Rumor: Brady Tkachuk available

[nfreeman]

I agree that Power is a valuable asset.

I would trade him and #11 for Tkachuk in a heartbeat.

I think there is very close to zero possibility of this happening though.

[PerreaultForever]

3 hours ago, Thorny said:

 

I’ve been on the “Quinn will be our best F” train for a while, Brady isn’t a guy I’d move him for I don’t think. He’s not a untouchable, I just think we can probably get Tkachuk done for some of our other prime assets

Let me see if I'm understanding you. You think Quinn will be a better player than Brady Tkachuk? Is that right?

[freester]

16 hours ago, NAF said:

I think the Sens would want a forward for a roster player -- they're pretty set on the blueline. I think you're giving up one of Quinn, Peterka, or Benson. I do think all of those players are more valuable than Samuelsson, so you could probably take Rosen out of the deal.

Actually I think you’re giving up Levi instead of 1st round pick. Senators need a goalie 

[triumph_communes]

I could see us trading Levi. Not that I agree with it, but I can see it. Tho Levi + 11 for tkachuk is as high as I’d want to see that go. 

[Weave]

4 minutes ago, triumph_communes said:

I could see us trading Levi. Not that I agree with it, but I can see it. Tho Levi + 11 for tkachuk is as high as I’d want to see that go. 

I feel like KA has set his timeline as the Devon Levi timeline.  I don’t see Levi on the table.

[dudacek]

54 minutes ago, Weave said:

I feel like KA has set his timeline as the Devon Levi timeline.  I don’t see Levi on the table.

The contracts tell me the timeline is the Thompson, Cozens, Samuelsson, Dahlin, Power timeline.

[thewookie1]

1 hour ago, freester said:

Actually I think you’re giving up Levi instead of 1st round pick. Senators need a goalie 

Levi isn't available; if UPL falters or gets hurt we'd literally be where we were 2 years ago with a mess of journeyman  

[Broken Ankles]

22 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

What if I told you that Jack Quinn could be as good as Brady Tkachuk?

 

 

And yet regularly, people project JJP, Skinner and even more so Benson as the starting FL#1 wing over this guy. News flash.  Even if the Sabres pull off a trade of this magnitude, Quinn still plays the opposite wing on the first line. 

[Taro T]

52 minutes ago, dudacek said:

The contracts tell me the timeline is the Thompson, Cozens, Samuelsson, Dahlin, Power timeline.

Which, except for Thompson, aligns pretty much spot on to the Levi timeline.  (And pretty much all SC winners have at least 1 vet that's been there forever and is working his way down the lineup but is still useful in that diminished role.)

[JohnC]

3 minutes ago, Broken Ankles said:

And yet regularly, people project JJP, Skinner and even more so Benson as the starting FL#1 wing over this guy. News flash.  Even if the Sabres pull off a trade of this magnitude, Quinn still plays the opposite wing on the first line. 

Maybe or maybe not. Odds are if a deal is made for Tkachuk, and Quinn is still with the team, he will be on a wing with Cozens in the middle. 

[Taro T]

6 minutes ago, Broken Ankles said:

And yet regularly, people project JJP, Skinner and even more so Benson as the starting FL#1 wing over this guy. News flash.  Even if the Sabres pull off a trade of this magnitude, Quinn still plays the opposite wing on the first line. 

Because if Quinn is on the 2nd line and plays like he's hinted he could AND if his chemistry with Cozens gets back to where it was his rookie year, then you have a 1A and a 1B line.  And that 3rd line, whomever is on it, ends up absolutely getting true 3rd line matchups as other teams will be gameplanning lines 1A & 1B and taking their chances with the 3rd line.

[Pimlach]

13 hours ago, JohnC said:

If Quinn is part of a proposed trade deal, I'm strongly against it. 

If Power is part of a proposed trade deal, I'm strongly against it. 

If Peterka is part of a trade deal that includes our first-round pick, I'm receptive to a deal. 

So you think Quinn is far better than Peterka?  

[Weave]

42 minutes ago, Taro T said:

Which, except for Thompson, aligns pretty much spot on to the Levi timeline.  (And pretty much all SC winners have at least 1 vet that's been there forever and is working his way down the lineup but is still useful in that diminished role.)

Beat me to it.

[JohnC]

8 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

So you think Quinn is far better than Peterka?  

Absolutely I do. I like JJP a lot. JJP is more of a straight-line power forward. In my view, Quinn's play has a wider dimension to it. He's grittier, more competitive and has superb hockey instincts to get to the right spots. He, Power and Levi are no touch players for me. 

[dudacek]

1 hour ago, dudacek said:

The contracts tell me the timeline is the Thompson, Cozens, Samuelsson, Dahlin, Power timeline.

 

2 minutes ago, Weave said:

Beat me to it.

