Taro T

Realize that. But would expect that expecially in this realm of "open conversations where everybody has a voice" that he'd want the captain's input as well.

Interesting. Spoke with Thompson before making the trade. Would've figured he'd've spoken with Dahlin prior to it. Spoke to both? And Tuch too presumably? Can you actually bring Byram back after saying explicitly that you'd move him "if the right trade comes along." How would that not be messing up the room if he comes back? Even though you said you'd love to keep him (or something to that effect) you've explicitly said you are good with trading him. Aka, you want him, but not really. Especially when a couple minutes later you still say we need to get better defensively. (Which is actually demonstrably true; but to say it 3 mintues after you've explicitly said you are open to trading him, how do you bring him back and not have it be disruptive?) Quinn is a very honest player. Read: Quinn realizes just like everybody else that he was awful last year.

And 5-1/2 minutes in, we have honest as well. BINGO!!!!!!!! What did we win?

That's because he was a horrible skater for the 1st 3 years of his time with the Aisles. Conversations, check. Open, check. Free square, check. Challenging, check. Just need honest and we'll have BINGO!!!

Except these guys BELIEVED in & LOVED Granato. They weren't anywhere CLOSE to playing big when they were coached by him. And every single time down the stretch when they had a must win game they lost. Desire is necessary but not sufficient to be effective. You also must have an understanding of what you need to do and and understanding of HOW to do what you need to do. Personally, expect that a significant portion of them have the desire. Personally believe Ruff gives them an understanding of what they need to do. And those 2 combined is why, unlike Granato's squads that rarely came out of the gate quickly, Ruff's team last year tended to take the lead in a lot of games. But 100% have no faith that the coaching staff that is supposed to be teaching them the X's & O's give the players the understanding of HOW to do what they need to do WHEN the other team is bearing down fully. Given the choice of changing out 6 or even 9 players for guys that we'd consider upgrades (presuming no changes in net) vs swapping out all the ACs and leaving the roster intact, expect that bringing in a legit coaching staff would do more for thie outcome than swapping out the roster. And we know they aren't going to be swapping out that much of the roster.

The people that ask for the Sabres to get bigger aren't actually asking for them to be bigger. (Well, some of them likely are, but we all know in reality that isn't necessarily what they want.) They're asking for them to PLAY bigger. The Sabres almost always have good size metrics, but except for Nolan's 1st stint and very early in Ruff's 1st stint the Sabres have never PLAYED big. You can't PLAY small and win. Not come playoff time. And really, its tough to do so in the RS as well as the teams that don't like contact tend to lose battles in the crunch times of even RS games. How many times did the Sabres lose after having the lead lby a couple of goals ast year? They had to be near the top if not the absolute top team there. How many of those times that they ended up losing was there an opportunity to get the puck out of the zone but the player didn't "sell out" to get it out of the zone. How many of those times that they ended up losing was there an opportunity to box a guy out away from UPL and instead he was allowed to stand there and either deflect the puck past him or be the 1st to the rebound? Watching the Swamp Cats play and watching the Sabres play, which team ACTS like the bigger team? It ain't the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight that's in the dog. And too few of the Sabres end up having the fight. But not positive that's entirely on the players themselves; when you aren't sure where you should be, when you aren't sure what you are going to do when you have the puck or the opportunity to have the puck, you play nonaggressively because you think for that split second that your opponent is reacting. The Sabres DO need to play harder. Some of that will come from getting rid of guys that won't do that; but some of that COULD come from coaching but these guys are too stubborn, at best, to change out coaches that CLEARLY aren't teaching these players the right way to play. So, yeah, the Sabres don't need to BE bigger, but they absolutely need to PLAY bigger. And unfortunately just swapping out Peterka for a couple of guys that we know will play bigger likely won't be enough because this coaching staff won't continue to get thaat out of them. And they won't get it out of the rest of them that aren't already significantly outliers on the personal drive measure (read, guys like Dahlin and Benson). There is so much more that needs to happen this offseason to get them to where they need to be.

It ALL depends on the return. And as Adams only got 75-80% value for Peterka, see no reason to expect he'll get full value for either player. Would rather have 100% of Bryam's value and 75% of Samuelsson's value as the team tries to make the playoffs for the 1st time in 1-1/2 decades than 100% of Samuelsson's value and 75% of Byram's value. Though by having Bryam go out the door, there will be additional cash in the owners' pockets to not be spent on extending the Sabres own FAs nor adding anybody else's. So, from ownership's perspective there is a value to making Byram the trade piece. And as have stated elsewhere, will believe that they're going to use any savings from trading away / buying out players the minute they actually use those savings and not 1 minute sooner. Like Pete Townsend wrote and Roger Daltry sang - "won't get fooled again, whoa no."

Danault too. Would've made the whole thing gel.

Sabres still in contention for a longer percentage of the season. Less road for teams to pull away.

Lucky bastage.

Just shocked their IT people were adept enough to keep them from getting Zoom bombed. THAT would be pretty much par for the course.

Yeah, he forgot to add Smehlik to the mix. 😄

Well, he will need a full evaluation year to determine just what he has to work with, right?

And the fact that at least before this coming season that he can be bought out for 1/3 the contract value (which means it kills ~1/6 the contract value each year over twice the remaining years) made it a low risk signing. Of course, they have to actually make the decision to pull the trigger on that buyout to take advantage of it.

Hmm, Ekblad. Wouldn't that be something if FLA ended up with 3 of the 1st 4 from the '14 draft all at the same time and then the Sabres replaced 3 years later the 2nd pick of that draft with the 1st pick of that draft. (No f'n way Ekblad would come to Buffalo. But interesting thought.)

And Detroit takes your Bear. Oops. Wrong thread.

Know the draft is your thing, but any idea what supersized RHD will be available to target in FA? If they grab all of them, something HAS to work, right? Maybe. Possibly. In theory at least, right?

But at least they have an extra $5.5MM to go after UFAs. (Yeah, right. Like they'll spend that.)

Hextall's daughter Chatkya's sister didn't like the pick because the Sabres already have 2 1st overall D-men. Thought going D wasn't addressing a need.

So, guess next time Forton raves about a kid right before the draft we should believe that's the kid he really raves about.

That's 2 of the bands that played at the opening night of the MMArena. Wanna guess who the 3rd act was?

Exactly who immediately sprung to mind when they started talking about Bailey.

So is & can be Benson. Not expecting him to get waived either. 😉

Yes. He will still be an RFA for 2 additional years per Puckpedia. Not sure if that takes into account any changes in the brand new CBA or not. Most likely in a worst case the Sabres would still have right of 1st refusal for 1 more season.

His DAD. He was the Sabres player rep when the players struck. The Knoxes were NOT impressed. Would be shocked if Miles Wood EVER becomes a Sabre. (Especially in the current environment of ONLY wanting guys that want to be in Buffalo.)