thewookie1

Well then I doubt we are scouting them regarding trading Mitts. Trading him for futures would likely cause chants for heads not just firings. Still don’t really have any interest in trading Mitts but in Colorado’s case I’d value Girard >>>> Byram

I have literally negative interest in Byram. Girard is at least somewhat interesting. Would rather try to get Manson cheaply in the off-season however

Not quite 2 scoring lines 1 multi-purpose line (defensively sound and still competent offensively) 1 Character Line (Vets, energy, checking, etc)

Sabres win 6-2, Skinner with a hattrick and 4 pts because he likes abusing MTL and us fans

https://www.capfriendly.com/armchair-gm/team/4907215 How's this, I know the defense hasn't been upgraded however

This exactly As the year goes on I feel like this wasn't even his original plan and due to that he's sort of dragged his feet on things due to a lack of conviction. Picture last year prior to the draft, the Sabres are making a push to deal their 1st or prospect to Carolina for Brett Pesce whom they already have extension plans cooking behind the scenes. The strategy being, get Pesce to sign an extension under 7.5mil, then you can use that to keep Dahlin at 10 mil which were the rumors floating around and you could bridge Power without issue. Then Pesce nullifies the deal so you move on to your 2nd favorite idea in Noah Hanifin. However CGY wants more than Carolina and Hanifin is giving CGY trouble over an extension. The talks seem to indicate Hanifin wants 8x8mil+ and that immediately creates a further wrench in any potential deal seeing as he'd be another LHD making 8mil+ and eventually Power would join them. With no other options abundantly open which interest the team, you go with plan B. Sign Clifton who's your favorite B/C level signing to fill in while not making it impossible to still get a Pesce or Hanifin later. However you now must overpay him a bit due to need and add more to Erik Johnson's offer because his purpose now has far more importance as a vet on the blueline. Then comes Dahlin; whose agent now plays the Sole Top 2 Dman card to force you to up the 10mil to 11mil. Likewise Power, who could of been bridged with the security of another Top 2 guy, is now demanding 7x8mil or something even worse like a 5 year contract. So now although you did create solid defensive depth through Stillman, Clague, E Johnson, R. Johnson, and Bryson; you never got that Top 4 piece you set out to get. So you leave space open and wait for something to shake and yet nothing does. A story about the offense: Offensively you believe you are mostly set, Greenway when healthy looked very good and some more experience should do wonders for the kid's line and even with a slight regression the Skinner-Thompson-Tuch line should still be great and Mitts gives you a backup Top 2 C for if Cozens or Thompson go down. Okposo is well respected and you want him to get 1000 games so you resign him for another year to help push the team forward. Girgensons has been a good soldier and has put up ok numbers so his return isn't problematic either. Krebs plays well with those two on the 4th line anyway. No one has offered you anything of note for Olofsson so why not hold onto him for depth and hopefully jettison him in season. However that 3rd line Winger position is being saved for one of the youngsters; Kulich or Rosen more than likely or maybe even Savoie! If so, maybe I'll cut my losses with Olofsson and just grab some vet off waivers to fill in when needed or better yet, bring back Jost from last season. He played well in his stint and is a good character; he can play if need be. ...... *****, Quinn is injured until January.... if I sign someone it may help us in the immediate term but then I'm forced to kick Olofsson out for nothing and he's a multi-time 20 goal scorer so that just seems stupid. So lets just let it roll, hopefully Olofsson bounces back and/or the youngsters light it up..... Our 18 year old rookie Zach Benson just out competed everyone vying for the winger job so we'll give him a shot, plus Savoie is hurt so we'll hang onto both of them since their Juniors team is a literal mess right now. ..... Olofsson still sucks, Tuch is banged up, Thompson is having his usual slow start and Cozens just punched a bear and had his face broken, patience Kevyn.... *****! Thompson just broke his freaking hand or wrist or something, at least Tuch is back and Cozens is playing in a bubble.... Maybe Patrick Kane could fix our disastrously bad Powerplay, oh look, Cozens is out of the bubble helmet and can actually stick handle again.... Woohoo Thompson is back and there goes Tuch and Skinner and Thompson looks like he's playing with a grenade.... Anyone want to score this year not name JJ Peterka or Casey Mittelstadt? Dahlin you don't count because your a defenseman but Owen where are you hiding your shot?..... So playoffs might not be in the cards this year... but have you seen UPL?

If they’ll do it for Skinner, sure. I’ll eat that lost point production for even LTIR space that can play within a system. Otherwise I’d be very selective about the ask and retention. You want a 3rd for Couture at 4milx3? Sure, worst he can be is LTIR bait that can bring good vibes to the locker room. At best he can be an experienced leader playing 3rd line minutes and coming through in the clutch.

