Taro T

Absolutely. He thought enough of his own talent to believe he was, in a worst case, the Sabres 13th best forward. Turns out, he isn't. He was wrong, & is unhappy with where he's now at. Adams has been VERY vocal in stating that if a player doesn't want to be here, he doesn't want him. This is just walking that talk and giving Sheahan an opportunity to go where he wants to be (presuming those controlling that location actually want him, not a given at this point).

On July 1, 2025 he has ZERO value to the Yotes. That is a fact. That you don't consider it "relatively soon" doesn't alter that. And, IMHO, teams would be willing to give up more for him now than they would in July '24 or even July '23 so for a team that wants to lose in the near term he'll never have more value for them than he does today in a package of prospects &/or picks. Does that mean the Sabres would have to add a prospect to the package? Maybe, don't know. Hadn't put a ton of thought into it and again whatever the Sabres would have to give up to land Chychrun is slightly more than the 2nd best deal the Yotes are offered. Which was the main point of the post. People tend to look at trades in a tunnel between just the 2 trading parties, but the 3rd team is the one that really sets the value & the trade parameters.

Really jonesing for a trip to Switzerland? Was surprised he was as bad as he was this year. Looks like age caught up to him.

The question becomes, what do we expect the best non-Sabres offer to be? He's got 2 more years on his deal, but the Yotes aren't going to be trying to win during that time, so figure he's leaving on July 1, 2025, so though the Yotes don't have to trade him he'll relatively soon have no value at all. The floor for the deal is what do they see 2-1/2 years of his play being worth staying in the desert. The almost ceiling of what they'll get is that "2nd best deal." Expect that is higher than that floor as they WANT to lose now & can't sell any more tix until they move to a different barn so that floor is pretty low, so that's what the Sabres needed to beat. @dudacek's post should be a pretty good proxy for that 2nd best deal. A non-lottery protected 1st (or lightly protected, say top 5) & the Sabres best or 2nd best 2nd rounder looks to be pretty comparable. (With the best 2nd being a part of the package if the 1st slides & the 2nd best if it comes this year.) Those pieces would be coming into the NHL on the Yotes schedule to rejoin the NHL. The Q becomes, again, is that better than the 2nd best offer.

Further, if they didn't take handedness into consideration for 7 & 8, they'd have 2 LHD working on the 4th pair.

The cheesy original or the cheesy remake? (Had to be the remake, right?)

Forgot about McAvoy being in THAT draft. THAT would've been even better. But really thought they were going to select Chychrun & not just because his family were friends w/ the owners. If not Chychrun, thought it would be Sergachev. In hindsight, Chychrun would've been the weakest of the 3 but still is far ahead of the actual pick & even the upgrade from tjat pick.

Jokiharju pretty much has to be part of the package, right? Because that's all the Sabres would've had to give up had Murray had his head out of his bippy and taken him when he was available back in '16.

So you went from watching OSU-Mich to F1 & the NFL in the airport?

Agree that they won't make any trades this season. Would not be at all surprised if Adams enters the trade market this offseason, but not expecting it at all during this season.

Would be shocked if he's in the plans for next year. (The scary thing is, UPL likely IS in the plans. As long as he's Sabres property will hope he figures it out & becomes what they hope he can be, but just not expecting it. Expect his ceiling is Noronnen.)

Kumerow, Crowder, & Stephenson on IR. Hodgins signed by Jints. Who knows if the ankle is still bothering Davis. Thought they only have 4 healthy WRs including the rookie. A little extra depth doesn't hurt. Wonder if that move means they don't expect to land OBJ? Also, wonder if Beasley would come out of retirement?

Watch pretty much everything on a 1/2 hr - 1 hr delay and then skip through the ads. For NFL usually don't care about the 4PM football games so since we're usually caught up by then, watch a quarter of one, then watch a quarter of another skipping commercials in both. This puts us far enough ahead to skip commercials & the annoying parts of FNiA & the commercials of the late game. For Sabres, start watching the pregame around the realtime puckdrop & it gets us to the end of the game commercial-free. Watch Amerks pretty much real-time, but switch to something else during commercials as we can see the game on the laptop connected to the TV so we can see when the commercials/intermission are over. Have recorded all the WC so far, so just pick a game we're interested in & watch it straight through skipping the 1/2 time show. Have avoided discussions of the games, so they're live to us. Wifey is the big college sports fan & she likes watching live so there are usually 2 games on at once & we flip games when one is at a commercial. If they both are in commercial, go to her 3rd game.

