Free Agent Frenzy 2024

[Taro T]

1 hour ago, Brawndo said:

 

Why, Santy Claus, WHY?  Why are you taking our tree?

[Thorny]

10 hours ago, LTS said:

Which would be as justified as all the naysayers saying "I told you so". If, by some miracle, the Sabres make the playoffs next year without making much more in the way of changes then all the doomsayers of today would be wrong. Pessimism or not.

I get that the joy of pessimism is that you can be right, or pleasantly surprised with being wrong. That's why so many opt for it. But being wrong is wrong. Not the end of the world by any means because most of us on here are wrong more than we are right.  Hell, that's true in life too.

There is all of July, August, September to go before the team takes the ice. Still unimpressed by the changes, but 3 months is an eternity in hockey.

No, it wouldn’t be. The point is that those expecting more of the same have been right 10 times over. So much so we are truly sick of being right 

People saying “it’s going to be ok”, as a default stance, *have not been right yet once*. An “I told you so” would be incredibly tone deaf and absurd 

like I said, we still know it’s coming. It’s ok, they’ll get their day

the joke is, all the people that have been right for 13 years will be HAPPY to *finally* be wrong. So, knock yourself out. The other funny thing is I’ve been one of the most “playoffs are still possible until mathematically eliminated” guys there is. I wrongly predicted playoffs in ‘23.

Edited Tuesday at 11:37 PM by Thorny

[Night Train]

Come on, Sabres. Make a trade for a solid Vet forward. Boone Jenner would be my favorite but I'm open to other ideas. 

https://www.nhl.com/bluejackets/news/teammates-talk-about-all-star-boone-jenner

[Flashsabre]

Colton or Rossi might be the the centre actually available

Also Tyler Johnson and Roslovic in the UFA pool

Edited Wednesday at 12:23 AM by Flashsabre

[WhenWillItEnd66]

40 minutes ago, Night Train said:

Come on, Sabres. Make a trade for a solid Vet forward. Boone Jenner would be my favorite but I'm open to other ideas. 

https://www.nhl.com/bluejackets/news/teammates-talk-about-all-star-boone-jenner

Trades are hard and too much work for KA

Edited Wednesday at 12:56 AM by WhenWillItEnd66

[PerreaultForever]

Erik Johnson re-signing with Philly did make me chuckle today. They are doing things differently, but ultimately that organization might be just as clueless as ours. 

[thewookie1]

4 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

Erik Johnson re-signing with Philly did make me chuckle today. They are doing things differently, but ultimately that organization might be just as clueless as ours. 

Frankly Buffalo is super safe, Ottawa effectively plays the opposite end of the spectrum with a plethora of questionable moves while throwing assets around like idiots. 
 

We need to be a bit more adventurous whereas Ottawa needs to stop trading multiple pieces for a hot commodity only for said commodity to then leave and fetch so much less that it looks like your incompetent 

[FrenchConnection44]

So we pay $5 million for Zucker (ESPN had in the category of “Rickety Investments”)  

And Dallas signs Duchene for $3 million. 

Another sign how low we have sunk as a franchise. Somehow this franchise has to regain its respect in the league. Not sure the ownership or management will produce that - have to hope that the young talent will get us to the playoffs and then perhaps we can be a franchise with at least some appeal to better players. 

 

[Scottysabres]

8 hours ago, FrenchConnection44 said:

So we pay $5 million for Zucker (ESPN had in the category of “Rickety Investments”)  

And Dallas signs Duchene for $3 million. 

Another sign how low we have sunk as a franchise. Somehow this franchise has to regain its respect in the league. Not sure the ownership or management will produce that - have to hope that the young talent will get us to the playoffs and then perhaps we can be a franchise with at least some appeal to better players. 

 

This is true, and I have faith they will.

[rickshaw]

It sure is looking like player and or other teams don’t want to come to or deal with Buffalo in good faith.

KA should definitely try to make trades but getting fleeced isn’t the way to go about it. I wonder how much Jack’s crap affects what’s happening. 
 

It was better when there weren’t online clauses and it was the Wild West for trades. 

[Archie Lee]

4 hours ago, rickshaw said:

It sure is looking like player and or other teams don’t want to come to or deal with Buffalo in good faith.

KA should definitely try to make trades but getting fleeced isn’t the way to go about it. I wonder how much Jack’s crap affects what’s happening. 
 

It was better when there weren’t online clauses and it was the Wild West for trades. 

I would say there is an obvious type of player who has more or less written Buffalo off. These are players who have agency:  they have positioned themselves where they have movement clauses and/or where they have multiple suitors. There are lots of players who aren’t in that position though. Players like Clifton, Zucker, Lafferty all would have had some, likely minimal, other options but chose Buffalo because we offered some combination of opportunity and $$$ that wasn’t available elsewhere.  I fear Adams has pursued “the perfect” this off-season (a big swing trade acquisition) and has passed-up opportunities that might have been good enough (Henrique, Foegele, Wennberg), and is passing up some that might still be an option (Roslovic, Tarasenko). 

Edited Wednesday at 06:13 PM by Archie Lee

[Brawndo]

Riley Stillman signs a two way deal with Carolina.

 

The Canes are collecting Sabres Cast Offs like Infinity Stones 

[jad1]

Just now, Brawndo said:

Riley Stillman signs a two way deal with Carolina.

