thewookie1

Doubt it, they’d be more likely to just eat his contract at that point. No reasonable person would dump their best player for garbage

I’d want a MTL 1st. I don’t really have much interest in another lefty dman or a bot 6 player like Poehling

As much as it pains me to lose another home game like this; I do think it’s pretty cool to be the 1st American team to play in the Heritage Classic. Guess it really does put more kindling on the Sabres being the 8th Canadian team lol

Partially this, partially he refused to pay a guy 7.5mil just for him to be traded. The Pegulas have slowly become more stingy with money for sure but that may be in part due to the massive spending they did prior not accomplishing much of anything.

Team’s fault entirely for hiring him Eichel shares some blame for delaying his firing if he was giving ultimatums.

Quick question, does Hamilton have any previous beef with Eichel? I know Hamilton and Reinhart had a feud of sorts but Hamilton never seemed to make hit pieces or comments on Eichel. As such while I’d take this with a grain of sand I could certainly see his report being at least somewhat accurate.

That’s what opposing GMs want; for us to just get it over with. We must stand firm and get a solid to better return for Eichel and that is all there is to it.

I’d assume there’s a far better chance of the former than the latter. Just look at the other major trades he’s worked on. Players tend to get full value or even more when under Brisson since it reflects well on his client

Dear God.... the Pegulas are getting in on the whole sell your Sabres-Toronto games to help pay for your season tickets. Only in this case they will be looking to fill a large portion of their sales shortfalls with 1 game. Additionally this might end up being the only game Canadian Sabres fans could even go to. Likewise I don't see this as them testing the Hamilton market as this is an outdoor game, not one in which they are just using Hamilton's stadium. As long as this isn't a recurring situation I see nothing wrong with it. Although I do get weary of all these "home games" where the NHL throws Buffalo under the bus by using us to allow more stringent stadiums to get a way with exclusivity deals.

More than likely Fish felt he could bully KA into trading Eichel; possibly Fish was angling the whole Eichel to Rangers idea seeing as Fish has a solid connection with Drury and other former Rangers. Instead, Adams stood his ground and eventually Eichel became fed up with the whole situation and changed agents to a guy with a far wider list of contacts and far more experience with facilitating trades and creating lasting relationships with GMs, teams, etc. Id guess in the next couple weeks we will see Eichel get his surgery or get traded with a solid to above solid trade worked out. Brissom will play ball with Adams and help him secure his desired return perhaps in return to help resolve Eichel’s medical situation. Just wanted to add an agent’s job is to do his best for his client but an agent also has to manage his relationships around the league to facilitate improving his client’s outcome. Fish tried bullying a GM and effectively using scorched earth tactics to attempt and get Eichel trades but all it did was embolden Adams to dig his heels in. After this saga I highly doubt Buffalo will do much work with Fish and associates and I could even guess there will be a few other GMs leery of him after this fiasco.

Of course; personally I would be using this cap space to create a top line of older savvy vets on shorter end deals/cap casualties in order to give some insulation for all our youngins. Get me Henrique in an Eichel trade with Zegras 🙂 and see if you can get the Flyers to give you JVR as a cap casualty. (Based on Giroux’s UFA status next year and Couturier’s extension, JVR is likely a goner next year at the latest.) Id want JVR for two reasons, he plays a similar style to Reinhart in regards to net front play, savvy still effective player who is well respected, and we may even get bribed to take him off their hands. Henrique is certainly is no longer a 1 or even 2C more than likely but is seen as a great guy, Captained the Canadian WC team and would potentially garner us a better return with Eichel. Likewise I would pester the Dallas Stars about Khodobin seeing as even if Bishop is LTIRed, they’d still have too many goalies.

It would depend on how the Eichel trade shakes out. Additionally Dahlin and Power would be untouchables at this time so our best LHD prospect would be Johnson

You do know that you don't have to spend 81.5 mil to be good right? Throwing money at things doesn't equate to a better team.

My guess is they want Eichel as is to fetch 4 1sts in value. Want 2mil retained, well that's even more. Effectively they are not willing to add to Eichel's value via retention in order to receive what they feel is Eichel's value. You don't give someone $1.10 to get a $1.00

I can live with that litmus test as to what level of intentional tanking this may be. If we make a trade at the deadline while outside the playoff picture however that doesn’t really count. For instance if we are 15 pts out of the playoffs and Butcher has 35 pts already; trading him for a 1st+ shouldn’t be seen as tanking. That would just be solid asset management.

Eichel for Monahan, Dube, Zary and a 22 1st Yay or Nay? If yay then we’d have Monahan to trade for a 1st + a prospect.

Banking on an Ullmark injury or something?

There’s a serious difference between being “comfortable with losing” and being realistic. If Ullmark was asking for 6x6mil then I’m glad we let him go. As for the lack of a replacement I partially blame the market at the time Ullmark made his decision. By the time he made his decision there was only scraps left to grab from. And while I would of personally been hunting down a backup plan from the start; how do we know they also didn’t fall through? For all we know most solid goalies wanted terms we were unwilling to give or a better team swooped in and grabbed them.

I see him as a future candidate for sure but I sure wouldn’t give him it this year.

I concur; Vet you had me listening until then to which you put a stick in your wheel’s spokes and flipped your bike. There is plenty to disagree with KA overall but he has been anything but rash or overly reactionary. There has to be a legitimate reason why the Sabres won’t ok the surgery that even we aren’t entirely privy too seeing as the NHLPA hasn’t made a peep about it. One example would be if it’s insurance related and that really wouldn’t be Eichel or the Sabres fault. The NHLPA can’t demand or attempt to force the surgery if the team can’t get insurance to cover the liability. 50 million is no chump change and seeing as the Sabres doctors disagree with the operation then you end up in at a stalemate. I don’t care if the Pegulas are rich, would you want to be left on the hook for 50 mil over 5 years because you had to inherit all the risk of a surgery your own doctors disapproved of. I honestly feel insurance is the likely culprit; it hypothetically could create this type of impasse where even if Adams was more open to the operation nowadays that he’s tied up over insurance.

The one thing that lends credit to Adams being sort of stuck after Ullmark would be what Colorado had to pay for 1 year of Kuemper. No one in their right mind would trade that much to backstop a rebuilding team.

It's not the first 3 years that are the problem, it's the latter 2. Even if Boldy and Rossi were in the deal their ELCs would expire prior to the retention which could potentially harm us. Not to mention that's 12.5 mil to not play here and I doubt the Pegulas would be on board with that for better or worse.

I can certainly understand not wanting to retain 2.5 mil for 5 years. It quite literally puts the team in a 2nd/3rd liner contract for no one. I wouldn’t trade Eichel for Lafreniere straight up regardless of my feelings about the Rangers. He’s a mediocre NHLer who slates to be a winger and not a center. He’s never impressed me

Both Buffalo and Toronto would demand massive amounts of annual money in compensation so I don't see it.

What do you mean?