thewookie1

Someone proposed Skinner(3mil retained) to the Isles for JG Pageau Pageau is pretty well shot but his 5 mil deal is a year shorter, avoids the cap hits years 4 through 6 and gives us a 3/4C player who's really good at faceoffs

There are big reasons why I wouldn't buy out Skinner 1. The cap is far more tolerable next year with a buyout 2. I don't want him to sign in Toronto on the cheap and give them a 30 goal scorer for free. You should see all the salivating people on Twitter hoping to give him a Duchene deal to play with the Leafs, Rangers, Vegas, etc. 3. I have zero interest in buying out Skinner so we can turn around and spend it on Necas or like player. I'd much rather trade him at 50% retention to be perfectly honest. I will say this however; if Skinner departs; I'd be all for bringing P. Kane here on a 1x3mil deal with incentives. Defensively he's no better but he does bring legitimate playoff experience and drive.

He looks scary to me for unknown reasons; the hair just unnerves me I think. Feel bad for their fired coach as he got screwed both in and out of season.

While that is true to some extent. (I disagree with the one reporter who claimed he never interviewed anyone) I will certainly say that Ruff was very likely his target for quite some time and he merely interviewed a few guys to make it less of an obvious foregone conclusion. As for how he wants to build his team; I can't imagine him merely telling us what we want to hear since if he's purely speaking out his ass he'd get far more fan backlash by claiming and not doing than by merely not claiming anything at all.

Frankly while he definitely caters his language to the fans; I don't think he's trying to deceive us. He wanted a Top 4 D last year and made mention of that. He went after Chychrun and Pesce who for different reasons didn't succeed. The UFA market wasn't great so he signed a vet in Erik Johnson whom had played Top 4 minutes up until the Avs Cup year and Connor Clifton who was a Bottom pair RHD that could possibly elevate but wasn't an issue in of himself if he couldn't be a Top 4. Later on he traded Mitts for Bo Byram to which wasn't the type of Dman I wanted but was certainly a Top 4 talent Dman.

Alright, there are plenty of other fish in the UFA pool

I think 1 is moved; barring a strange falling of the board

Well, there are certainly priorities that are wrong such as fame or underhanded bribery.

https://www.capfriendly.com/armchair-gm/team/5239647 A simple solution that at least better rounds out the lineup

I hate any idea of shortening the draft as it gives an advantage to a small number of teams who can "bring them in" either via being their local team or top teams in the league. Additionally it would wreck the trade market as picks from Round 5 through 7 have always been filler assets and since fans don't want to see anyone traded for nothing; a 5th is a concrete asset we can look at.

I’ve said similar things as well; I said Benson could become a slightly less speedy and dirty Marchand

That would explain the lack of oomph to his goal calls

Now I certainly agree with you

Got to say I've missed Lindy's candor that is a nice mix of honesty with bits of humor.

Even if the Sabres are interested I doubt Girgs is based on his house sale including furniture since he didn’t want to truck it to likely Pittsburgh

I could see him returning as a non-player but not as a player

Frankly if there's one thing I trust about Adams is that he truly embodies the "manager" part of his title. For all the questionable circumstances we have in the front office; we can trust Adams isn't running the team believing he's some sort of hockey genius

Someone had Iginla fall to 11 for us; he’d be the one possible prospect I’d keep the pick for bar none.

Karmanos is Associate GM meaning he’s still higher up. He’s also the GM for Rochester. Forton is getting a fancier title and likely a small pay raise to reward his hard work

I mean to UFAs who are in their later 20's or early 30's. Lindholm for instance has priced himself out of range for the Sabres. Not a chance in hell Id offer him 1-8. Power and Cozens are investments

I disagree with the idea of not having the foresight in how we'd sign our own players. Not that means we need to leave 8 mil in cap this year to prepare but let's not just hand out giant contracts to middling players.

He's ok, that's about how I'd describe him. Good guy, average play-by-play, pretty good with clever goal nicknames but slow to the punch. He's not good as a radio announcer however; I can't paint any picture in my head like I could with RJ. But for TV he's fine.