 

The Canes are collecting Sabres Cast Offs like Infinity Stones 

They must figure that it worked for the Panthers, so why not.

[MISabresFan]

13 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

Riley Stillman signs a two way deal with Carolina.

 

The Canes are collecting Sabres Cast Offs like Infinity Stones 

I wonder if the Sabers lead the NHL in the "cast off" category?  The only common donominator to me is coaching.

Edited Wednesday at 02:25 PM by MISabresFan

[kas23]

40 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

Riley Stillman signs a two way deal with Carolina.

 

The Canes are collecting Sabres Cast Offs like Infinity Stones 

They’ve caught on that freshly cast off Sabres = Stanley Cups. I’m thinking a Carolina vs EDM series. 

[Taro T]

8 minutes ago, kas23 said:

They’ve caught on that freshly cast off Sabres = Stanley Cups. I’m thinking a Carolina vs EDM series. 

See, this is the problem with having a purely #'s guy as the GM.  He does the math and sees that teams with Sabre cast-offs - O'Reilly, Eichel, Reinhart and crew, end up winning Stanley Cups soon thereafter.

But he missed the nuance.  Those teams had GOOD Sabres cast-offs - O'Reilly, Eichel, Montour, Reinhart.  Just collecting a whole lot of Matt Ellis doesn't seem to help the cause.

[Brawndo]

Anton Lundell signs a 6 year 5 Million Dollar AAV extension with Florida 

[stinky finger]

21 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

Anton Lundell signs a 6 year 5 Million Dollar AAV extension with Florida 

Sweet deal for FL. 

Bastards

[LGR4GM]

Wonder if you could dig Nicolas Roy out of Vegas? He's a big center that's a perfect #3 with some #2 injury coverage and signed for 3 more years. Ik they will ltir Lehner to fix their cap overage but I wonder if they'd take a 1st and Rosen for someone like that to give them some flexibility. I'm spitballing here so don't think it is something that's realistic. Just trying to creatively find solutions. 

[stinky finger]

4 hours ago, Scottysabres said:

This is true, and I have faith they will.

Is your faith in KA or that Pegs will procure a real GM?

Neither seems like a good bet.

[Archie Lee]

4 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

Wonder if you could dig Nicolas Roy out of Vegas? He's a big center that's a perfect #3 with some #2 injury coverage and signed for 3 more years. Ik they will ltir Lehner to fix their cap overage but I wonder if they'd take a 1st and Rosen for someone like that to give them some flexibility. I'm spitballing here so don't think it is something that's realistic. Just trying to creatively find solutions. 

Maybe the answer is that we have to make an offer that a team like Vegas would be negligent to refuse?  Krebs may be a perfectly fine 3C, but we don’t know for certain and there is the added issue of us not being entirely sure we have truly role-appropriate 1 & 2 centres. In Vegas, Krebs would just be absorbed in the line-up with Eichel, Karlsson, Hertl and Howden. If we really want to get this done, offer Krebs a protected 1st and Kulich for Roy and a 4th or something like that. It’s an overpay that Vegas might not be able to say no to. And we would still have 6 potential mid to top-six forward prospects, not to mention the 4 forwards on our NHL roster not yet 24. 

There are commentators around the NHL with experience who will say that there are trades to be made all over the place if you are willing to pay the price. 

[dudacek]

46 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

Anton Lundell signs a 6 year 5 Million Dollar AAV extension with Florida 

I'd give that to Quinn and Peterka right now, plus the tax difference.

[LGR4GM]

What if we call Joe Pavelski and say look dude, we'll give you 9 million for 1 year and I'll trade you to a contender with 50% retained if we're not in a playoff spot. 

[Archie Lee]

12 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I'd give that to Quinn and Peterka right now, plus the tax difference.

I can’t say I entirely disagree. But I’ll come back to an earlier point I made, if Quinn and Peterka are worth that and are bordering on untouchable in trade (barring, say, Draisaitl wanting to come to Buffalo), then do we need another top-6 forward?  

[ska-T Chitown]

1 hour ago, Taro T said:

See, this is the problem with having a purely #'s guy as the GM.  He does the math and sees that teams with Sabre cast-offs - O'Reilly, Eichel, Reinhart and crew, end up winning Stanley Cups soon thereafter.

But he missed the nuance.  Those teams had GOOD Sabres cast-offs - O'Reilly, Eichel, Montour, Reinhart.  Just collecting a whole lot of Matt Ellis doesn't seem to help the cause.

Not directing this at you - it is just a good place to start my rant 🙂 

I don't think characterizing Carolina picking up a bunch of UFAs we did not want in the same light as Buffalo TRADING away Montour, Reinhart, and Okposo is reasonable. Honestly, it is annoying - it is like listening to a three year old child repeat the same joke off of a TV show for weeks cuz it got a laugh once.

Again, only three players of any consequence on FLA's roster were drafter by FLA. Friggin' Vegas probably had zero. Why does Buffalo take the heat for ROR ... the Avalanche "cast him off", too. 

Honestly, the Calgary and Columbus "cast-offs" on FLAs roster were far more influential in the playoffs and it seems like the "which former-Sabre will win the cup" schtick is just a desperate attempt to pretend the Sabres have any real relevance in the NHL, which they honestly (and very sadly) don't.

Phew - I feel lighter after getting that off my chest, lol.