darksabre

It's the same thing as with Lucas though. Harry Potter is bigger than its creator now. It's Frankenstein's monster. The fans, like with Star Wars, are the franchise now. The same thing befalls lots of musical groups which is why they tend to call it quits instead of giving in to what their fans want from them. Metallica tried to do what it wanted and their fans revolted, so Metallica gave up and decided giving the fans what they want and taking their money made more sense. Rowling can say and do whatever she wants to try to control the Harry Potter product, but it belongs to the fans now, and the fans spend the money and the fans get what they want. That's just how this stuff goes.

More often than in August, but not by much. October tends to be busier than both months.

I suspect that, if it made sense, jbot would use a buyout. But it would require a player to be pushed off the roster depth chart first. So if people want Sobotka bought out then we need some other players to rise to the occasion and push him off the cliff.

Table 1 and it's not even close.

I think, truly, that Buffalo fans have PTSD from Regier basically never drafting and developing anyone. It's been a looooong time since a core of young kids bubbled to the top here.

Welp, that'll do it for August ?

I mean, it's August. Stuff doesn't really ever happen in August. Historically there are maybe 0-2 trades in August. At the earliest I would expect a trade by the 18th, but we could go well into September before a trade happens.

Rowling is basically George Lucas 2.0 at this point, trying to maintain control over something that no longer really belongs to them.

It's the truth.

Tim Murray had no idea what was going on with his team.

Thank you. I don't see why everyone is so worried about Jack. He'll be fine into his 30s.

I don't really want someone who struggles with "culture" anywhere near this club. We have had enough problems with that.

I think Jets fans would be too happy about that, so I'm gonna say no. To even consider it I'd need for Laine's deal to have been negotiated already.

I'm optimistic! I think this season and next off-season are going to be interesting (fun?) for people who really enjoy roster analysis and trade speculation. The Sabres are in a very unique spot at this exact moment.

I'd rather have one season of Vanek than Laine right now.

Laine was a mess last year. I'd trade something for him, but he's clearly causing a lot of problems defensively for a team that has a good defense. Not a great look. I'm certainly not giving up anything like Reinhart.

Okay, that's what I was wondering. I'm just trying to think about how the lockout could affect trading for RFAs.

I expect it would be trades.

I know I know. But I really don't think we can talk about the Sabres lineup this season without talking about the lineup next season. The Sabres currently have the following roster players under contract or with RFA status for the 2020-21 season: Eichel Skinner Okposo Johansson Reinhart Mittelstadt Rodrigues Ristolainen Miller Dahlin Montour McCabe There are depth players at Forward and D that we might consider, but I wouldn't necessarily pencil them in as definites: Cozens Ruotsalainen Asplund Olofsson Thompson Pilut Jokiharju Borgen Fitzgerald Obviously a lot hinges on things that happen this season with respect to players who make the jump. It's possible that the top 9 in the forwards fills out all on its own by October 2020. I would expect, after RFAs like Reinhart and Montour sign, that we're still looking at a good 20k in Cap space. Summer of 2020 could be wild and be a huge opportunity for Botterill to build off of any progress that happens this season.

Why wouldn't he? That's what it's for.

Sure, but you need the Cap to cooperate. The Sabres Cap is going to be great for the first time in YEARS. Just look at it. It's like paying off a mortgage. https://www.capfriendly.com/teams/sabres

Bumping this thread because of a discussion in another thread. I have a question about how contracts are handled in a lockout. I've never given it much thought before. How do lockouts affect free agency status for players? Say I have a player who will be an RFA at the end of the coming season, then the season gets locked out. Do I have to negotiate a deal with this player as if they had played during that lockout season? If so, does that help or hurt me as a GM?

Some of it has been performed. The roster will be different this coming season. Major surgery was out of the question from the start though with the Sabres saddled with so many immovable UFAs. We really need to think about things that Botterill is doing right now in terms of the team after this season. The Sabres could be huge trade market players next summer and we shouldn't discount the importance of that in decisions being made now.

Maybe we need a separate thread about what we expect the lineup to be for 2020-21. The next off-season may have a huge effect on this roster.

Let's not count the chickens yet lol