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Just watched the Reinhart interview minutes after winning the cup can't help for smile and feel good for that guy though it's always going to tough not to think "what might have been"

And just think, the Oilers drafted Jesse Puljujarvi 4th in 2016, with Matthew Tkachuk on the board. Lol. That was a big time fail. Had they taken Tkachuk, along with what they have now? I think they would have won one if not two cups. You just can’t make mistakes like that drafting 4th and get away with it very often.

This exercise is pointless anyways but Buffalo isn't drafting a 5'10" player in round 2. They've basically not done so in forever. Also Martone falling to 9th is just not happening impo. Trethawey at 71 is interesting, after that, I don't know most of those guys. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6429388/2025/06/17/nhl-mock-draft-2025-seven-rounds-pronman/

There are countless times the guy winning the Smythe did far FAR less and it was well enough to win it all. If McDavid’s Smythe performance last year isn’t attached to a Cup win it’s other aspects of the team not bridging that gap, to a certainty - - - anecdotally I find people really tend to struggle with recency bias. People get McDavid was far, far more good/clutch than Reinhart this postseason, right? 10 of Reinhart’s 23 points came in the last 4 games. He had 13 in 17 before that. He’s good, great maybe even, but a short little streak at the end doesn’t make him McDavid. Reinhart wasn’t “clutch” and McDavid a “ghost”, McDavid performed all playoffs to a much higher and more consistent degree - all the playoff games count Do you think Bennett was better in the playoffs this year than McDavid?

The key is competent FO and ownership... if we had that we likely dont even have some of those players... but suffice it to say if we had that we would be a whole lot better than 14 years out of the playoffs where we have had 2 1st over all picks and 2 2nd overall picks... and drafted in the top 10 pretty much every year for 14 years... We would be able to attract free agents, wouldnt be burdened by stupid contracts etc ....

The player to watch regarding player frustrations and internal frustrations is Tuch. If he shows little interest in signing a new contract in the not-too-distant future, then it will spell another roster setback that continues the exasperating process of filling another hole that previously didn't exist. Will the Ullmark scenario play out again? The SC playoffs have concluded and the draft is soon. So we should soon know what this front office is up to with this roster. It's going to be interesting.

Wasn't the discussion we were having. It's not even relevant to what the OP said. Saying McDavid is a playoff bust is just nonsense.

Gees, he's talking about palm trees and lower taxes! Ouch

Do you mean Sam Bennett is the best player in the league now?

Slick people know how to take advantage of the loopholes. Officer asks the stopped driver have you been drinking. The driver says yes. How much did you drink? I only had one glass of wine, and I spilled a lot of it. Okay, that sounds reasonable. Here's your license back and drive carefully. Thank you officer. I want you know to that I support the men in blue. 😄

I've been thinking about what Stanley Cup champion from recent memory compares with this Florida team. They are just incredible. Is it possibly the Bruins in their recent heyday? How many Cups did they win - just one? I'm mostly wondering whether Bergeron is comparable to Barkov, then with Marchand being comparable to ... Marchand, etc.

Adams: “Hey Rick Dudley you just won back to back Cups. Do you want to come home to Buffalo and work directly for me? Hello….Hello…. We have Seth Appert lined up as next coach….Hello”

Competent ownership and management and coaching are the issues. It is not hard for me to imagine Thompson scoring 50 and being an offensive juggernaut, and a physical menace (not in the Bennett sense), playing on the first line of a cup winning team. Likewise, I could easily see Dahlin having a Conn Smythe level playoff performance for a cup winner. I can’t see it happening here. Not with this regime in charge. The big question at this point, in my view, is do Adams and Ruff get fired before Thompson or Dahlin demand a trade?

But he didn’t do enough to win it all

I think people would have a much easier time letting go if the team did anything to rectify their toughness issue. It was a problem 15 years ago. It’s a bigger problem today. Every player with an ounce of aggression and toughness has been jettisoned like they took a dump on the logo in the locker room. Even the mildly tough guys we’ve brought in, like Lafferty, Malenstyn, Clifton all play with a significantly less amount of aggression once they don the blue and gold. The roster needs to be gutted. It’s a sign these guys a) don’t really care about their teammates and b) don’t have the proper character this team desperately needs. You can’t have a roster entirely built with snipers, danglers and offensive D. They’ll get eaten alive by anyone giving two shits. Mediocre to bad teams like the Bruins still laugh at and toy with the Sabres. They are taunted right to their faces. They get treated like children, in part because they are. The roster needs an infusions of grown ass men who don’t need to be told to stand up for your teammates. I want guys on the roster who see one of their own laying unconscious on the ice and start committing assault on every opposing player. Even if their line mate tripped and fell, start swinging and ask questions later.

Go look up who won the Conn Smythe last year and then delete this.

The strategy to rebuild or not and to what extent is not what has strangled this franchise. Even if there was no complete tear down strategy but rather build on what you already got, a competently managed franchise would today have a relevant and competitive team. The owner hired an ill-equipped person to be his GM, a person no other owner/franchise would have considered for the position. After five years at the helm, we are not much farther than when we started. This mediocre fellow is still at the helm. Again, no franchise would have retained a GM with such a record. That's not the case for this bedraggled franchise. What's the hope now? It's that the senior advisor brought in will help buck up the GM that has driven this franchise into a ditch. That's not how a normally run NHL franchise functions. And the beat goes on and on. Imprisoned by one's own generational foolishness.

I fixed it for you

Best damn farm team in the NHL!

If he had went to the Sabres he probably could have won 2 by now for the Panthers.

If you told me back a few yews ago when they were in the Sabres that Eichel, Reinhart and o’reilly would have 4 Stanley cups and players from the 2017-18 would have 11, I would have been elated, thinking the Sabres won the Stanley cup 2 times. sad and pathetic franchise

We're a farm team. Denial just makes it worse. " See the future winners while they're here ! Buy your tickets today ! "

Competent ownership means “the extent of the rebuild” would not have been a tear it down to nothing effort. Who knows if we even draft Sam and Eichel at that point? The team wouldn’t look like you think it would. Everything would be very different.

Cripes...it's not like I lose sleep over it. But thanks for telling me how to feel about it. I needed that.