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Instead of Kakko being the key piece in an eichel trade, they got borgen and some late picks. Laff is also now getting 7+ aav and playing like cozens.

Yes? So 18ish games in his entire career unrelated to his bum shoulder and the initial failed surgery? Tage Thompson has missed 25 games in his career since surgery fixed the shoulder injury that caused him to miss a year. As I tried to say above, for me any elevated Norris injury risk is tied entirely to his shoulder and whether it is repaired. That's a real risk where you are trusting your doctors, but outside of that he's no different than any other player. If you want to make the argument entirely about games missed period, that's valid, but it's not the way i look at it. I think the 'why' is relevant.

Agreed. Drafting him made it easier to move savoie (in addition to kulich just lapping him during development. Norris being so injury prone also gives me pause on moving probably the top non-NHL center. He was also the youngest player in the AHL last year, so he likely projects to be a year away. As it stands today though, the only center keeping him in the AHL is krebs.

I just can't see the Rangers being able to do this. They would need to take the following steps. 1) give up this years number 12 draft pick so they can get next years first round draft pick back. 2) Convince Utah to take the 3rd round pick they have this year instead of the second round pick they have rights to next year. 3) Give us an unprotected 1st round pick plus a second and a third next year. (do they think they are going to be better next year after dealing away all those players) ? 4) Find enough money to pay JJ around 9 million a year to prevent us from matching it. As a counter measure we could deal with Utah to steal the rangers pick and prevent them from even trying to do this. This could be fun!

You mean how Rangers fans wouldn’t give up Kakko or Laff for Eichel. Yeah I’m done with that too.

So you are saying Savoie will eventually be better than McLovin, I mean McLeod? Why??

This thread took a turn….

People can belittle it all they want, but “throwing away the future for a single playoff berth” shouldn’t be a stance that shares headspace with “we have to acknowledge the difficulties of team building in a market no one wants to go to” both are frequently used as defence for why we aren’t winning, and not infrequently by the same author. Winning begets winning. Want to have an easier time attracting players? Want to win more in the future? Win now if you can’t do it by ordinary means, sell out to do it. You aren’t going to win later without winning now so you have no choice

In the grand scheme of things when compared to seriously run franchises, I would still say yes that it is far from being a significant accomplishment. For this puny franchise it is an accomplishment.

I love hockey, so I'm not opposed to this going the distance. If E Kane wasn't on the Oil I would def, hands down, want them to win. Gun to head, I kind of enjoy seeing Canada not have a cup in their own national sport. On the converse side, FLA already has theirs, and I want to see that Skinner Smile (Jeff) raising the cup in his first playoffs. So I'd say I'm 51/49% in favor of FLA but really can typically watch unbiased, which makes the hockey even better.

For last year I would say yes. The year before when Tage was hurt and moved to the wing on a lower line and Mitts moved up to the top line he played well and the production of the line was still a high yield line.

I wasn’t disagreeing with you I was branching I say it with politeness - don’t assume you are being disagreed with just because you’ve been quoted you proposed the idea a playoff berth is being or could be construed as meaningless and I responded

You totally misread my response. Accomplishing the low bar of playoff qualification can be done without depleting its assets. With some wise decisions and a greater exhibition of more urgency that which we all want to attain can be attained. I say this with politeness that it might serve you better if you respond to what was said and not reactively to what you think was said.

Didn’t say it was. ROR, on the other hand

Are you arguing we should have kept Savoie? Also, I'd argue McLeod did make the Sabres better. Trading Mitts wasn't a colossal error.

I'll set aside the National Hokey League and NHL Rigged talk before saying: I am so impressed with what Edmonton did in coming back in that game after it appeared that they'd had their doors blown off and were going to lose by 5, 6, or more. More impressive still? The Oilers did what they did in a game where they could not get McDavid away from Barkov. Just incredible. We need 7 games of this!

Series tied 2-2. I love it. Great to see the Oiler's battle back. May the best team win.

Sounds like you had money on the game. NHL officiating has been and always will be a disaster. No way should any one call be scrutinized, the entire system blows. The NHL doesn’t know WTF it wants to do with officiating. Sometimes they say they’ll let the players police themselves, other times they call penalties when a player touches an opponent with their stick. Until the NHL figures out how they actually want the games called, I won’t bother to even think about it. Garage league with beer league ideology and former minor league players with axes to grind, calling penalties on the teams that never gave them a chance. Bush league nonsense.

Bryson's games played by season in his career: 38, 73, 59, 36, 48. He's currently the 7D, which plays a ton more than 15 games per season barring incredible team health. (This team employs Samuelsson.)

I'm not interested in stats as justification for chaining ourselves to players who don't get it done when it counts. We've been playing that game for like 20 years on this site. How many massive losing streaks have Tage Thompson's Sabres experienced? What's Tage bringing to this team when he's getting shoved off the puck in the corners despite being 6 foot 6? Guess the Sabres shouldn't have traded Pierre Turgeon either. Anyone still showing up is a fool anyway.

McLeod is best cast as a 3C. But I'd say he wasn't in over his head when temporarily elevated (caveat: in the regular season, on this roster). He was solid backfilling for TNT on the California trip and I'd argue he should have been the 2C in terms of ice time from November onwards, while moving Cozens down the lineup/to wing, rather than sending McLeod down the lineup (between Malenstyn/Lafferty/NAK where he surprisingly scored no goals for awhile). Ruff should have realized that way before the trade deadline -- he did and commented on the poor center play of TNT/Cozens -- but there was Cozens still playing center in the starting lineup the entire time (except one game 11/1). Per the bold, based on the duplicity of Dahlin/Power/Byram, Byram may be a better player than McLeod, but McLeod has a role on the team that no one else currently fills. Byram can't get to play his preferred role because of two #1 picks (one of whom carries everyone, the other who... Byram may be better than, but won't be given a chance to show).

lol Morrissey is a fraud - - - 6th is really good tbh considering the tire fire the sabres are. Conjures Eichel 8th in mvp voting vibes and we’ve seen what happens when guys like JE and Sam Reinhart blossom on good teams. My guess is Dahlin would have been nominated if we made the playoffs

Beyond the actual experience of it, how anyone could doubt that they literally need the berth as a functional building block to BUILDING said future is well beyond me

Most of “we” anyway.

There is no future until they ice a winning team, finally you have it backwards The idea that a single playoff berth, when we haven’t had one in a decade and a half, is meaningless is truly absurd logic Like, absurd of the highest order. devoid of logic? What words are strong enough, here? HOW THOROUGHLY do we need to prove how special making the playoffs is? We never f*cking make it lol. “One meaningless berth”. One meaningless lottery win. ay caramba