Taro T

He stops getting paid at the end of the regular season. The contract ends ~ Jun 30 (whatever the last day of the league year is & 1 day before FA opens up; traditionally the 1st day of the new league year is July 1; it hasn't been the last 2 years).

So you want him fired too because your boy Botterill got canned after refusing to restructure the scouting department? You didn't answer the question of are you fine having Adams become a free agent at the end of this season & THEN negotiating a new deal with him? Because, either he gets a new deal now or after he holds all the cards should the Pegulas want to re-sign him.

How so? Pretty sure he was starting his last year under contract (it was a 3 year deal originally, right?). You going to wait until after the season and he's a free agent to negotiate with him? There is no downside to this other than it costing the Pegulas more money should he not be able to continue the rebuild. Don't care about them wasting a few bucks if in fact they did. Jury's out on that but expect they didn't.

Personally always want the GM under contract for at least 2 more years than the current one & the coach to be under contract for at least 1 more year than the current season. Want to make sure they aren't thinking about their next stop while they should be fully focused on making things better here & now. (Butler tanking his last draft for the Bills still chafes.)

Personally would set it at 91.5. They get to 92 points, they can be kicking themselves all off season how those two 3 game losing streaks cost them the playoffs. And all it takes beyond that is winning 1 game they'd otherwise have lost in regulation every other month to sneak into the dance. If they can legitimately play at a 92 point pace, find 1 extra win in October, December, February, & April and they're in the playoffs or the very 1st team to miss the playoffs with a 0.600+ record in at least 50 years.

Actually, by artificially lowering his own salary, he's definitely giving (some of) his teammates more money & if the Avs stay under the cap he's giving every single player in the league a few extra shekels as the demonimator used to adjust everybody's salary to an aggregate 50% of HRR is that much smaller.

But MacKinnon seems to understand that: 1. You CAN have enough money; 2. With a hard salary cap, if he leaves a couple extra $million on the table, it's available for ideally teammates that can help him win; and 3. If the Avs have the right culture, it could actually convince some other guys like Landeskog that could break the bank to leave a small amount on the table & then there's that much more available to be able to afford 3rd & 4th liners that aren't TOTAL JAGs. He needs to have faith in management to do so, but he had that faith at his previous contract negotiation & now he's a SC champion for his faith.

Don't expect many goals (12 or so seems realistic for his usage/ role), but expect that Granato will be running balanced lines often enough to see him real close to 30 points total.

Expecting we see ~65 points again. Low 70's is possible, as is sliding back, but with the expectation they'll be pretty much rolling 3 or 4 lines 65 seems about right. Also, expect he'll be the top line C by 5v5 ice time.

Expect he falls just short of 30/60 as he ends up missing 10 or so games due to injury. Really curious as to whether he gets an extension next July. Hoping he does. Not sure he will.

And that in itself will keep the cupboards stocked. Looking forward to being at the point Detroit was most of this century where good kids cooked in the AHL until they were both ready & a spot was available.

True to a degree. It's very unlikely the last 2 drafts are putting 12 NHLers out there for the Sabres. But with all the high end picks they've had & a little luck they should get at least 7 NHLers out of the past 2. They had 5 1st rounders alone the past 2 years. And if they did, they have at least 9 NHLers out of the last 3 drafts. That'll keep the cupboards stocked.

And stuff like the Sabres being ready to pounce on Kulich (and a few other guys the past 2 (and maybe even 3 years - Quinn & Peterka say 'hi') is what was so frustrating about the Golisano years. Rather than building up the scouting department to have a lot of cheap homegrown talent coming in, he & Quinn gutted it & brought in video scouting. It wasn't just his gutting the most complete team they'd had since at least the early-90's & likely since the mid-70's or possibly ever due to being focused on only today's balance sheet, but his inability to see how his overall goals were completely complemented by building the scouting department rather than tearing it down. At least there is hope once again, & not the forced kind we've lived with most of the past decade.

As long as there's one that looks right getting taken around 15 and will last until then, they'll be good.

Don't count your inactives list before Sunday. 😉

But, were it not a lockdown year would he have been a 7th rounder? Again, the Sabres SEEM to have knocked the last 2 drafts out of the park. Is that due to being better than everybody else in general or having an edge due to being better at guessing how guys would've been advancing their previous 2 years or others being particularly bad at evaluating guys during the lockdown or some combination of the 3? If we're lucky, the Sabres actually did draft great these past 2 drafts & it isn't an illusion and more importantly it was due to a lot more of option 1 than 2 or 3.

Those 2 were 2020. Nightingale & Crowe were in town, but Nightengale was pretty much the entire analytics department then. And those were 2 very nice picks (understatement).

It'll be interesting to see how well they do moving forward now that the world shutting down for covid seems past us & teams will actually have seen next year's draftees at both D-1 & D years rather than just 1 or the other. Will they still maintain the edge they SEEM to have had since Karamanos came into the fold or will other teams grab what would've been the Sabres late round gems in the 2nd & 3rd rounds where they probably should've been selected?

Which makes all the random off-season "the Pegulas want to dump the Sabres" garbage seem so incongruous. Have never gotten that vibe.

If UPL & Subban can give them reasonable or better goaltending they should be alright. The big question is can the D actually help the G's keep the puck out of the net? Games should be fun as the Amerks should be high scoring & their opponents might be as well.

Nope. Tua plays like trash vs Buffalo. The Bills won't let Hill get free past them. Will let him try to dink & dunk down the field. He's not good enough to score as often as Allen's O will. The Bills D has Jones figured out. Unless they play in a blizzard or hurricane that can neutralize the Bills' O don't see that either. The Jests could pull an upset, most likely in OP as it's their SB & the Bills might be looking past them. Don't expect it, but it's possible.

It's possible. Not likely, but definitely possible. November & December will be key. They'll get off to a fast start in October. The question is can they finally not give up all the momentum they build up early when other teams are back into having the rust worked off & used to playing 3 games a week and when they're having a key injury or 2 to overcome. They haven't been able to do that the past 4 or 5 years that they started off well. IF they can, then they'll have enough of a base to overcome the inevitable 3-4 game slide that always comes at some point without letting it grow into an 8+ game skid. If Comrie is a legit starter & can stay healthy, it's possible. Wouldn't put any money on it but that 77.5 Over is extremely tempting.

Not doing your homework for you. Go back & re-read the Ullmark FA thread. And with the Sabres being at the cap floor, wtf should he have walked from "a bad deal" that would have NO I PACT WHATSOEVER on any single other contract on their squad. OMFG, if he gives Ullmark $1MM more than Doohickie wants him to pay, 5 years from now when Levi has some leverage, he's gonna take him to town. Seriously? And, how do you figure he'd've ended up in a bidding war w/ the Bruins had he made his "best" offer up front instead of after the fact? Nobody suggested he should've exceeded in his offer what he was willing to pay. BUT the offer he made Linus was less than that. And, NEVER said he should've gone to "any price" to keep Ullmark. But, he should've gone to what he was willing to pay before the Bruins went there. And will continue to stand by that.

Adams set up the situation himself. HE offered Ullmark less than he was willing to spend & Ullmark said he'd accept it if nobody else topped it. The Bruins topped it w/ what apparently Adams was actually willing to go to. That Linus said they offered me this 1st, top it & we've got a deal (provided Boston doesn't re-top it) doesn't seem to be an ultimatum. And, maybe they don't get Savoie if Linus signs, but that isn't a good enough reason to have lowballed Linus in the 1st place IMHO.

You can check it out yourself. There are very few blue dots around the arena even for that game that no visiting fans are desperate to go to.