...

The Bolts are off their game; did they think they'd have an easy one tonight? I'm guilty of forgetting something very important that may help to es'plane what we're seeing here: chemistry. These guys aren't a talented bunch, but other than being properly motivated by Nolan, it seems they are developing some chemistry by both addition and subtraction.

Oh ho! That's right, I forgot to pay attention to Callahan.

It's dark magick!

Could it be Enroth was just bored as a backup?

Yay, team! Rah, rag, sis, boom, bah!

Dark magick.

Myers, earning his keep.

Did RJ just call Enroth "Elrond"?

Does text to speech software shout when it encounters all text?

Nolan has them fired up!

Technically we don't hear it, we read it. Unless we have text-reading software installed and running, then we hear it.

Don't ruin the moment.

I keep referencing the post trade-deadline presser, but GMTM admitted the contract was offered at the beginning of all of the hub-bub the past week and it wasn't fair to expect Nolan to be able to go over it, absorb it, and have a neutral party check it out. He sounded as though he was completely okay with Nolan not being able to address the contract right now. My guess is that GMTM figures on a three-year turn-around for the team, and regardless of what he thinks about Nolan's coaching abilities, Nolan is perhaps the only thing/person that will keep the fans on-board during the roster transition.

...and who they pull in during the off-season. I do not think 7th is likely at all. Pipe dream, even. 8th? Depends on what they do. The defense next season could be far better than decent without any roster additions - just current roster subtractions. The key is what happens up front.

Tanking and a roster purge are tied together: you tank because of the roster purge. When the roster purge is finished, then I would say any intentional tanking is finished as well. That's not to say that they can't anticipate being really bad while they reconstruct the roster, I'm sure they do, and the timing of that just happens to be during the season where being really bad will help them in the draft that follows.

The tank won't be complete until after the draft. GMTM had said the draft is when the type of players he is after are available, so I think the sell-off won't be "over" until that day passes. After that I would consider the tank over, and any player moves from that point aren't for stripping down the roster, but would be to rearrange it.

On Leino, I think the thought process is that Nolan wants to make sure he puts such a high-paid, once-thought-to-be-talented player in a position to succeed. If Leino fails to show the team anything after getting many, many chances, no one will have to regret buying him out at the first prudent moment.

I once thought Ott may be re-signed as an UFA, but I think that may be unlikely now. He's buddies with several guys on the Blues, and Miller could very well sign there. They're contenders, or this close to being contenders. Moulson could sign here, perhaps. It's hard to tell if these guys are sincere when they talk to the media, because one day he's saying he really likes it in Buffalo, and then he's traded and seems pretty happy to have been traded. I think it might be more productive to identify the UFAs league-wide, and maybe anyone who can be tendered an offer-sheet. GoDD has a pretty competent list in another thread somewhere.

This isn't bad, but I think you can erase Thomas from the equation. GMTM likes Neuvirth and his potential, so I think the Enroth/Neuvirth tandem will stand next season.

Agreed. I just watched his post trade deadline presser again, and he laid out his plan clearly: they're going to identify prospects who have been in someone's system for a little bit and use picks and player trades to try and acquire the ones they want. What was left unspoken, although I think it was addressed in the WGR interview, was that they have a ton of cap space to pick up players to flesh out the roster. One aspect of his responsibilities that I hadn't picked up on until this second watch of the presser was his interest in development. Several times he referred to developing young players "appropriately" which he clarified at one point to mean "to the highest level they are capable of achieving" or something close to that. So, while next season looks like it will be another bust on paper, I have hopes that the 2015-2016 season we may actually start seeing the team turn around if all of GMTM's planning pans out.

I didn't see a thread on Murray, so I figured I'd start one. Fitting, I think, since now that the trade deadline has come and gone, we have a taste of what this dude will bring the Sabres. The more and more I hear him interviewed, the more and more I like him. I appreciate his up front, no B.S. style. He says he has a plan, but that he's willing to make mistakes. I don't know if I'm head over heals with the results of the trade deadline, but I think that's more a matter of not being in on the plan. Thinking of the players left, and those in the system, I can perceive a "direction" he may be headed, which is far more than I can say I did for his predecessor. I almost seem to think, too, that he's "lightened up" a little the past few days, to which I can't attribute anything certain, but it does correspond with PLF's departure and the impending/passed trade deadline. I think this guy likes to be the cowboy riding in and taking down all of the bad guys...

He just said 3-4 years.

Again, it's probably best to avoid looking at all of these pieces individually. GMTM is trying to assemble a team that works together, not a list of assets that look good in a spreadsheet. Apparently, GMTM's analysis of what he had concluded that the thing should be stripped down even further than it had been. It hardly gets more bare than it is, so now he has to build it back up.

...which they can provide.