darksabre

This is what is most frustrating. The team is close enough that making maybe ONE move some time between the summer and today might have made a huge difference. Add ONE player who can play on the second line and this team is better. You might lose a trade to do it, but the ROI for the team would have outweighed it. But apparently Botterill decided that flushing this whole season down the toilet was better than paying whatever that price was to make that one move for that one player.

I feel that dude. This year has been really hard on me, not just as a hockey fan, but as someone who plays and loves the game in general. The Sabres being miserable combined with my having had a couple injuries this year have put me in a spot with the entire game where I feel like maybe I need a break. I feel like Ryan O'Reilly talking about losing his love for the game, because that's how I feel right now. I think I'd be fine moving on to something new. I'm tired of sitting down and watching, I'm tired of putting my bags in the car and driving to the rink at 9:00 at night.

Catherine Bell in JAG was my, uh, awakening

We probably wouldn't even be having this conversation right now if Botterill had bothered to pay the price it cost to bring in anyone better than Sobotka to play on the second line at any point between last February and today.

I still don't think the Jets are ideal partners unless the Sabres can work a deal to send picks from Winnipeg to another team for a real player. I think Winnipeg would take Miller but they wont give us anything we need from their forward corps in return.

Yep. Trading Jack is out of the question. He's developed into a likeable player who will be an All Star for years to come.

At first blush the entire premise of this thread made me recoil. But then I took some time to think about my beliefs about how you build a team, use your cap, etc. I don't want to trade Dahlin. But, there is going to be a point where I might not object, and it's going to be when he signs his first major contract. I generally believe a team shouldn't spend much over a quarter of its cap on defense. Teams that do don't tend to win Cups. If Dahlin is going to get paid 10mil/yr at some point in the next couple years, I'm not sure I have the stomach for that. If he's going to get 8 I'd feel better. It's really going to come down to what is best for this team. Right now Dahlin doesn't cost much of anything so there's no reason to trade him. You can spend on forwards for now and hope you sign Dahlin for the right price. If the price is too high though, I move on. I don't think a franchise d man is as valuable as having good forwards. Look at San Jose right now...

Like Doohickie says, he'll have to play at some point unless Botterill makes a trade. Hutton isn't playing 13 games in a row. I would expect him to get one or two of Colorado, Detroit, and NYR. Colorado is probably an L on Tuesday night out of conference, so no big deal if he plays that one. Detroit is bad on a Thursday night but in conference, so maybe we hope Hutton plays well and we get a W. NYR are bad AND it's on the road, so maybe road barn away from the sour home fans is a good place to throw a rookie goalie in. Colorado and NYR are the games I'd look for him in.

A little more than I expected, but not by much. Dislocated kneecap or something.

Ullmark is an upgraded Robin Lehner and he's already a "true #1" in the sense that he can probably play 60 games a year for any team in this league. I don't think he's going to be "elite", but he's good enough.

I'm terrified of what he could do with all that cap space.

Welp, guess we're sellers.

That Ullmark injury was identical to what I did to myself in a game a few weeks ago. Looked like his knee just went doing a mundane push. I'd bet it's not serious and he could come back in 2-3 weeks.

I'm not worried about either of those things. Getzlaf gets to play on a better team and Miller is a rental for a few months. He can go back to Cali in the off-season.

I gotta be honest, Flagg, I don't see anything interesting there. N/A just won a Cup with the Blues lol

Why would we want a 29 year old center with 4 years left on his deal? If we want to make the playoffs this year, we need ballsy.

Twitter poll results so far are saying Anaheim wouldn't make my proposed deal, so maybe y'all don't have the stomachs lol

The problem here is that I don't think Anaheim does either of these if they're rebuilding.

My proposal to Anaheim, if they're looking for cap space this summer, and for Buffalo if their goal is to simply make a playoff run: Bogo, Risto, Hutton and a 1st for Getzlaf and Miller. The trade is essentially Risto and a 1st for 115+ games of Getzlaf centering Skinner and Johansson. Anaheim gets Risto who has term, and Bogo is cap space for them this summer. Miller and Hutton are UFA goalie swaps just to get us a slightly better backup.

lol wild that I just posted this in the GDT

I'd certainly like Kase but I think if I'm Anaheim and I'm looking at a rebuild, Kase is a contract I'd rather have than not have.

I agree that I'm not sure that forward exists, but I'm looking at the standings and wondering what Anaheim would want for Getzlaf. He's got a year left on a ~$8mil or so contract, so if that team might be rebuilding he ends up being a rental next year anyway. They are well and truly out of the playoffs this year so they might be willing to take some of our pending UFA cap dumps to give them cap space this summer instead of next summer. This assumes Getzlaf would waive his NMC to come to Buffalo to play with Skinner and Johansson on his wings, but... edit: I'd probably ask them if they wanted to swap Hutton for Miller while we're at it...

I have as well, but I'm open to having my mind changed. It would take the addition of one top 6 forward to give them a fighting chance at a heroic run to 9th (assuming Olofsson comes back in the next month or so).