I don’t think he’s entirely wrong; however there is a degree of square pieces into round holes, massive downturns in most players and our record being worse. Hopefully this year was just a down year with a lot of bad luck and with some good roster moves we’ll shoot right back up the standings. Honestly while the Powerplay isn’t THE reason we are worse this year, it is also very true our record would be far better if our powerplay was even middle of the pack. It’s one of those oddly specific changes you can tweak and see massive gains or losses while not actually being the root cause. Imagine, if you will that we had the 15th ranked powerplay. Arizona holds that position at just over 21%. With our PP chances we’d have just about 33/34 goals which would give us 10/11 more goals for. For starters that would make us a positive goal differential team. (+1/2) But far more importantly I would very easily assume our record would be better. We are 24-27-4. With those extra goals let’s minus 5 losses and say it’s 1-0-4. Nothing drastic in success but brings us up to 25-23-8 for 58pts which would put us in the tail position but still a legitimate shot at the playoffs.

Here's what I do, 1. You fire Granato and the entire coaching staff the day after the season ends 2. You make the players watch the playoffs as a group, KA can organize it. 3. You make a push to get RBA and if that doesn't work hire Gallant, Beudreau, or Berube 4. Have the coach come in and have a team meeting; tell them they need to hop on the bus to win or exit stage left. (We know these guys like it here, now we just need to weed out the ones who don't care enough about winning) 5. Give them their marching orders(suggestions) for the summer and take care of the disinterested 6. Make some moves and then go to Prague with a rabid hyena in your pants and win.

Feels like time in a flat circle We have chances in the 3rd only for their goalie to make a miraculous save on Thompson among a couple others. Dahlin and Jokiharju go on a mission on the PK but no one else drives the net with Dahlin so its 1 v 3 & Goalie and yet he still gets two shots on. Just plain depressing how nothing ever just comes together. Anytime we have nice things they break due to injury. Otherwise our only choices are to suffer or suffer.

If anything my guess is he lost some core strength training due to lower body injury he had last season near the end. Since he hasn't looked quite as confident with his balance or skating. Add to that a wrist injury making stick handling slightly more difficult which will unconsciously get you to slow down. Between those issues and his confidence we see a far less effective Thompson. UPL having a rough game; as long as he bounces back next game we have nothing to worry about in his case.

Cozens works better when he plays with a winger's mindset. Straightforward, North-South drive to the net with speed. When he plays center he has a tendency of trying to over do it unless Quinn is there. Quinn seems to take the role of playmaker and thus Cozens plays far better because he adopts a more North-South style to fill in the cracks of Quinn and Peterka's East-West games

Frankly I firmly believe he is. He's likely the last guy to argue about the fan's anger. He even admitted about ticket prices being an issue earlier in the year. I grow weary of this absurd conspiracy

I don't think its necessarily unwillingness as much as he's better moving around than standing still. Yeah he sort of stole it at the last second; puck was slowly making its way into the net and Cozens shoved it in with serious force. It likely makes it regardless but after that other wide open net blunder im guessing he wasn't putting it up to any chance.

Well its been worse than even that; he's been a net negative for a couple weeks now. He even ran smack dab into Thompson's leg and hobbled him in the 3rd

Weird stats: All 3 OT wins we have are 3-2 games

Greenway with the dirty goal on the Thompson shot Jokiharju with the OT winner!?! Line 1 can be summed up as this: Tuch skating hard making some stuff happen Thompson trying hard and seemingly having no luck with his typical stickhandles or shots Skinner, may as well skate in a circle because he's got into Thompson and Tuch's way at least 2 or 3 times since the All Star Break lol

More like snakebit

Everyone on the team needs some skating and passing drills.

They need to put a 15 second rule on offsides challenges. If the goal happens after 15 the goal should count

Tage is bad due to a wrist injury which drops his shot speed by about 10mph on average and makes it difficult for him to put torque on his stick handling far from his body. The PP is bad because the system relies on Thompson almost entirely and Dahlin literally being the only guy trying to move around most nights.

It's meant to be an offseason trade 🙂 It really only works if LA continues their death spiral.

That is true, this is what I came up with. After next year we'd be forced to trade or buyout Skinner with cap hits of 4,6,2,2 but with at least one of Peterka/Quinn getting a bridge; the money would be available. It would just be a tad tight. I'm not all that worried about Tuch, he's making 4.75mil now and in 2 years he'll likely be about 6 mil which isn't a huge jump. https://www.capfriendly.com/armchair-gm/team/4893758

The one thing I do like about Doughty over Andersson is the grit and fire he has to win. That’s a guy who could kick his teammates’ ***** and have the talent and experience to back it up. And is that not what this team needs? Plus honestly he plays a lot like Dahlin, offensive instincts with a borderline dirty hitting streak. He’s from London, Ontario so perhaps if the Kings free fall the rest of the year he might be open to it. And maybe we grab his buddy Quick to backup for a year. Essentially bring me some proven winners that will play with fire and passion

You must be real fun at parties.