47 minutes ago, Taro T said:

Which, except for Thompson, aligns pretty much spot on to the Levi timeline.  (And pretty much all SC winners have at least 1 vet that's been there forever and is working his way down the lineup but is still useful in that diminished role.)

Maybe I'm misreading you guys?

Power will be 22 this coming season. Dahlin and Samuelsson 24, Thompson 26, Cozens 23 — the window should be opening now, not a few years down the road.

To simplify, I would say the Sabres can and should be competitive over the entire 8 years of Dahlin's contract, which kicks in this fall.

Or do you mean Cup conversation timeline, as opposed to playoff conversation timeline?

5 minutes ago, JohnC said:

Absolutely I do. I like JJP a lot. JJP is more of a straight-line power forward. In my view, Quinn's play has a wider dimension to it. He's grittier, more competitive and has superb hockey instincts to get to the right spots. He, Power and Levi are no touch players for me. 

If Quinn is the player much of Sabrespace seems to think he is, that's a heck of an addition to next year's roster.

[Thorner]

1 minute ago, dudacek said:

 

Maybe I'm misreading you guys?

Power will be 22 this coming season. Dahlin and Samuelsson 24, Thompson 26, Cozens 23 — the window should be opening now, not a few years down the road.

To simplify, I would say the Sabres can and should be competitive over the entire 8 years of Dahlin's contract, which kicks in this fall.

Or do you mean Cup conversation timeline, as opposed to playoff conversation timeline?

If Levi’s the backup, we’ll need 30 quality starts from him to make the playoffs. So, essentially we are on the Levi timeline. Playoffs require him to be a capable, mainstay pro 

Levi wasn’t ready for that last year, and we didn’t make the playoffs. Seems to line up 

[LGR4GM]

31 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

So you think Quinn is far better than Peterka?  

I do. Of course if Quinn has another year where he can't stay healthy that will change because the best ability is availability 

11 minutes ago, Thorny said:

If Levi’s the backup, we’ll need 30 quality starts from him to make the playoffs. So, essentially we are on the Levi timeline. Playoffs require him to be a capable, mainstay pro 

Levi wasn’t ready for that last year, and we didn’t make the playoffs. Seems to line up 

What? We didn't make the playoffs last because we were absolutely atrocious at generating HD chances and at scoring goals due to Granato destroying the system he built and making our transition game non existent. Levi didn't do that. 

[dudacek]

8 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

 

What? We didn't make the playoffs last because we were absolutely atrocious at generating HD chances and at scoring goals due to Granato destroying the system he built and making our transition game non existent. Levi didn't do that. 

Over the course of the season Levi put up good back-up goalie numbers, while UPL put up good starting goalie numbers.

The counter-argument is that neither provided the same quality of play over the first 2 months of the season, where the season was lost.

I took the "Levi timeline" thing to mean "the Sabres are planning to be good when Levi is ready to be an upper-echelon starter" which I don't really agree with, but that may not have been the intent of the original post.

Edited June 5 by dudacek

[Thorner]

13 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

I do. Of course if Quinn has another year where he can't stay healthy that will change because the best ability is availability 

What? We didn't make the playoffs last because we were absolutely atrocious at generating HD chances and at scoring goals due to Granato destroying the system he built and making our transition game non existent. Levi didn't do that. 

The context of the conversation isn’t the cause of why we missed (though the early season goaltending was assuredly a huge factor), it’s what our timeline to success theoretically looks like to the GM. Levi not being the cause of missing doesn’t change the fact the issues that DID cause us to miss may have been symptoms of the roster being configured in such the way it was because of the expectations Adams had for competitiveness.

I don’t think Adams expected us to be good until Levi was. Now, we can argue that could have been last year had the rest of the team been better, but only because UPL emerged, which to KA (and many others), was unexpected. Adams just thought it would be Levi.

I understand Levi’s numbers eventually got the the point where they averaged out to reasonable backup, but the runway it took to get there and the slow start it contributed to we could never recover from isn’t dismissible when you are supposed to be measuring by results 

Edited June 5 by Thorny

[JohnC]

17 minutes ago, dudacek said:

 

 

If Quinn is the player much of Sabrespace seems to think he is, that's a heck of an addition to next year's roster.

I thought his loss for most of the season created a major void. It had a cascading impact on the roster. It seemed to me that Cozens was out of sorts last year. I attribute some of his fog to not having Quinn on his line. The injuries to Samuelsson and Quinn hurt this thin team. Their absences had a cascading effect on the lines and pairings. Having them both healthy will give this roster a boost. We still need more additions. 

[Thorner]

12 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Over the course of the season Levi put up good back-up goalie numbers, while UPL put up good starting goalie numbers.

The counter-argument is that neither provided the same quality of play over the first 2 months of the season, where the season was lost.

I took the "Levi timeline" thing to mean "the Sabres are planning to be good when Levi is ready to be an upper-echelon starter" which I don't really agree with, but that may not have been the intent of the original post.

