Taro T

He became a UFA as soon as he cleared waivers. Most all the other guys available in the FA frenzy didn't become UFAs /RFAs until noon July 1.

Del Amitri is absolutely excellent. Would love to see them live. Have seen BNL at least 6 times but wouldn't go to see them if Steven isn't there. Just too much of their catalog needs his voice.

True. But that strictly affects Pegula's wallet and not the Sabres cap space. As far as the cap is concerned, only the top 23 players + guys on IR (and potentially part of the salary of a guy or 2 in the AHL depending upon who goes to Ra-cha-cha) count against the cap. It's a very good situation to be in.

The same answers as in the other thread. Yes, yes, and would look at a 1st & either a 2nd or a prospect or an Olofsson to get one.

Winnipeg experimented with that after trading for Housley. The experiment was not long lived.

Very much this. Really disappointing that Varlamov stayed on the Island. (Yes, we all knew he wanted to be there, but still was really hoping Adam's would show interest & convince him he could live on Grand Island. It would be ALMOST identical but with less traffic and fewer malls.) Personally believe one of UPL or Comrie MAY be good enough, but it is by no means a given and somebody like Varlamov would be nearly ideal as a 1B that could be a 1 in a pinch. Adams has had a decent off-season so far. Still hoping he can make it a great off-season. But not fully hopeful.

True. But that doesn't change the fact he was the Sabres 2nd best C his last season in Buffalo. Success in large part comes down to preparation to be ready for when you luck into an opportunity.

Realize that you know this, am merely adding it for people reading it that aren't up on the details of the CBA. Quinn is NOT getting put on the BF-LTIR list. He's just going to be on regular old fashioned IR. BF-LTIR ONLY comes into play if the team will need to exceed the salary cap to ice a replacement for a player (or players) on IR. With the Sabres still being over $5MM under the cap, they won't need to use LTIR to replace him on the 23 man lineup. Now, should they trade for Bobrovsky, then all bets would be off. But just don't see Florida nor Buffalo being willing to make a deal on a $10MM goalie.

Personally think that signing Tokarski indicates they will only have 2 goalies on the big team. Whether that is through running Levi & one of the other 2 already there with them trying to sneak the other into Ra-cha-cha, or making a trade for a vet and moving one or both of the other 2 isn't clear yet. But Tokarski IMHO is the insurance policy that they have a guy they trust could play a game or 2 in a pinch should the guy that ends up 3 when the dust has settled gets claimed when put on waivers. He has played adequately in small samples for Buffalo. They've seen him 1st hand in Buffalo. Subban too. And IMHO they don't trust Subban as much to be the emergency guy. (As evidenced by signing Tokarski and not Subban.)

They need to be willing to risk sending Comrie to the Amerks after they get a better 2/ 1A/B guy. (UPL too if necessary.)

Why drop to fewer than 8 legit NHLers? Run 13-8-2. If Graves or another better D shows up, then punt one. Or if a goalie trade partner wants a D in the package then punt one. Otherwise, don't see a reason to get rid of 1 just to get rid of him. Leave Bryson & Johnson in the AHL to be depth should they see a run on D injuries like they had in last year's western road trip. Wonder who signs Clague? Only way he's back now is if nobody else gives him a reasonable shot to make the parent club and Buffalo gives him the same (or better) pay to play in the A. He'd be 10 or 11 on the depth chart at this moment. (Absolute best case for him would be he's the 9 here.)

When's the last time 2 guys with walkers got into a good all out slugfest? Might get to see that one pretty soon.

Treliving seems to love to bring in over the hill goons (Lucic, Reaves) doesn't he? Hopefully that multi-year deal has MANY years on it. Would love to see him huffing around the rink in his 40's in blue and white.

Anton Wahlberg the #1 hockey name? Sounds more like a singer in a boy band.

Clague will likely end up somewhere for the league minimum again. Sabres (presuming they want him back) probably figure they don't need to give him the 10% bump to get him back. Doubt anybody else would give him that premium. They gave him $300k for his AHL salary. Doubt anybody else would top that. Could see them telling him they'd give him the same deal and he's going to look and see if he can find a team that will give him a better chance at staying in the NHL. And if the Sabres just bring in 1 new D-man, Clague probably figures he'll spend a lot of the year in Buffalo; if they bring in 2 guys, Clague probably figures between being behind Stillman and knowing they'd like to get a look at Johnson at some point that he'd have a better shot of getting back to the NHL in-season by signing with somebody that'll only give him $150k to be on their AHL affiliate. Pekar will never see a Sabres uniform. Wouldn't be surprised to see him go back over the pond. Would be mildly surprised if he doesn't end up back in Buffalo. Just he wasn't going to get a salary bump to sit in the press box.

