nfreeman

How about Cozens?

Anaheim has always been a tight-budget team. Trading their best young assets to take on a $50MM injury risk doesn't seem like something they would do.

I would be happy with this trade and I don't expect the Sabres to get 2 players as good as Scheifele and Ehlers for Eichel and Reino. Scheifele would be a very good, true #1C while Cozens and hopefully Mitts develop into NHL centers. There is also a very good likelihood, due to Eichel's injury history, that Scheifele will be more productive than Eichel over the next 5 years. I agree that Ehlers is better than Reino. And both of the Jets are under good contracts. I don't get the sense though that the Jets are in as big of a rush as the Flames are to turn their roster upside down.

I find all of this totally plausible.

My recollection is that Brador was a high alcohol offering from Molson. Welcome Mike.

From the Islanders' writer on the Athletic:

The Sabres could do a heckuva lot worse than a good Trotz protege, if that's what Lambert is.

Very fair counterpoint. With Reino, IMHO there's a pretty good likelihood that either he works out an extension as part of a trade or that a team will trade for him on the assumption that if all goes well he will re-sign -- but you're right that his contract status affects the demand for him. With Eichel, it all depends on what teams are willing to offer for him, i.e. how much the offers are discounted due to his injury. It could go either way on both of them.

What do the good prospect sites say about Power’s skating specifically? I couldn’t find any specifics on Dobber or elite prospects.

There are a few different Herman Miller office chairs that are pricey but very solid and well made and adjustable in a bunch of different ways to appeal to one’s aching bones.

I have no idea but I would guess that the Sabres have the choice of either voiding the contract or keeping it in place, and if they void it he’s unrestricted.

He's not going to get the surgery if he has to bear the risk of voiding his contract. That's why he hasn't gotten it already. Well, I think the risk is that they get a much worse return for him if they wait until his NMC is effective -- but that depends on how good the offers they get this summer are. You are right that it would be risky to turn down a great offer this summer. However, if the offers they get are heavily discounted because of the injury, then the risk of the NMC burning them is substantially reduced, because the NMC-limited offers won't be that much worse than the injury-discounted offers.

I've long harbored doubts that the NMC is as big of a problem as it is sometimes made out to be. It would certainly hurt the Sabres' return, and there is a non-negligible chance that it has a substantial negative impact, but there are also plenty of scenarios where wait-and-see turns out to be the best approach for the Sabres to take with Eichel. Now that would be a true ZFG move. I have been thinking this too -- that Skinner's presence is the biggest obstacle to landing Brind'Amour if he leaves Carolina. Separately: regarding Quinn, it wouldn't surprise me at all if all or a large part of KA's motivation in interviewing him is to pick Quinn's brain on Eichel.

It just feels inevitable that Eichel and Reino are both gone.

Well, I can understand this view based on recent cost-cutting, but TP has generally thrown money at the Sabres, and they did make RK one of the highest-paid coaches in the NHL. I've seen RK's salary reported as both $3.75MM and $3.9MM -- which is more than double what I've seen reported as being currently offered to Brind'Amour. It may be more likely that Rod considers Seattle and/or other teams and not the Sabres, but if it turns into a bidding war, I don't think TP will be outbid.

This, this, a thousand times this! We can all stamp our feet and demand a king's ransom for Eichel -- but I don't think anyone is going to deliver that without seeing him play NHL games at a high level, which isn't going to happen by trading season. So we are going to get less, perhaps much less, than we want. OK, but the Kings aren't going to give up Byfield, the Rangers aren't going to give up Lafreniere and other teams aren't going to give up their crown jewels for a guy with this much injury uncertainty.

Mine too, and I think it's because of the injury. I think they think it's pretty likely that he's not going to regain his MVP contender form and that the return they get from trading him is only going to decrease if they don't trade him this summer. I hope I'm wrong, but it seems that the likelihood of him regaining top form and doing so in a Sabres jersey is quite low.

Well this thread really skidded into a ditch.

Every day that passes without him signing increases the likelihood that he entertains other offers. I would go so far as to say that it's at least 50/50 that he's already reached that point.

I agree with most of this post, especially that I wish Gronborg had been hired instead of RK, but he's a coach in the Swiss league, which is a big step down from the Swedish league. He has not been a HC in the Swedish league or any comparable-or-better league. (He used to coach the Swedish national team, which may be what you're thinking of.)

JA produced one offensive TD before garbage time vs KC, and it was a 3-yard drive after a fumbled punt recovery. The Bills lost that game because they were out-QB’d and outcoached.

I respect Modo's opinion, even if he gets a bit grouchy sometimes, and I find Gronborg's beard highly compelling, but ultimately this is where I am as well. I also think it's important to note, as I posted in the other coaching thread, that Gronborg has coached the Swedish national team and a team in the Swiss league, but he has not coached in a high-level "everyday" league. I wonder if Gronborg would come on board as an assistant as others have suggested?

@MODO Hockey -- it looks like Gronborg's main experience is coaching the Swedish national team, plus coaching a team in the Swiss league for the past couple of years -- is that right? Unless I'm missing something, that means he hasn't been a HC in an "everyday" pro hockey league other than a couple of years in the Swiss league, which isn't a high-level league. That seems like a very big leap to the NHL.

If they end up hiring Gronberg, and he's good, @MODO Hockey is going to be entitled to one of Sabrespace's all-time biggest I-told-you-sos.

I thought he was decent vs Indy and mediocre vs Baltimore and KC. To beat KC, he needs to be MVP-contender-level JA. For that matter they could easily have lost to Baltimore without Taron Johnson saveing their bacon. I think they're going to need to score at least 34ish points to beat KC regardless of how well Edmunds plays, and to do that, it's mission-critical for JA to be much better than he was. Now, if Edmunds is great AND the rest of the D raises its game substantially -- like to where TB's D was in the Super Bowl? Then JA is less critical. But that seems pretty unlikely.