nfreeman

BTW: is anyone else having a weird glitch with this thread? Every time I click on the star to the left of the thread title (i.e. the "new post" indicator), I get a "cannot open this page" screen. It only happens for this thread, and I'm able to click on the last page of the thread and scroll down, but it's pretty weird.

dudacek -- I am worried about you my friend. I sense despair in your posts. I think they are finally doing it the right way. This season will have plenty of stinkers, but they have the right people in charge, committed, deep-pocketed ownership, excellent facilities and a great fan base that is dying for a team to justify its love. Don't take the losses this season too hard, and don't give up. (... he said bravely.)

Beaulieu out tonight per SabresBuzz. Not stated whether healthy scratch or injury.

Of course, but I think he would’ve been fired if the payroll had been $20MM lower too. It was the train wreck, not the price tag IMHO.

This is simply wrong as a factual matter. It's not troubling that many fans think this (although at long last, and well after the horse has left the barn, I think most here have realized that tanking is a terrible strategy). It's deeply troubling that GMTM thought this, and deeply disappointing that he was able to convince TP. As I've said before -- Pittsburgh and Toronto are the exceptions, not the rule. When Toronto won the lottery, they had a 1-in-5 chance. When Pittsburgh won, they had a 1-in-16 chance. When Chicago won, they had a 1-in-12 chance. If you are OK with being terrible for a decade, AND you can win a lottery, AND it's in a year in which a generational player is the prize, AND you already have other very-good-to-great players, AND (in Toronto's case) the best coach in a generation -- yes, it can work. But that is not a plan. It's a prayer. Here are the #1 overall picks since 2000: 2000-New York Islanders-Rick DiPietro 2001-Atlanta Thrashers-Ilya Kovalchuk 2002-Columbus Blue Jackets-Rick Nash 2003-Pittsburgh Penguins-Marc-Andre Fleury 2004-Washington Capitals-Alexander Ovechkin ^ 2005-Pittsburgh Penguins-Sidney Crosby 2006-St. Louis Blues-Erik Johnson 2007-Chicago Blackhawks-Patrick Kane 2008-Tampa Bay Lightning-Steven Stamkos 2009-New York Islanders-John Tavares 2010-Edmonton Oilers-Taylor Hall 2011-Edmonton Oilers-Ryan Nugent-Hopkins 2012-Edmonton Oilers-Nail Yakupov 2013-Colorado Avalanche-Nathan MacKinnon ^ 2014-Florida Panthers-Aaron Ekblad ^ 2015-Edmonton Oilers-Connor McDavid 2016-Toronto Maple Leafs-Auston Matthews 2017-New Jersey Devils-Nico Hischier Notice anything about these guys, and the teams that drafted them? Most of them didn't lift their teams to a Cup, or even bring them out of sustained suckitude. I agree with most of this, but not the bolded. I think GMTM was fired for presiding over a train wreck.

I'm not sure, but I thought Risto was reunited with Scandella shortly after that 1st shift in the 2nd period -- that's why I thought it was a message to Risto.

I don't think Tennyson was at fault on the shortie. He was playing the pass across, which he was supposed to do, not the rebound. I think the next man to hustle back is supposed to get there for the rebound. Here's something else about Tennyson: he started the 2nd period, with Scandella. It had to have been a message from Howie to Risto. I thought to myself at that moment: "Ladies and gentlemen: your new #1 defenseman, Matt Tennyson!"

OK, so while everyone wants to burn this thing to the ground right now, I think patience and a deliberate approach is called for. Playoffs aren’t happening this year. We as fans need to accept that and understand that the team needs to use this season to figure out who is going to be part of the solution next year and beyond. For those who aren’t, the team needs to maximize the return they get for them. That means no knee-jerk trade of Risto or Reino out of a desperate desire to light a fire under these guys. And no firing Howie or bringing in Lindy or Tippet as an assistant or consultant. Between now and the deadline, Howie and JBott are going to figure out who can be coached up and who can’t, who burns to win and who doesn’t, and who can make a difference. In the meantime, there are going to be plenty of losses.

It doesn't matter that tanking gives you "the best chance" of winning the lottery. It's still only a 20% chance! It doesn't matter that everyone else has less than 20% -- it only matters that you are 80% likely to lose. The Leafs getting Babcock has everything to do with the Leafs being a good team now, which is why you cited them as an example of a successful tank. Fixed.

Toronto was in the wilderness for 11 freaking years AND they won the lottery AND it was in a year in which a great player was available AND they landed the best coach in the last generation. That is not a #blueprint.

How do you know this? (Hint: you don't.) And where is the big surprise you promised us?

Again: this is why you don't tank. When you bottom out, you usually stay at the bottom. Now we're looking at yet another year in the wilderness. I still think it's fairly likely that as the season progresses there will be real reasons for hope, but there's also a real likelihood that we're looking at another bottom-3 finish. What a freaking debacle.

No she didn't you hoser.

Very good article, and it reinforces what I think most here think: he's not delivered as much as you'd like from someone drafted #2 overall, but he's shown plenty of flashes, with respectable overall production, in a terrible environment, and it would be foolish to give up on him at this point unless there is a major return coming back.

I did hear it, and yes, it was #lazyHammy. However, there was IMHO a disconcerting grain of truth: just because a young defenseman has a nice start to his career, it doesn't mean that he will improve every year and become a bona fide star. Sometimes they just don't have it between the ears, and the physical tools aren't guided by a hockey brain that knows what to do (hello Bogo). I dearly hope this isn't the case with Risto, but we should all appreciate that it's quite possible.

I saw aggressive Risto only in the opener, and mostly zombie Risto since then.

This is pretty optimistic, since they are 1-6 and were publicly lambasted by their coach for poor effort in a loss to an expansion team.

So Gorges and Fedun are both scratched? Why call up Fedun just to sit him out? And whassup with Lehner?

I'm going to predict that Gorges is not the one who gets scratched.

I agree that JBott will be methodical and deliberate and we won't see a GMTM burn-it-to-the-ground approach. But I also think that he isn't going to feel married to guys like Risto or Reino if he thinks he can improve the team by moving them. (However, I think the most likely outcome is that Howie coaxes enough out of each of them, and that there wouldn't be enough value coming back in trade, so that the Sabres keep both of them.)

You make it sound like those 4 are locks to be high-end NHL forwards. It's at least 50/50 that NONE of them ever scores 25 goals in a season, let alone 28 or 30 (both of which Kane has done, and it's pretty likely that he hits that level again this year). It's almost certain that at least 1 of them is a complete washout, and that another 1 is never more than a 3rd-line, 10-goal guy. There are valid reasons not to re-sign Kane, as there are valid reasons to re-sign him -- but those 4 guys have nothing to do with it.

No one is trading for Moulson unless the sweetener is pretty GD sweet -- i.e. at least a 2nd-rounder (or unless the Sabres take back a bad contract in return -- but that defeats the purpose).

I'd like to see Ducks game Bailey, who I thought was pretty effective, and not Vegas game Bailey, who I thought was mostly invisible. But if Ducks game Bailey is back, I'm definitely interested to see him on a line with ROR and KO.

Outstanding.

We don't know yet, but will know by the end of this season for everyone except Casey.