Non Sabres Deadline Trades/Rumors

[Randall Flagg]

Just now, dudacek said:

I’m not implying we should wait for years to improve our centre ice corps, I am saying that if we can flip our best  trade chip for a 21-year-old who has never scored less than 30 goals, I’m not waiting around hoping that JT Miller becomes available.

Do you think that a 30-40 goal scorer can be bad for his team on the whole? And if so, how close to that line do you think Laine approaches? 

I think he's pretty close, but I can be convinced otherwise. 

[Randall Flagg]

The Sabres roughly scored a 5v5 goal every single game with Jack and Kane on the ice between 16-17 and 17-18, but the pairing allowed even more goals than that, so it was kinda useless on a team level even though nobody else on the team came close to the regular production that they could. 

Not all 30+ goal scorers are made equal, and I think Laine is on the wrong end of the distribution as far as that stuff goes. A guy like Matthews would occupy the good end

[Randall Flagg]

8 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I’m not implying we should wait for years to improve our centre ice corps, I am saying that if we can flip our best  trade chip for a 21-year-old who has never scored less than 30 goals, I’m not waiting around hoping that JT Miller becomes available.

Miro Satan was among my least favourite players. Still make that trade every time.

I just don't like doing something with the justification that 'we're set at center' until we're set at center and see the results of it on the ice every night

[dudacek]

Just now, Randall Flagg said:

Do you think that a 30-40 goal scorer can be bad for his team on the whole? And if so, how close to that line do you think Laine approaches? 

I think he's pretty close, but I can be convinced otherwise. 

I think we are on that same right now/big picture perspective split.

Patrik Laine is 21. I’d bet he will be a more rounded player and a better teammate when he is 25. 

In the meantime, his worst season ever in goals would be what, #2 for the Sabres over the past 10 years?

[dudacek]

9 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

I just don't like doing something with the justification that 'we're set at center' until we're set at center and see the results of it on the ice every night

I never meant to imply we were “set” at centre. It’s pretty obvious though that our pipeline is much stronger at centre than at right wing, which also happens to be weak now. Laine improves both the now and the pipeline in a position of need.

This is kinda the Vesey conversation all over again, except higher in the lineup. You are only interested in “good” players. I’ll take “bad” players who are better than the ones we have now. You say I’m not sure he is better.

Curious: were Laine’s fancy stats as troubling in his first two seasons as they were last year?

Edited July 13, 2019 by dudacek

[Randall Flagg]

4 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I think we are on that same right now/big picture perspective split.

Patrik Laine is 21. I’d bet he will be a more rounded player and a better teammate when he is 25. 

In the meantime, his worst season ever in goals would be what, #2 for the Sabres over the past 10 years?

I don't think that adds a whole lot of win-loss value with all of his other baggage as a player though. It's beautiful if a player is serviceable or better in all other instances besides the 5 total minutes of ice time that those goal scoring plays make up, but if he's bad in those instances, and (from what I've read) basically incapable of creating those plays without the help of someone else (and that someone else cannot be guaranteed beforehand, as it didn't work with Scheifele and Wheeler at all), well, I think we can do better with our trade chips, even if on the surface the player we gets back scores 10 fewer goals per year.

[Curt]

19 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I’m not implying we should wait for years to improve our centre ice corps, I am saying that if we can flip our best  trade chip for a 21-year-old who has never scored less than 30 goals, I’m not waiting around hoping that JT Miller becomes available.

 

9 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I think we are on that same right now/big picture perspective split.

Patrik Laine is 21. I’d bet he will be a more rounded player and a better teammate when he is 25. 

In the meantime, his worst season ever in goals would be what, #2 for the Sabres over the past 10 years?

I don’t hate Laine, but I think he is a lot less valuable than his 30-45 goals would lead you to believe, because he is pretty bad at doing things that help his teammates score goals and things that stop the other team from scoring goals.

Perhaps you are right that he will become a slightly more well rounded player with age, but I think that is pretty uncertain.  He has had 4 years of pro coaching (1 in Liiga, 3 in NHL) and it seems like this past season was his worst.  I don’t know.  He would need to want to change and it seems he may be resistant to that.

Big picture, he probably is not a guy who I would want to commit big money to.

[dudacek]

6 minutes ago, Curt said:

 

I don’t hate Risto, but I think he is a lot less valuable than his 40-45 points would lead you to believe, because he is pretty bad at doing things that help his teammates score goals and things that stop the other team from scoring goals.

