TheAud

Love this trade. Scandella slots in nicely as a solid 4/5 guy (like, a real one, not Justin Falk, let alone Josh Gorges) and Pommer is still an upgrade over Foligno or Ennis. Foligno's (and Carrier's, for that matter) physicality is going to be missed at some point if not replaced by guys like Bailey and Fasching.

I am guessing it's the cut of his jib.

At the right price, absolutely. Unless Reinhart moves to 3rd line Center, we have no one like Gagner to take that spot today. Could be the bridge for a 2 year deal until Mittedlstadt is ready.

Agree on not overpaying for Bonino...but Larsson cannot do what Bonino does. The fallacy that the Larsson -Foligno-Gionta line was some sort of fantastic 3rd line seems to carry on forever. Gionta was probably an OK 3rd line guy last year but Larsson and Foligno are 4th liners on a good playoff team. Career stats: Bonino 407 NHL games at 0.46 ppg. He has been in 74 playoff games, scoring at a 0.53 ppg clip. Was a 0.97 ppg guy in the AHL. Larsson 178 NHL games at 0.27 ppg. He was at 0.74 ppg in the AHL. Larsson at the right price on the 4th line vs. Bonino at the right price on the 3rd line are two different entities. 3rd line has to score. I think with this weak FA crop just about nobody will be available at "the right price" as it will be overbid due to lack of quality.

I certainly don't hate the guy. Seems like a real stand-up teammate and gritty competitor. I mean, I can see your point. It's his complete lack of offensive skills and slower than molasses skating that makes me wish he was no longer a Sabre. In fact, given his playing time relative to skill level, I'd argue he's one of the most overrated players on the team as he shouldn't be lacing them up in the NHL at all anymore. But that contract...he's probably going to be hanging around another season. Keeping him as a 'character guy', if Housley is willing to put him in the pressbox half of the games and play him in for less than 12 minutes/game the other half, I can live with him on the roster. But that's about it.

Got it...thank you. Hence one point for each line, including the blue line which I assumed is historical average or something like that, will reach 100% and the rest of the points will be some % of that. Factoring in age, usage, linemates, coaching, etc I am not too worried about ROR rebounding...Okposo maybe a little worried.

Lehner...kept the team in many, many games where they were outshot, and was the reason they lost in very few. (I'm ignoring shootouts).

If you don't mind, it would be great if you could explain a bit more what the Y-axis is on these charts. I.e. a % of what? for 5-on-5 points per 60 (normalized to what?)

Potential he hasn't yet unleashed in his 8 full seasons in the NHL? I sure hope he can fit in as a number 4 who occasionally makes some plays, reduces the number of times he coughs it up in his own end as has been his tendency, and stays healthy enough to play at least 65 games. That would be a win for Bogo.

Good system. If Antipin ends up at tier 3, I'll be ecstatic. Prospect Tier seems more appropriate at this point as he's never played in the NHL. Then Beaulieu (which seems like an impossible number of vowels) moves to Tier 4 so you can elminate Tier 3. I might move Falk and Fedun to Tier 4, or Moulson and Ennis down to Tier 5. Then I'd create a Tier 6 for Gorges and Deslauriers who deserve their own level of suckiness.

https://www.fanragsports.com/news/avalanche-fail-extend-qualifying-offer-mikhail-grigorenko/ This has probably been posted elsewhere, and not sure if this thread is exclusively Sabres qualifying offers, but I found it interesting that Grigorenko is now an UFA. If you can't cut it in Colorado these days...KHL has gotta be next I would think.

If you listen to podcasts, check out this week's "The Way I Heard it" by Mike Rowe...episode 61 "When the World's on Fire". Of course I've given it away that it's about Woody Guthrie, but I think you'd still enjoy it.

Would have preferred Ron Sexsmith:

I was thinking the same thing. Fleury and JF Berube so far, but no Mrazek or Raanta. Malcolm Subban from Boston still a potential, but I have seen reports of Colin Miller there. The big one still out there is Grubauer from Washington.

I like this a lot...your serendipitous vacation was undoubtedly the outcome of years of top notch parenting. Bravo.

Yeah, it's as great as you probably imagine. If you can swing it, I highly recommend traveling in Japan at least once for the experience. I lived there for 7 years and still miss it. I get there occasionally for work and my Taiwanese wife loves Japan too so will probably be back for vacation at some point in the future...

Please let one be Bogo #Bogogo

I feel like after 9 full seasons in the NHL we've seen Peak Bogogo already... and he looked sort of slow to me by end of last season. But he's fine on the 3rd pairing if I don't think about his cap hit and what else they could potentially do with it. Actually I am not really losing sleep over losing Carrier either.

You would be sad to see Bogo go? ("Bogogo" needs to be said out loud btw)

I like 5 of 9 of those outcomes

I thought the analysis in the article was interesting and relevant to the discussion. Even if you're correct about the "long term goal" it doesn't mean a 2nd team in the greater Toronto area won't happen some day. It might anyway, whether through expansion or relocation.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-cant-canada-win-the-stanley-cup/ Start about mid-way down the article. According to this analysis back in 2013, there are almost 10X more avid hockey fans in Toronto than in Buffalo. Heck, it says there are 2x as many as New York City, which has three teams already. Even if the conclusions of their analysis are off by a factor of 2 or 3, it still appears a second Toronto team would be highly viable.

PDO's vary over time and there is an element of randomness to them for any given player. When I see a bizarre looking +/- that is being used to make the point that a player is either good or bad (supported by the +/-) if I look at PDO I often see that they had a particularly lucky or unlucky year which at least partially explains why the +/- is misleading.

Not that I expect the BN to be in the know...but they posted within the past hour that Scott Arniel is still in the running: http://buffalonews.com/2017/06/15/scott-arniel-remains-contention-sabres-job-source-says/

Who's his Lucy? I nominate Ennis.