nfreeman

@JohnC -- welcome, please keep posting and please ignore @Kruppstahl.

Well, saying NY "got things under control" implies that the improvement is due to NY affirmatively taking virus-curbing steps (or reversing previous idiotic steps), as opposed to the virus' effects naturally petering out over time as herd immunity is approached.

The incidence in NY has thankfully decreased, but it's awfully generous to say that NY "got things under control." In any case, my post wasn't a defense of anything -- only a response to the assertion by one of our more excitable and dramatic posters that the US had the worst situation of any developed country.

So they are still counting but their death rates have declined? That is also the case here, and I think pretty much the same all over, which of course is a good thing. In any case, it's a very fluid situation. We'll have to wait and see.

What does this mean? Those countries are no longer keeping track of virus deaths? That seems highly unlikely.

For the record, Belgium, the UK, Spain, Sweden, France and Italy all have higher death rates than the US does, and Ireland and the Netherlands are both pretty close. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

I thought so too, until about a month ago when a number of posters asserted that he was and nobody stepped up to settle it definitively.

I think Zemgus is leaving in FA (and probably Larsson too.) I think TT won’t start the year in Buffalo (although his waiver status is still an open question here), but I think he will push his way into the lineup.

I don’t have any quarrel with the Kane or ROR trades by GMTM. He paid high prices in both trades but got the best player in both too. He overpaid for Lehner, not egregiously, but somewhat, although no one would’ve complained if he’d turned into what GMTM thought he was getting — which means, to be fair, that GMTM whiffed on Lehner. He well overpaid for Hudson Fasching. That might’ve been his worst trade. I’m not a Pysyk fan, but he overpaid for Kulikov too. And the KO and Moulson contracts were both debacles. I’m probably missing a couple of trades but I generally agree that the narrative is somewhat overblown. Still, it’s fair to hold him accountable for turning a bunch of good assets into not much in end results.

I’ve been assuming Larsson would leave unless the Sabres made a much better offer than anyone else, and I still think that is basically how it will happen. However: what if part of their better offer is that Larsson plays a bigger role, like maybe 3C on a line the Sabres expect to get some scoring from — like with Kahun and TT as his linemates? And maybe the Sabres would do that if they were planning on putting Cozens on Eichel’s RW? So maybe: Skinner-Eichel-Cozens VO - new 2C that miracle man KA delivers - Reino MoJo - Larsson - Kahun TT - Asplund - KO every top line shift would be must-see viewing. As @Thorny points out, it all depends on getting a credible 2C

Let’s chill out in here a bit please.

The bolded is where the devil will be in the details.

I wonder what KA is thinking as he peruses this thread/considers his options. "I want the fans to feel more connected to the team, and I know they'd welcome a trade of this pick for a good forward, so I'm going to aggressively pursue such a trade." or "Holy mackerel I don't want to get embarrassed on my first trade as a GM, and I've got at least a couple of seasons since TP doesn't want to fire me anytime soon, so I'm going to play it safe and pick the best forward available at #8." or "I need to make this team better, so I'm open to discussing anything reasonable, and let the chips fall where they may." If they do trade it, I sure hope they bring in an assistant GM before push comes to shove. Plenty of time before then though.

Yes indeedly. However, if (and I don't expect this for a minute) the Sabres decide to break the mold and offer Cirelli a contract, it's pretty likely that their offer (maybe something like $7MM x 7 years) would be a LOT more $$ than what TB can offer him, and that the Sabres and TB would be Cirelli's only 2 options -- since it's likely that no one else would make an offer. So it's not impossible, although again I don't expect the Sabres to make waves in this manner.

It’s kinda hard to answer the question without knowing what’s coming back in trade.

I’d expect that KA has a list of guys he is watching as to whether they become available after June 30.

The idea is intriguing to be sure, and I think they’ll get enough resources as we get closer to when more bodies are needed and available. They just need at long last to execute well.

Good post @Taro T although I’m not sure Team scoring was optimized last year. But it was great seeing Eichel have a monster year and VO score a ton Of exciting goals as a rookie. Either way I sure want to see how team scoring goes with 2-3 new and improved forwards in the top 9.

Awesome. This jibes with my impressions as well. He's got a great nose for scoring opportunities, he's strong on the puck, he's a very good skater and he plays with an edge, but he still needs to be with Eichel or other very good NHL center -- which, along with the petulance, are regrettable when you're paying him that much -- but he will score 40ish goals with the right linemates. And that's more or less worth the contract he got. KA and RK need to make it happen.

Well, I agree that he should be able to kill penalties, and that he needs to play on the PK in order to learn that part of the game, but as a risk management matter I'd want his minutes in that role to be pretty limited. I want to save most of his minutes for ES or PP.

I'm with @mjd1001 on the PK issue -- save the Ferrari for the open road.

Here are the rules and the odds -- it's more complicated than usual because of the participation of the 8 teams who finished in slots 17-24: https://www.clickondetroit.com/sports/2020/06/23/nhl-draft-lottery-2020-is-friday-june-26-red-wings-have-best-odds/ The Sabres have a 6.5% chance (a bit less than 1-in-15 -- so what XGMTM would call a great chance) to win #1. The odds that they could move up to #2 or #3 will depend on who wins #1.

Is it wrong to want to win this lottery? We certainly didn't want to be in it, but now that we're here, it's OK to want to win, right? Or does it just make us more pathetic?

I wonder if KA can order these 2 guys to switch their names around so the new director of scouting is named "Jeremiah Nightengale." That would have to be a top-5 coolest name in any NHL front office.

So character assassination and misogyny don't lend credence to otherwise unsupported theories that are ceaselessly presented as fact?