Just making clear that what we are talking about here is trading Risto and maybe a smaller plus for Laine.

Given the hate Risto gets, I am a little surprised I am on my own here.

[Curt]

7 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Curious: were Laine’s fancy stats as troubling in his first two seasons as they were last year?

At 5 on 5 they have actually gotten incremental worse each season, and they were pretty bad to start off with.

[Randall Flagg]

28 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I never meant to imply we were “set” at centre. It’s pretty obvious though that our pipeline is much stronger at centre than at right wing, which also happens to be weak now. Laine improves both the now and the pipeline in a position of need.

This is kinda the Vesey conversation all over again, except higher in the lineup. You are only interested in “good” players. I’ll take “bad” players who are better than the ones we have now. You say I’m not sure he is better.

Curious: were Laine’s fancy stats as troubling in his first two seasons as they were last year?

I'm not even sure if the things that make Laine troubling show up in his fancy stats. 

I think our franchise is in a hockey-playing rut. I don't think we're in a goal-scoring rut, or a goals-against rut. I think the Sabres need to improve their shift in and shift out hockey, and that if they added hockey players who "score fewer goals" than the ones they currently have, but do general hockey stuff better, they'd wind up scoring more goals as a team, allowing fewer, and winning more games. I don't think incremental improvement by way of increasing net points or goal totals over the previous guy is the way to do it, which is why I don't feel anything good towards moves like Vesey and keep getting in this discussion with you when the topic comes up. I think the way to do it is to find the guy who has the brains, hands, and feet to play the kind of hockey that will win you games over long stretches of time, whether or not that particular guy represents an "ES goal improvement," over what you have currently. Even if it's a double-digit goal deficit. 

Say the Sabres had two options this offseason: Signing Brandon Tanev and Evan Rodrigues, or signing Conor Sheary and Jimmy Vesey (pretend none of these guys were Sabres). One duo clearly scores more goals, unambiguously, it's not particularly close. I'd the one that doesn't though, every single time, and nobody would be able to convince me otherwise. Because IMO they are more likely to help improve the things I think the Sabres need to improve, and I think increasing goals for and decreasing goals against will become extensions or results of the 99% of the hockey game that doesn't involve goal-scoring plays becoming more reliably/systematically good.

I think this is how the Patriots win. Everybody does the basics right, from the first alarm set of training camp until the final knee taken in the Super Bowl, with unrelenting focus and nothing frivolous on top. Their key is that everyone on every level is pulling for the same ultimate team goal, and understands that their blocking form on 2nd and 9 in the first quarter of a preseason game will play a role in getting to that QB kneel. I think that a Jimmy Vesey or Patrik Laine are more likely to contribute to what continually ails the team than they are to fix it, even if the raw numbers themselves suggest otherwise. 

The playoff teams still lose between 25-40 games each year. Sometimes the best team in the league gets swept. Sometimes a generational goal scorer takes 13 years to finally have it all go right. The best you can do as a GM is make sure that you have a team that, over 82 games, and then over most of a decade on top of that, is doing it right enough that they can consistently get 42-47 wins instead of 38-42, and that you have as many darts to throw at a playoff season dartboard as possible. IMO the most reliable way to do that isn't to find the goal scorers who improve on the goal scoring of your current winger even if there's baggage, it's to build the team that looks like the same machine in round 2 game 7 OT as they do in period 2 against Arizona in January, as they do three years from now or three years ago (Boston is such a good example of this), and I think players like Laine are the antithesis of that philosophy 

Edited July 13, 2019 by Randall Flagg

[Curt]

8 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Just making clear that what we are talking about here is trading Risto and maybe a smaller plus for Laine.

Given the hate Risto gets, I am a little surprised I am on my own here.

I don’t think it would be a terrible trade, because I think Risto is also deeply flawed, but I don’t think Laine is the type of player that Buffalo needs at all.  I think I would rather hold Risto into next season and see what becomes available.

Not only do I think Laine is very flawed, I also thing he is going to become very expensive to keep around long term, because Goal$.  Much more expensive than the value of his overall on ice contributes.  If I’m going to to trade Risto in a 1 for 1, I want someone who can be part of the team long term.

Edited July 13, 2019 by Curt

[dudacek]

11 minutes ago, Curt said:

At 5 on 5 they have actually gotten incremental worse each season, and they were pretty bad to start off with.

So a guy who would probably score a whack of goals with Sam Reinhart and Evan Rodrigues doing the smart dirty work for him, even though we’d have to keep him away from the Kucherovs as much as possible?