Absolutely. But, believe there's a small set of teams that he even makes sense as being the 13. Unless you're looking for speed in your bottom 6, you're not looking to add him. He is not going to bring the heavy game that a lot of 4th lines are expected to bring. And because theres a limited set of suitors for Jost, Adams has a good chance of being right on his valuation of Jost.

Would be cool if the guy the Sabres wanted to trade up for 2 straight years ended up falling into their lap where they were. But it could be like the story about when Murray wanted to offer all 3 2nd round picks in '14 for Tuch. Well, yeah, but that was after he'd tried to trade up to grab Dylan Larkin. Don't know if Kulich and Wahlberg were both THE targets last year and this (expect it was the case last year, don't really care if it was this year) but nothing wrong with letting the player think he was THE guy even if he wasn't. He's the guy now.

Thought the Sabres were the only team to put in a claim on him last year when he was on waivers. There isn't going to be a whole lot of space between what the Sabres offer him and what somebody else might offer. Until he signs with somebody else will expect him to be a Sabre in '23-'24.

Hmmmmmmm, could be. 😉

Portillo wasn't going to sign here anyhow most likely. And, do you HONESTLY expect that Johnson was going to sign in Buffalo had Botterill still been the GM? IMHO, not a chance that would've happened. And do you know why Bryson has a ton of games played relative to his peers? Pretty sure you've been screaming louder than anybody for Adams to "just do something" on the back end. Well, Bryson being in the top 6 for far too long is a big part of why we "heard" you shouting that the past 2 years. The Sabres defensive depth had been attrocious for at least the past 2 years. Bryson wouldn't have nearly the NHL time he has had he been playing on a team with even just slightly subpar depth. EDIT: And to add, Cullen's model predicted that Botterill with picks 1, 7, 8, 31, 32, 37, 54, 67, 89, 94, 99, 102, 117, 125, 143, 160, 187, and 192 should be expected to have FEWER THAN 5 PICKS HIT?!?!??!? Does that model provide ANY WEIGHT AT ALL to what the pick is? ALL THREE of the top 10 picks should play in the NHL. That leaves his model expecting 1.81 NHLers out of 3 picks in the 30's and another before the end of the 2nd round another 3 picks into the 3rd (today, not when Botterill picked them, still was in the 1st 10 of the 3rd round) plus 10 more lottery tickets. There is no ####ing way he should've gotten fewer than 2 NHLers out of all those non-top 10 picks.

Thought it was mainly Ruy Lopez but it may have been more Sicilian Defense.

Honestly, could see both him and Clague coming back. Would figure whether Clague comes back will depend upon whether the Sabres net bringing in 1 more NHL D-man or 2.

🤨 Pretty sure that Canadians now make up just a tad south of 50% of NHL players, but maybe it is still just a smidge over. And if there are less than 4 out of 8 NHLers that are Canadian; unless you're drafting partial players (with the 4th selection in the 6th round the Buffalo Sabres choose the torso of Jiri Bigguns, the legs of Vladimer Racehorse, and the head and arms of Tony Toosmart) 3 out of 8 is as close as you can get to the average without going over. 😉

Why does it matter? A comment was made that everybody chooses lots of Canadians in the draft. Was simply making the point that while the point is generally true it is not universally true. No need to immediately spring to the aid of your boy Botts; but seeing as you did ... It does seem rather foolish to completely ignore the single largest pool of talent when drafting. As to his incredible draft record, on the surface it looks extremely impressive. And would say that he did a reasonable job at the draft. But having 1/3 of the players making it to the NHL isn't quite as impressive as it might seem at 1st blush when you look at when those players were selected. He had 3 picks in the top 10 of the draft. There is something substantially wrong if ALL of those don't make it to the NHL barring major injury or death. And a total of 5 of those picks would be 1st rounders in the 32 team NHL. And another 2 were taken in the top 1/2 of the 2nd round. You really should be able to get 6 NHLers out of all that and your 11 other picks. Plus, Portillo flat out refused to sign with Buffalo. Botterill gets little to no credit for that pick. Had Botterill still been running the team when you consider how horrible he was at selecting head coaches, see absolutely no reason to expect that Johnson would've signed with the Sabres either. And 2 of his "NHLers" include Bryson and UPL. Now UPL will likely be at least a legit NHL backup if not better but the only reason he's an NHLer at present is because ALL Sabres GMs since Murray came on the scene have yutzed up the goaltending. And, really, would Bryson be an NHLer were he in ANY other organization? Not sure he'd even make Arizona's squad at present. When you actually look at the opportunity he had regarding really high selections and also the results, it isn't quite as impressive IMHO. Obviously, YMMV and does. 😉

Prior to the injury, wasn't Jost the presumed depth F with Rousek (or another kid) sliding into the top 12 after the Olofsson trade? And do expect that either Olofsson stays or that 4C we've been pushing for (or perhaps even a 3C) now becomes inevitable.