Taro T

There's a few potential reasons. 1. Seattle might consider Bjork (or Asplund or Thompson, whomever the Sabres consider their best forward) to be worth a 2nd round pick in his own right, but doesn't have much value on Borgen/Ristolainen (whichever 1 Adams considers the 4th D) and believe that Bjork is worth more than Miller plus whatever sweetener the Sabres may be willing to part with to be allowed to choose who Seattle takes. 2. The Sabres MAY have a deal lined up for Ristolainen (ideally for a goalie or young exempt skater) and by protecting Bjork the Sabres no longer care who Seattle takes. 3. The Sabres may have some other deal to bring in another F that would need to be protected and are OK with losing their current #8 guy but losing #7 makes the cost of the other deal too steep. 4. Unlikely. Adams knows from being friends w/ Francis that Seattle has no intention to claim Jeff, but Adams wants to help Jeff get the fans off his case and showing he's a team player could be a start in that direction. There's probably a few others, but those are all somewhat plausible. And then there's the VERY IMPROBABLE grand daddy of them all, that Adams & Francis agreed that if he's available Seattle would take Skinner & Adams lied through his teeth to Meehan's & Skinner's faces to get him to waive the NMC. (Like stated above, improbable. It also creates trust issues w/ players & agents moving forward for Adams. But it would be ballsy.)

Again, where's the :rolleyes: emoji when you really need it? 😉

Why assume Francis & Skinner have a good relationship? Supposedly Brind'amour can't stand Skinner. Could see Francis having a similar take on him.

Where's the :rolleyes: emoji when you really need it?

WE did? You and @Thorny spoke about it. Not us. And you didn't really answer the question in that exchange.

Newhook is a top 6 TODAY? Didn't say to trade 1 OA for a Tage Thompson. He's not solidly a top 9 and he doesn't project out as a surefire top 6.

This is a good thing because the Sabres really wanted to make sure they didn't lose any of Thompson, Asplund, nor Bjork. They now don't have to waste any assets to protect them all. It also shows that Skinner does want to play on as good a team as possible while being a stone's throw from home and doesn't just want to be a stone's throw from home. It makes sense for him to do so as he almost definitely won't be selected and this will result in the Sabres being marginally better especially if they can now expend a 4th or so to get Miller to join a very exclusive club of players that were selected in multiple expansion drafts. And if Ristolainen is traded for a goalie before the expansion draft, the Sabres don't need to waste any picks to have Miller most likely be selected with Girgensons, Okposo, & Tokarski the extremely unlikely long shot choices. As now Borgen becomes the 3rd D protected.

No. But there are guys that should be available via FA or trade that are comparable to provide what we expect/hope to see from Ullmark. Bring one in, re-sign Ullmark, & let the better man win the battle. The Sabres then by definition have Ullmark quality GTing every game rather than the near guaranteed L that was Hutton & crew. And unfortunately, the younger goalies that may come in via trade are still crapshoots to an extent. Had the Sabres somehow (he wasn't available, thus "somehow") traded for Hart prior to last season, people would've been pretty stoked. But it would've been a disaster as he regressed tremendously from where he'd been.

Pretty sure the other owners would've been fine with letting the Sabres keep all their players but forego their share of the expansion fee. (Drop the total fee $5MM & Seattle's probably good w/ it too. 😉 )

Yes. That was obvious. But do you really think the owner of the Knights would prefer to keep one of his eighth exposable forward, his 4th exposable D man, or Fluery rather than have an extra $21 MM in his pocket? That is a readily replaceable player especially for a "destination" team like Vegas. (And it was easier to use the Sabres as the example because it is fairly likely that Borgen will be exposed and very likely selected. No idea which Vegas players would need to be exposed and really don't care who their 7th, 8th, & 9th F's are. Nor is there any desire to get into the inevitable completely tangential debate as to why the guy used as an example of their 8th F would never be the one exposed in the draft.)

Have been VERY "vocal" in my preference of keeping what they have & actually adding to it. If Adams could make the cap work bringing in Danault & having 2 quality NHL goalies in house AND converting 1 OA into a young guy that's top 9 but projects to grow into top 6; heck yeah. But we're likely not keeping Eichel & if Adams swaps out Eichel & 1OA for some version of prospects & picks to maybe, hopefully, possibly be relevant in 3 years, well ... (And let's face it, if 1 OA is traded, that's the more likely outcome.) Not wishing life away, but October can't get here soon enough. This summer will stink.

