thewookie1

Would I have made the trade, sure However Monahan may have been unwilling to come to Buffalo to begin with. Additionally I’m unsure where we’d line him up. At his best he was a 1/2C but hasn’t been at that level in a few years. He’d potentially be better than all but Thompson at center but he could also be worse than all of them. He’s looking to save his career and that would require biggish minutes on a 2nd or 3rd line that we really can’t provide without stripping a youngster of the same opportunity. Immediately trading him would of been a potential answer but with his value being so negative; would even 50% garner anything? Technically we could of bought him out at some point as well but that isn’t a great look to be honest.

Well I’m not all that shocked; compared to how 20-21 went, anything somewhat interesting would of been better. I have more hope than confidence, I think the team is going in the right direction finally and Adams definitely seems to be at least a good manager of people which is certainly a huge upgrade from the prior two GMs.

My guess is they'll give him a few games and see if he can fit in; otherwise they have a European team for him to play for and continue to slow-cook

Supposedly CGY is sending their 1st with Monahan to MTL which honestly ticks me off a bit; granted Monahan has a 10 team no trade and it would be very easy to cause trade issues with that.

Czechia knocks off the US.... but at least Kulich had a great night with 1 EN goal and 2 assists.

I think he’ll continue to play like he did last year as long as he’s healthy. His production may drop as some of his PP time is reduced however. I’d offer him the captaincy and a one year extension. We are not in a desperate need of lesser assets to need the flexibility to trade Okposo or Girgs. (I highly doubt we’d even get a 2nd much less a 1st barring a production explosion) If I’m choosing between a 3rd, 4th and 5th in the latter part of each round or keeping the team whole; I’m keeping us whole.

Even if Adams was interested in Copp he went home on a lucrative contract. I’m unsure if any contract would of interested Copp barring absurdity/

I guess a better question would be how many certifiably #1s are even in the league at this point?

Rosen was out there the last 25 seconds and had a chance but the puck was shuttled into his far skate

Really shows we certainly weren’t resting on our laurels with our picks. We tried moving up from 16 to 7 and 6 separate times from 28 to somewhere between 17 and 25. We got lucky and you could see their excitement that Kulich somehow fell to them at 28. My best guess is Ostland got the edge at 16 for being a natural center man.

Craig who? Rivet, Anderson, Ramsay, Slist?

He’s significantly better than Eakin from an analytics standpoint and played well for us 2 years ago.

Jankowski and Lazar have already signed and to me Eakin is a non-starter in a vet 4C

I think he gives us a solid boost in comparison to last year. I don’t think he’ll be a 1A but a solid 1B.

I took choice two however my honest guess would be far more convoluted. I see UPL starting in Rochester, playing ok for the first two months or so then getting a call up due to an Anderson minor injury. He looks solid in Buffalo for a couple weeks but gets hurt himself, as always, and ends up back in Rochester for much of January and February dealing with his typical highs and lows. In March KA brings him up again with Anderson needing “IR” time and again shows to be a solid goalie in Buffalo but gets hurt yet again and finishes the year in Rochester. Comrie has a good to very good year and brings the much needed moderate goaltending level we require. Anderson does fine, nothing special, but sits on “IR” during UPL’s stints. He’s old and easily could classify as IR due to his age related cramps. UPL leaves us and KA wanting more but unsure of actually what to do with him. He’s average in the AHL, plays better in the NHL but can’t play more than a handful of games before getting hurt. Devon Levi has a solid NHL start in April and is slated to be our AHL starter for 23-24. Sabres enter 23-24 with Comrie and UPL while the Amerks have Levi and either Portillo or AHL/NHL tweener like Subban or even Houser. If Portillo signs, we actually skip Levi and Portillo for our ECHL starter for a call up in case of UPL’s injury for bench roles while Levi/Portillo would fill the actual Backup starts. To sum it up, my guess is UPL is what he is; a solid NHL talent goalie that rarely can stay healthy and thus never accomplishes taking the starting role for any reasonable time. Eventually Levi and/or Portillo push him out of Buffalo where he bounces around for a few years with much of the same results before going back to Sweden. In later interviews he looks back at Buffalo fondly but feels he left so much on the plate and can’t blame the team for moving on. In his 40’s he partners with a few Swedish doctors to work on new exercises and rehab techniques for goalies which becomes a huge boon for future goalies. His reasoning being that he doesn’t want another goalie to have his career wrecked by leg problems like his was.

We’ll likely sign a vet Center to a PTO so that they if one of the youngsters looks flat in camp we’ll have a guy ready for use

I'm incredibly confused. Are you shocked people disliked the contract Not shocked that some may hate the contract I need clarification!

That ain’t all that pretty; although his puck carrying is rather good

Will always hate the Dodgers since I'm a lifelong Giants fan but it still hurts to lose such a great talent. May he rest in peace.

Skill wise certainly; but other factors like contract and influence need to be accounted for as well. In regards to availability, both suck.

My guess was that offer came prior to the Murray trade idea. Probing who Detroit wanted

Depends on if he has a NMC or NTC

Marchand, McCavoy and at least one other will miss the 1st month of season at minimum.

Also incredibly creepy in how his mind suddenly craved a smoothie he hadn't had in almost a decade and then mentally wanted to fix everything.

Dahlin, Power, Mitts, Jokiharju, Krebs and Bryson for starters all end in 2 years. Cozens and Thompson following this year. At minimum Dahlin will need a raise as will Thompson. Jokiharju, Krebs and Mitts could potentially need money and we need breathing room for Power’s contract. So we have 2 years, not 5 to play with cap. 33 year old Kadri at 8mil is not worth losing a Mid 6 younger player in Mitts or Krebs who need 5mil. Best case scenario both round into solid mid 6 players, even 1 of them reaching that point puts a dire strain on our cap space with Kadri. Then comes Quinn and Peterka in 3 years. A Stastny or Larsson type make sense for 1 or 2 years. A Kadri doesn’t work as he’d either be Taylor Hall 2.0 or overpaid into his late 30s