And a guy who could take over the triggerman role from Jack on the PP and score a bizillion with Jack and Sam and Rasmus setting up the one-timer on perhaps the league’s most dangerous Power play?

Edited July 13, 2019 by dudacek

[Randall Flagg]

3 minutes ago, dudacek said:

So a guy who would probably score a whack of goals with Sam Reinhart and Evan Rodrigues doing the smart dirty work for him, even though we’d have to keep him away from the Kucherovs as much as possible?

And a guy who could take over the triggerman role from Jack on the PP and score a bizillion with Jack and Sam and Rasmus setting up the one-timer on perhaps the league’s most dangerous Power play?

Are Reinhart and Rodrigues, or even Eichel and Skinner with them, better than Scheifele, Wheeler, Little, Ehlers, Perreault? I'm not convinced at all our forwards would be better for him.

[dudacek]

It’s my understanding that Patrik’s analytics with Scheifele have been much better than with the others.

But Im not saying the Sabres will elevate him, I am saying that if he can score a whack with Bryan Little, he can score a whack with Sam Reinhart and that there is a fit for him here.

i also think that the biggest difference between Laine last year and LAine the rookie is that Wheeler and Byfuglien are bullies who started to freeze him out last year - which was almost certainly brought on by Laine’s air of entitlement.

I will point to Jeff Skinner last year and Jeff Skinner the year before as an example of how feeling wanted can elevate a player and how adjusting the dressing room mix helped the Canes improve. It’s not about pointing fingers, it’s about putting people in positions where they can succeed.

Edited July 13, 2019 by dudacek

[Curt]

11 minutes ago, dudacek said:

So a guy who would probably score a whack of goals with Sam Reinhart and Evan Rodrigues doing the smart dirty work for him, even though we’d have to keep him away from the Kucherovs as much as possible?

And a guy who could take over the triggerman role from Jack on the PP and score a bizillion with Jack and Sam and Rasmus setting up the one-timer on perhaps the league’s most dangerous Power play?

I’m not sure who would work best with him.  He is a RW though, so probably not Reinhart.  

I just feel like he is such a passenger, and will be expensive.  If I’m going to pay a guy like one of the top 4-5 players on the team, I feel like I shouldn’t have to dream up ways to shelter him.  

I honestly think it can be bad for the team too, having a highly paid player out there who clearly is not putting effort into a lot of areas of the game.  That’s not what I want on a young team.  Maybe on a good team with established veteran leadership you can absorb a player like that more easily, but that’s not Buffalo.  For this young, growing team, I want players who are self motivated, hard working, and push eachother to be better.

[Randall Flagg]

Just now, Curt said:

I’m not sure who would work best with him.  He is a RW though, so probably not Reinhart.  

I just feel like he is such a passenger, and will be expensive.  If I’m going to pay a guy like one of the top 4-5 players on the team, I feel like I shouldn’t have to dream up ways to shelter him.  

 I honestly think it can be bad for the team too, having a highly paid player out there who clearly is not putting effort into a lot of areas of the game.  That’s not what I want on a young team.  Maybe on a good team with established veteran leadership you can absorb a player like that more easily, but that’s not Buffalo.  For this young, growing team, I want players who are self motivated, hard working, and push eachother to be better.

The funny thing is, he's on that team right now, and they certainly don't appear to be absorbing it easily 

[Curt]

5 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

The funny thing is, he's on that team right now, and they certainly don't appear to be absorbing it easily 

Haha, I know.  I don’t know if those guys are actually good leaders or bullies as dudacek phrased it.  I will tell you one thing, I would rather have a team’s leadership group put one guy in his place than have rookies coming up thinking maybe they don’t need to backcheck THAT hard, because, look, Laine doesn’t do it at all.

[Curt]

33 minutes ago, dudacek said:

It’s my understanding that Patrik’s analytics with Scheifele have been much better than with the others.

But Im not saying the Sabres will elevate him, I am saying that if he can score a whack with Bryan Little, he can score a whack with Sam Reinhart and that there is a fit for him here.

i also think that the biggest difference between Laine last year and LAine the rookie is that Wheeler and Byfuglien are bullies who started to freeze him out last year - which was almost certainly brought on by Laine’s air of entitlement.

I will point to Jeff Skinner last year and Jeff Skinner the year before as an example of how feeling wanted can elevate a player and how adjusting the dressing room mix helped the Canes improve. It’s not about pointing fingers, it’s about putting people in positions where they can succeed.