Seattle paid $650MM to join the club. If you're a Pegula, you want $21MM or the rights to Will Borgen? (The same question can be asked of all the other owners & the answer will be the same.)

Pretty sure it's simpler than that. The other 30 teams split Seattle's entry fee. Vegas didn't get any of it. Would expect Vegas would be fine w/ losing a player to get the extra cash.

Presuming you wouldn't have copyright issues (which is likely a bad presumption), the classic logo would be tops, followed by a b&g Shatanic Goat Head, followed by a b&g B with a sword through it. The absolute bottom rung would be the Barney Rubble hair piece. Nobody wants that. 😉 Could add a couple more between the B w/ sword & the slug if necessary. Blue S w/ sword & Sabretooth come to mind.

Your 1st reply was more entertaining. 😉

While you're at it, could you make 1 more? It isn't draft related, and it's only 10 minutes long, but it's about 2 months past due, and would really help a pal out of a jam. Figured once you get on a roll, what's an extra 10 minutes? (And, no, @inkman, it isn't one of THOSE videos. It's work related.)

It's not going to be crippling, but losing Borgen will hurt. They need to have 2 stay at home D-men & Borgen can fill one of those slots for a fairly long time & will likely grow into being solid in a top 4 role. It's kind of interesting that you absolutely decry the McNabb trade but are ho-hum about Borgen. McNabb is solid, but he was 'meh' for a long time. Including when he was on LA's top pair with Daughty. He was FIFTH in ice time on those teams and was rarely, if ever, used in crunch time. Should they be dumb enough to expose Asplund, Francis would be foolish not to jump on that option. He'll never be a top 6 guy but he'll be a high end bottom 6 guy. The sort of player that top end teams have keeping the other teams on their toes.

There are 0 high end defenders at present, but Dahlin should really start showing consistent signs of being one this year. And the thought of having 2 guys that could both be legit top pairing D-men (even though they both are lefty shooters) for many years is very intriging. One of those 3, or maybe somebody else, will prove in hindsight that he should've been THE 1. But like you say, any of the 3 should be contributors once they're ready.

What's kind of funny/strange about that list is that of 8 or 9 criticisms 3 are directly related to 1 (gap control) and a 5th (skating transitions) plays a fairly significant role in gap control. And don't really have a dog in this scrap. Been too busy to finally start digging in a bit into the prospects & have been leaning towards Beniers but from following the discussions would be happy w/ Eklund and OK w/ Power as well.

Well, IMHO, we need to be hoping it was a 2-1/2 year recovery time from that knee injury. Because don't see just getting away from Krueger to be enough to resurrect his career. He just hasn't looked the same w/ the puck post injury as he did pre-injury. Again, IMHO.

As others have mentioned, as long as it keeps him off the national broadcasts, am good with it. Don't get why he's to help w/ player development. Didn't foresee this move, but could've seen it as more of a role interacting w/ the league & other teams. The guy has contacts in those places. But the Whale has been gone a loooong time & his need to keep up evaluation/development skills has been long past. HHopefully it's as effective as bring Gretzky into a hands on management role has worked in the past.

Well, unless they work out a deal to make sure a vet is selected (how sweet would it be to have them go off the board for a 4th & Tokarski) the Sabres will lose Bjork or Borgen. Adams has been talking up Bjork, so maybe that's part of a campaign to convince Seattle he'll be another Carrier. Losing Borgen WILL likely hurt, as he should be able to be a 2nd pairing stay at home D-man, but it won't be like losing a true top pairing D-man. This all presumes the trading of 1-3 of the "big 3" happens on entry draft day. Should any get moved before then, the Sabres likely get to protect B&B. But, the stinking draft SHOULD'VE happened last off-season & the Sabres wouldn't even have lost either B nor B. Hutton would've been the selection as had been planned when he was signed. There was absolutely NOTHING of value the Sabres had to expose that year.

But wasn't there an increase over the '19-'20 rate in last year's pricing? So, effectively it's another price increase. Plus THREE preseason games we have to pay for. Never had to pay for more than 2 of those before. This organization stinks.

The England coach nearly was saved from himself when England threw the ball in in the 118th minute keeping the 2 subs on the bench. But the Italy corner got them into the game in the final minute. The 2 went 0-2 with the 1st one being a horse's rear end trying to psyche out the goalie but psyches himself out hitting the post.

These guys KNOW hockey. 🤣 How long is their contract with league, again? These guys KNOW hockey. 🤣 How long is their contract with league, again?