It’s really the starter thing, ya. And Adams thought that would be last year. And because of UPL filling the roll, we probably would have made it last year even with the goaltending situation playing out the way it did had the issues Liger mentioned been addressed.

Me saying we are still on his timeline isn’t really true with the emergence of UPL. He just happened to emerge exactly when Levi was planned to (a few months delayed, admittedly).  (I’m sort of torn on whether KA expected to/thought we’d make the playoffs last year.)

My thing about the timeline still potentially coinciding with Levi was more of a factual aside: it may very well end up that we don’t make the playoffs until Levi has a solidified NHL roll, which could be as soon as this season

Edited June 5 by Thorny

[LGR4GM]

7 minutes ago, Thorny said:

The context of the conversation isn’t the cause of why we missed (though the early season goaltending was assuredly a huge factor), it’s what our timeline to success theoretically looks like to the GM. Levi not being the cause of missing doesn’t change the fact the issues that DID cause us to miss may have been symptoms of the roster being configured in such the way it was because of the expectations Adams had for competitiveness.

I don’t think Adams expected us to be good until Levi was. Now, we can argue that could have been last year had the rest of the team been better, but only because UPL emerged, which to KA (and many others), was unexpected. Adams just thought it would be Levi.

I understand Levi’s numbers eventually got the the point where they averaged out to reasonable backup, but the runway it took to get there and the slow start it contributed to we could never recover from isn’t dismissible when you are supposed to be measuring by results 

The team should have been good last year and Adams should have made that happen. I don't give a flying rat***** anymore about timelines, either Adams gets us in the playoffs or Terry sells the team and we burn the front office down. Enough is enough. If Kevyn Adams is on some mythical timeline of Devon Levi being good, fire his sorry loser ass into the sun along with Terry's. 

This team didnt miss the playoffs because of Devon Levi. They missed the playoffs because of Adams incompetence, Granato's stupidity, and a team full of privileged children who thought they just had to show up and would make the playoffs. 

[oddoublee]

1 hour ago, JohnC said:

I thought his loss for most of the season created a major void. It had a cascading impact on the roster. It seemed to me that Cozens was out of sorts last year. I attribute some of his fog to not having Quinn on his line. The injuries to Samuelsson and Quinn hurt this thin team. Their absences had a cascading effect on the lines and pairings. Having them both healthy will give this roster a boost. We still need more additions. 

It concerns me that a guy we (front office) have pegged as a top two center could be thrown out of sorts by the loss of a winger. Cozen's had enough weapons to stay 'in' sorts from my perspective. 

[Taro T]

2 hours ago, dudacek said:

 

Maybe I'm misreading you guys?

Power will be 22 this coming season. Dahlin and Samuelsson 24, Thompson 26, Cozens 23 — the window should be opening now, not a few years down the road.

To simplify, I would say the Sabres can and should be competitive over the entire 8 years of Dahlin's contract, which kicks in this fall.

Or do you mean Cup conversation timeline, as opposed to playoff conversation timeline?

If Quinn is the player much of Sabrespace seems to think he is, that's a heck of an addition to next year's roster.

Won't speak for @Weave, but personally see this team as being good enough to be in the playoffs but not particularly relevant right now (as Levi is becoming an NHLer) and is being built to be a true contender in year 3 from this year 1 when Levi is established at the NHL level.

The item that sealed that belief was the Mittelstadt (entering his prime NOW) getting traded form Byram (entering his prime 3-4 years from now).

And expect that Ruff signed on for the 2 years because he believes this team has (or will by the time the off-season is through) enough talent to get into the playoffs and that they can legit compete for the SC next year.  And he'll make his decision of whether to stay on as coach or bump up to PoHO (or Special Advisor to the PoHO should things be going swimmingly and Adams gets that role with Karmanos getting Adams title) at that time.  At some point the rigors of being the HC has to get old especially for somebody that'll be ~68 by then.

And IF the UPL we saw from January into March is the REAL UPL then this team could be a contender this season.  It still remains to be seen whether he can sustain that level of play or if the UPL we'll really have is the one we saw in April when Levi was back as the 2nd half of the battery.  Would expect it's either something between the 2 or maybe we finally lucked out and that goalie he was in January is who he is.  If January UPL is who he really is, well In that case the Sabres will have gone nearly overnight (just over 1 season) from having some of worst goaltending in the entire NHL to easily top 10 and arguably top 5 with both goalies at a stage of their careers where they can get better yet.

[Believer]

2 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

This team didnt miss the playoffs because of Devon Levi. They missed the playoffs because of Adams incompetence, Granato's stupidity, and a team full of privileged children who thought they just had to show up and would make the playoffs. 

Couldn’t agree more. 

Adams either makes moves Ruff wants or needs (given injuries) and we make the playoffs or both of them can be replaced.

Only a couple three catastrophic core veteran losses to injury can make missing the playoffs even comprehensible next season, imo.

No more excuses, Adams.