't want to trade Reino, but IMHO it would unquestionably be a major upgrade.

Laine's metrics have been trending down/predicting a "down year" since he came into the league. It's certainly possible last season was the "real" Laine. I'd say likely. 

[Randall Flagg]

26 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

The 2 guys the Sabres would be giving up haven't exactly contributed to "sustainable, winning hockey" during their careers here.

Laine was, in a down year, 4th in ice time among forwards on a 99-pt team last year.  He had 15 ES goals last year and 24 the year before.

He's maybe the 2nd-best goal-scorer in the NHL at age 21 (won't be 22 until next April), is 6'4", 206 lbs and is materially faster than Reino.

I don't want to trade Reino, but IMHO it would unquestionably be a major upgrade.

We said the same thing about ROR, who promptly won a Selke and Conn Smythe the immediate season after he left. In the NHL, no single player can individually turn around a franchise. Connor McDavid is a 110+ point superstar, playing with a 50 goal Draisaitl, and their team is in the dumps. Edmonton certainly gets sustainable winning hockey from them, they just don't from the dumpster fire that is the parts of their organization on the ice for the other 40 minutes of the game. It's not an excuse to move the two good pieces they have - take a step back and look at the context! If we wish to improve the Sabres, we need to do that here. The Sabres had the worst center depth in the league this year. They spent the season trotting Sobotka out against Matthews, Stamkos, Kuznetsov, Malkin etc. Their goalies were far below average in goals allowed based on the shots they saw. Their depth forwards behind Jack, Sam, and Skinner (while those three spent about a month post-streak with ludicrous production) scored a combined one goal from six players over 4 weeks of hockey. These are the dominant reasons for the Sabres' season, not the presence of Reinhart and Risto. These roster failures don't preclude having good players that can be key pieces on winning teams, just like I argued to people with their fingers in their ears last summer both before and after the ROR move. The presence of good players on a bad team is not indicative of those players' abilities, and teams that act under this philosophy do things like trade Conn Smythe winners for piles of garbage. 

Reinhart DOES contribute to sustainable, winning hockey, by virtue of improving the play of every teammate that plays with him and doing a million little things right to tip the ice. League average save percentage would take his positive shares in every advanced stat there is and turn them into a positive plus minus - a stat which Laine was minus 24 at despite 60% offensive zone starts and intensive sheltering from other teams' top players. 

And I don't think you've watched Laine skate recently. The dude eats fast food and plays fortnite 8 hours a day and it's showing in his fitness, the dude looks gassed three shifts into every game. He's a complete plodder on the ice. And he's bad at hockey, outside of shooting the puck, something he's incapable of doing in the most important part of the game (ES) unless his teammates do all the work for him. His tape is plain bad, and I'll get some to illustrate if we actually make a move for him.

The Sabres don't need to submarine their ES play to improve their power play scoring. Their net special teams the past four years has been +10, +4, -2, and +4. They are bottom of the barrel at even strength hockey, something that Laine is absolutely dreadful at. Reinhart is actually good at it, and it will show on a winning team whenever we decide to put one together, and saddling him, one of three or four members of the entire organization to do any semblance of pulling their own weight the last four years, with the blame for the team-level results is like squinting at a car crash from three miles away and blaming the democrats/republicans for it. Risto and Reinhart are some of the only valuable trade pieces we have and we need to be careful with how we dole them out. Sending two of them for an ES dumpster fire would be horrifying. 

 

Edited August 5, 2019 by Randall Flagg

[darksabre]

Laine was a mess last year. I'd trade something for him, but he's clearly causing a lot of problems defensively for a team that has a good defense. Not a great look. I'm certainly not giving up anything like Reinhart.

[WildCard]

5 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

And I don't think you've watched Laine skate recently. The dude eats fast food and plays fortnite 8 hours a day and it's showing in his fitness, the dude looks gassed three shifts into every game. He's a complete plodder on the ice. And he's bad at hockey, outside of shooting the puck, something he's incapable of doing in the most important part of the game (ES) unless his teammates do all the work for him. His tape is plain bad, and I'll get some to illustrate if we actually make a move for him.

Edited August 5, 2019 by WildCard

[dudacek]

If Risto is the epitome of a 1990s “first-pairing defenceman” exposed as a fraud by analytics, Laine is the same for snipers.

Edited August 5, 2019 by dudacek

[darksabre]

I'd rather have one season of Vanek than Laine right now.

[Taro T]

31 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

Suggested to me off-line by another Sabrespace poster:  Risto and Reino for Laine.

Who says no?

I think Winnipeg says no.

I know it subtracts the Sabres' best RW and best trade chip for an upgrade at #1 RW -- but holy mackerel that top line the Sabres would have.

Raises hand.

Really would have a hard time pulling the trigger 1 for 1 Reinhart for Laine.  No way should the Sabres throw in a D as well.

If the Sabres had the sort of talent as the early '00's Wings did when they brought in Hull (as a FA, btw) would be more amenable to it.  But Laine would need to be stapled to Eichel's hip so now your 40 goal scoring $9MM per year LW becomes a 30 gpy LW playing with the sort of C's he grew up on in Carolina.

REALLY don't see Laine scoring even strength with any other C's on the team. (Especially when he couldn't even have Reinhart around setting him up should 1 of them slide to their off-wing.)

[Randall Flagg]

I just went to the Jets forum to read about Laine. The very top thread is titled "Why is Laine not training his skating?"

[Randall Flagg]

I made an error - his food vice is candy, not fast food.

[dudacek]

So now that @darksabre has confirmed Risto to Anaheim, I guess we’re getting Guhle and a late first in return?

[Thorner]

4 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

I made an error - his food vice is candy, not fast food.

Looking at those teeth this is not surprising. 

[Randall Flagg]

1 minute ago, Thorny said:

Looking at those teeth this is not surprising. 

To his credit, it sounds like his diet has gotten better. Big Buff will get him in line eventually.