Thing is, a couple (& maybe all 3) of the pieces might already be in the lineup. They need a 2C that can keep the other team's scoring line in check AND generate chances at the other end. They need it because the Thompson line isn't good enough in their own zone against true top lines. (They're good enough there against mist, but there are 5-10 lines they simply are going to get exposed against in their own end. And Thompson keeps getting better in his end and recently has been playing a bit more physically, maybe he can get good enough that the coach WANTS to match #1's vs #1's.) They don't have that 2C that can handle that matchup yet. Cozens will very likely grow into that, maybe even by the end of this season. Really expect him there next year. Mittelstadt isn't there yet either. Most everybody here doesn't expect him to get there, but he still could as well. If neither can be that true 2C, well they have at least 2 more possibilities in the system that could very well do it & at least 2 more that aren't as likely to do it but might. They need a true #4 D. Lyubushkin looked like he could be that before the injury. He was bad for a month after that. He's played well these last 2 games. Maybe he can handle that well enough. Jokiharju may grow into that. And they need a #1 goalie. Comrie, w/ the D they have now when healthy, might be good enough to be it. He wasn't w/ the D they used minus Samuelsson. Even if he is, and especially if he isn't, still want another. And obviously, there are other pieces that would help push them to championship level that they're lacking today. But those should be enough to make playoffs the expectation rather than the hope.

The 1st SHOULD never count, but we both know that play results in a goal quite often. Have seen far worse allowed through the years. The 2nd absolutely should've been a goal.

The difference in this game was 2 fold - the Sabres didn't have an answer for the Hischier line & the ref had an early whistle twice. Granato was matching his D and for the most part matching lines. This team still needs a bunch of pieces (which for the most part might already be in the system) to compete for the Stanley Cup. But they really are only about 3-4 pieces from being a legit playoff team. Fix the goaltending (and yes Anderson played well but he isn't stealing a game after October for them) and playoffs need to be the goal. This team competed with one of the 3 best teams (at present) in the league. Yes, they were outmatched early, but they weathered the storm and competed.

2 goals called back due to early whistles. 3-3 w/ legit reffing.

And getting a lot of help from his 2 best buddies. Unfortunately.

They could easily have 4 goals this period. Tuch's shot wide, the Mitts line's post, the Okposo line's post & Dahlin's spinarama. Joisey really only had that great Anderson glove save as a counter.

No, Dahlin is NOT in his prime. He is still improving as he gets stronger & wiser. The rest of the league should be shaking at how much better this kid can be and how long he'll be good. There are 4 Sabres past their prime: Anderson, Okposo, Skinner, & Girgensons. (Though would say that the way he plays, Skinner is still in his prime.) There are 8 10 Sabres in their prime: Tuch, Lyubushkin, Thompson, Hinostroza, Olofsson, Bryson, Fitzgerald, Pilut, Jost, & Comrie. There are 5 Sabres on the verge of their prime: Mittelstadt, Asplund, Dahlin, Jokiharju, & UPL. The rest aren't even close to their primes: Power, Samuelsson, Cozens, Quinn, Peterka, & Krebs. Yes, they may be wasting a quality year of Skinner, Thompson, Tuch, Olofsson, & Lyubushkin. But only 2 of those are expected to be true parts of the core of this team. The entirely of this team's core, except for those 2 are not in their prime. And some of what likely will be parts (such as Savoie & Levi) aren't even playing pro hockey yet.

22 year old Rasmus Dahlin is "in his prime?" Really?

So, what are the odds he gets a QO this offseason? Slim and completely non-existant? You've watched him a lot more than most. What happened to him? Did he just stop developing or was he unable to adjust to the organization's higher tempo offensive thrust? When he was starting out, looked like he might develop into that PITA to play against that the Sabres so often lack.

Even during the 1-7-1 streak they went on right after St. Patty's Day?

And after they aren't playing his dad's team, Fitzgerald will go back to the 7th healthy D-man. Pilut & Bryson are essentially the same guy. Neither is 'it,' but unless a piece that Adams sees as a LT fit, one of them will be the 6 when healthy, at least until Johnson gets his end of season ELC burn games in.

Von Miller update