The former Effectively how I see it Thompson, Tuch and Cozens are reasonably untouchable Quinn, Peterka, and Benson are only available in specific circumstances Danault 30, Pts last season 47, Hits 80, BLK 60, D Zone starts 52.7%, Face off % 51.9, contract 3x5.5mil ATOI 18:01 51.6 xGF, 38.1 xGA 2.4 Corsi rel, 3.9 FF% rel Flyers Top 5 Faceoff Couturier 31, Pts last season 38, Hits 59, BLK 41, D Zone Starts 43%, Face off % 53.5, contract 6x7.75mil ATOI 17:49 45.9 xGF, 39.4 xGA 10.3 Corsi rel, 8.6 FF% rel (Almost 1300 FOs taken) Laughton 30, Pts last season 39, Hits 155, BLK 56, D Zone starts 53.8%, Face offs 48.9%, contract 2x3mil ATOI 15:39 41.4 xGF, 43.7 xGA -8.2 Corsi rel, -8.2 FF% rel (Just below 1000 FOs taken) Poehling 25, Pts last season 28, Hits 62, BLK 101, D Zone starts 59.7%, Face offs 49.1%, contract 2x1.9mil ATOI 15:00 41.8 xGF, 33.1 xGA -8.9 Corsi rel, -7.0 FF% rel (A little over 950 FOs taken) Frost 25, Pts last season 41, Hits 57, BLK 55, D Zone starts 26.0%, Face offs 49.5%, contract 1x2.1mil RFA at season's end ATOI 15:50 45.1 xGF, 31.5 xGA 9.8 Corsi rel, 9.5 FF% rel (A little over 800 FOs taken) Cates 25, Pts last season 18, Hits 52, BLK 35, D Zone starts 54.8%, Face off % 44.5, contract 1x2.625mil RFA at season's end ATOI 13:48 31.3 xGF, 21.8 xGA -1.1 Corsi rel, 1.6 FF% rel (A little over 300 FOs taken)

I wish you would of added some degree of Corsi/Fenwick% and xGF/xGA Jenner 39.7 xGF, 41.4 xGA 5.2 Corsi rel, 4.9 FF% rel Laughton 41.4 xGF, 43.7 xGA -8.2 Corsi rel, -8.2 FF% rel Kerfoot 41.4 xGF, 44.7 xGA -4.2 Corsi rel, -4.6 FF% rel Roy 34.5 xGF, 31.9 xGA 1.5 Corsi rel, -1.2 FF% rel Gourde 44.9 xGF, 44.1 xGA -2.4 Corsi rel, -2.8 FF% rel Bennett 49.0 xGF, 41.5 xGA 7.6 Corsi rel, 6.5 FF% rel Domi 47.1 xGF, 39.9 xGA 3.1 Corsi rel, 2.3 FF% rel Roslovic (CBJ) 24.1 xGF, 25.9 xGA -2.1 Corsi rel, -1.3 FF% rel DZ Starts 49.9% Roslovic (NYR) 10.3 xGF, 9.3 xGA 5.6 Corsi rel, 4.2 FF% rel DZ Starts 26.7% Controls Girgensons 22.9 xGF, 26.8 xGA -5.0 Corsi rel, -5.7 FF% rel DZ Starts 56.5% Krebs 34.5 xGF, 36.6 xGA 1.0 Corsi rel, 0.6 FF% rel DZ Starts 49.3% Jost 12.4 xGF, 20.8 xGA -9.7 Corsi rel, -10.3 FF% rel DZ Starts 54.1%

Yes, he's presently overpaid and I still fully believe in him. When it comes to Tkachuk as a whole; he's a great player but I just don't trust him to stick around if St. Louis ever comes calling. Regardless of how we are doing. After all, all one needs to do is look at his brother and you get a hint at how Keith handles his boys. Matthew was playing on a good Calgary team and was offered a large contract to re-sign but bailed to go South. Brady, was heavily rumored to have demanded the captaincy as part of his contract negotiations in Ottawa. Similarly, Brendan Lemieux refused to sign here due to his father being his agent and in a similar vain I'd suspect Keith really has immense influence on locations his sons will go. Plus the St. Louis stuff is too persistent to be pure speculation. Keith himself re-signed there 3 times after being traded at deadlines. Brady has only next year left before he gets a NMC and then 3 more before hitting the UFA market. There isn't a chance in hell that if he requests a trade in 2 years that he won't require a very small number of teams or just walk at his UFA year. Power is from the Ontario region so Buffalo isn't out of the way, he's happy and locked up for 7 years. Power at minimum should be a highly effective puck moving defenseman who excels in transition and offensive playmaking. His contract could always end up somewhat high but he could just as easily surpass it in time as defenseman take time and experience to learn how to play NHL defense.