Taro T

And Dan Dunleavy wakes up wondering when his stay in purgatory will finally end. 😉

Of course he needs to perform for this to be a good deal. Personally, expect he will. Also, when looking at all this, while everybody is focused on $'s / points, with a defensive specialist believe the more accurate / useful metric is $'s/ minutes. He's going to be getting 22-24 minutes regularly. If he were only getting 16-18 minutes/game, he probably wouldn't be worth the deal he got. But he's going to be getting a lot more ice time than that & that is huge. And combine his minutes w/ Dahlin's 24-26 minutes an Power's 22-24 (and hopefully eventually 24-26) that's locking down 68-74 minutes/ game. Tack on 3 PP's / game where they'll only have 1 D-man on the ice & the other 3D-men only have to cover 40-46 minutes/ game. 14-16 minutes/game for D4-6 can be covered by guys that are fairly inexpensive in most cases.

And Mike Peca got a huge deal from the Aisles because he was a Selke quality player that all teams need but is in very short supply. He was paid for his full game, not just the offensive aspects of it. And deservedly so. Samuelsson will most likely be Jay McKee & has a realistic potential to be a Mike Ramsey. The team has a ton of cap space, the cap is going up w/ at least 5 years left on his deal, & they are showing the players that they not only preach doing things the right way but will actually reward it. Jay McKee walking was a huge part of the Sabres failure to get by the Otters the last time those teams meant in meaningful games. Love this deal, not just for having the guy they project to being their shut down D-man for the foreseeable future locked down, but for the intangible value it'll have in the room. This entire day was about Adams & Pegula saying bust your arse, do things the right way, do your job well, & we will take care of you. All 3 of these announcements scream both that & we ARE a family.

Would be awesome if it were to happen this year. Would take soooo much pressure off moving forward even if they were to then take a small step backwards after that. Not expecting it. But didn't expect the Bills drought to end after 17 years as they entered year 18 either.

Well stated. 🍺

And, again, don't see how THIS deal was affected in any way by Johnson's status nor how this deal in any way affects Johnson's status. Samuelsson was NEVER going anywhere while in his RFA years & if Johnson or his daddy thought that he might be leaving then they don't understand this business as much as they let on. And your claim that THIS deal was affected by Johnson's status strains credulity. To say locking up Bryson for 2 years or bringing back Pilut MIGHT be based on the possibility of Johnson leaving is at least plausible. They're all vying for the 3rd/4th left side D role. But Samuelsson has locked up the #1 LD role for the ST & at minimum the #2 LD role for the extent of any ELC Johnson might be on. This deal was influenced as much by Johnson as Dahlin's next deal will be.

Not sure how the pairings go, but the 4 PK D will be Samuelsson, Lyubushkin, Jokiharju, & Dahlin. Likely paired that way as well.

True on both accounts.

To the bolded, do you expect Johnson's status in any way affected this deal? If so, how? Personally see Johnson's future as having exactly as much influence on this deal as Portillo's had on signing Comrie.

FTFY. 😉

Thanks for that. 2 interesting (IMHO at least) things from that thread. 1. The guy that was saying Kjell would have Mattias leaving ASAP seems to have deleted all his (or her) posts from that thread. Read into it whatever one will. And 2. The 3rd prize of this past draft at least according to 1 poster is the player the Sabres ended up with - Savoie.

Is everything OK at home? Are you getting enough sleep? Your digs were much more creative in the past. Maybe you're just having a bad day. Nobody can ALWAYS be on. Hope all is well. Truly. (No, that isn't some PA-esque backhanded swipe. Truly do hope all is well with you.) 🍺

Yep. He IS the right coach for now. Hopefully he's the right coach for then too. If he is, cool, he's locked up until then & presumably would be amenable to staying longer. If not, the only thing the Sabres are out is a few Pegula bucks. Not our concern.

To the bolded, absolutely. And with the cap set to go up significantly in 2 or 3 years, locking him up today at current prices would be a great way to do just that. IMHO.

It IS possible. And it will mean there's more money for mid level players especially after the cap jumps. But the cap being artificially depressed the last 2 years & very likely again next year makes predictions of just what the salary structure will look like post cap increase really difficult. The players that can hold off on signing LT deals for 2 more years will likely be big winners. But, if most/all the leadership in 2 years are locked into LT deals maybe the mid-tier guys that want to be here are willing to take slightly less to keep from making those earlier signed deals so egregiously out of place.

Regardless of whether he turns into Mike Ramsey, Mike Weber, or Mike Wilson; at the age he'll be when that next contract is signed both sides should know what he's worth & neither should expect to be cursing the deal when it ends. BUT, upon further review, maybe a deal could force the Sabres into a year or 2 too many. Thought he would still be in his late 20's at the end of this one but he'll be 30. Will stand by the original contention, but it isn't as definite as originally expected. ???

Don't really see it as a vendetta against ownership as much as the board contrarian must always be contradictory. And, it seems that if he can do it in a noticeable (flamboyant?, controversial?) way he gets more points on his scorecard.

Why wouldn't Asplund get a LT deal? He's their most defensively responsible "young" guy so the team should want him locked up LT and he likely won't turn into a 60 or 70 point player so he & the agent shouldn't have too much fear of leaving millions on the table should they sign LT.

An additional benefit of this contract besides the value it'll be down the road is, when this contract is due to end, another long deal likely won't have 5 years of buyers remorse written in standard at the end of it. He should still be able to earn what he's paid over the majority of, if not all of, that next deal.

Thought you hated the idea of Jokiharju on the 3rd pairing because he's a legit top 4 guy at this point in time. Personally don't want him paired w/ Power because don't want Power having to cover for his defensive zone gaffes while Power is a rookie. (And yes, Joker is a 4/5 that may become a 4 (hopefully) but he isn't there yet.

Anderson WAS more than competent. But the person that we have not seen any competence from on the providing actual current NHL starting goaltending front to date is Adams. Comrie might finally demonstrate that Kevyn can be & is competent in this aspect as well. But so far, we are still in hopeful mode rather than we have hard data to support the contention that he in fact is competent in this regard.

Have said it in another thread, always want the GM locked up for at least 2 more years & the coach for at least 1 more year. (Ideally a year or 2 more than that on each.) There is absolutely no downside to this other than Mr. & Mrs. Moneybags eventually being a few extra $'s out of pocket should they eventually decide to go in another direction. Which isn't our concern. This is a good morning. Do we get any other announcements today?

Adams gets it. Just wish he could give us actual proof he can get a real goalie actually between the pipes during games. Maybe Comrie will do that for him. That's the 1 piece that we still don't have any proof of competence (or ideally much better than that). Am very pleased Samuelsson will be a Sabre for at least the next 8 years. Love his game & the potential of what he can become.

The Okposo line will likely go out against Tkachuk. If not, it'll be the Thompson line. The only way Cozens line (as presently constituted) is out for any significant time against Tkachuk is after an icing.

Expect the bolded is correct. But would much rather we see Jokiharju getting pulled up onto the 2nd pairing when they're down a goal late rather than pulling Lybushkin up to protect a lead late. Because, expect we'll be protecting a lead late far more often if Jokiharju is running the 3rd pair than otherwise. And, while personally much prefer the concept of the Power Lyubushkin pair over the reality of the Power Joker pair, could see a reason to go with Power - Buusch at home & Power-Joker on the road to make sure we don't see Bryson-Joker out against the MacKinnon or Bergeron lines.