Both Reinhart and Laine play RW.

I don’t know if Laine was being legitimately bullied, or were the leaders just getting on him for not doing what the team needed him to do?

I think the real difference for Skinner was skating next to Eichel.  His RAPM charts were similar, and better in CAR in some areas.  I don’t think Skinner himself was better.  It just kind of makes sense that he scored more with Eichel than with Rask or whoever.

CAR wasn’t just better because of better chemistry after Skinner was gone.  Their goaltending was better(BIG reason), Aho took a step forward, they added Svechnikov, Ferland, Niederreiter, Hamilton.

Anyway, not putting any more thought into Laine.  I don’t anticipate Buffalo going after him even if he is available.  Doesn’t seem like their type of player so I won’t worry about him.

Edited July 13, 2019 by Curt

[Taro T]

2 hours ago, Randall Flagg said:

Not trolling or anything, I'm pretty ambivalent about that 

Honestly believe Laine would rapidly become this forum's least favorite player

Absolutely.  Though, if it's the best deal available, probably would still reluctant make the trade.  (Heck, let's face it; if Ristolainen is still a Sabre this season, he has a very good chance of being the board's whipping boy.  (There'll be competition: Scandella & Vesey definitely and probably at least 2 others, but he'll be 1 of them.)

2 hours ago, dudacek said:

I’m not implying we should wait for years to improve our centre ice corps, I am saying that if we can flip our best  trade chip for a 21-year-old who has never scored less than 30 goals, I’m not waiting around hoping that JT Miller becomes available.

Miro Satan was among my least favourite players. Still make that trade every time.

It was a great move grabbing him.  He didn't fit in the Eulers plans & Muckler gave up a couple of plugs for him.

It was also a great move punting him.  The dressing room came together after his "antics" were out the door.  Plus w/ Ingrid gone, there was an opening for Douggie to plant his flag, and he took it.

[TrueBlueGED]

3 hours ago, dudacek said:

Just making clear that what we are talking about here is trading Risto and maybe a smaller plus for Laine.

Given the hate Risto gets, I am a little surprised I am on my own here.

If I thought the entire league valued Risto like I do, I'd do Risto for Laine in a second. Given the divide within our own fan base, I'm pretty confident there are GMs out there who legitimately value Risto and would give up more than I think he's worth.

[TrueBlueGED]

3 hours ago, Randall Flagg said:

The funny thing is, he's on that team right now, and they certainly don't appear to be absorbing it easily 

Maybe. That team also couldn't handle Kane. If I'm going to dive into the realm of locker rooms we know nothing about, my spidey sense that "veteran leadership" they have is more of a popular clique than a group of team leaders. 

[Randall Flagg]

6 minutes ago, TrueBlueGED said:

Maybe. That team also couldn't handle Kane. If I'm going to dive into the realm of locker rooms we know nothing about, my spidey sense that "veteran leadership" they have is more of a popular clique than a group of team leaders. 

That's fair. I've read a few things about Jets fans being pretty upset with Wheeler in particular. Something something, he basically demands to stay next to Scheifele all season even though the results are worse than with other forward combinations? The details are hazy, I read this during the season.

[tom webster]

5 hours ago, dudacek said:

Internal development: Stamkos, Point, Cirelli, (and their key wingers) were all drafted and/or developed by Tampa.

I don’t know why that’s terrifying; it’s a proven method of franchise development.

Here’s one of my favorite topics. Everyone talks about how Cirelli and Point were “developed” by Tampa. Point played 9 games in AHL. Cirelli 51 plus a playoff the year previous.

In Buffalo we call that rushed. You know the difference? Point and Cirelli were already good. The only players who don’t make it because they were rushed weren’t good enough to begin with.

[TrueBlueGED]

6 minutes ago, tom webster said:

Here’s one of my favorite topics. Everyone talks about how Cirelli and Point were “developed” by Tampa. Point played 9 games in AHL. Cirelli 51 plus a playoff the year previous.

In Buffalo we call that rushed. You know the difference? Point and Cirelli were already good. The only players who don’t make it because they were rushed weren’t good enough to begin with.

The biggest thing development does, in my view, is dictate how much they can contribute right away. 

[dudacek]

1 minute ago, TrueBlueGED said:

The biggest thing development does, in my view, is dictate how much they can contribute right away. 

All proper development means is putting your young players in the right environment to maximize their growth.