Drunkard

Botterill lucked out that Skinner had a full NMC and Buffalo was one of the 2 places he was willing to waive it for and Toronto didn't have the cap space to even get involved after signing Tavares and having Nylander, Matthews, and Marner on the horizon. That's not some shrewd poker move, that's picking up a full house on the flop then managing not to piss your pants with excitement so the other guy folds. Yeah, Carolina could have held out and kept Skinner or waited until the trade deadline so I give him credit for offering them just enough to make the deal, but it's not like he had anyone else to compete against. I give him credit for acquiring him and I hope they re-sign him, but one great trade where the deck is stacked against your opponent doesn't give me all that much confidence in the guy. Personally, I liked the Skinner and Scandella trades and I hated the Kane and O'Reilly trades. I like the Sheary one as well, but that one seems to be a wash at this point, so I wouldn't really count it as a big plus in his favor. It was worth a shot though.

Vikings is great. I've been watching since the first season. From my understanding they are planning to end the show after 1 more season, although they are in talks for a spinoff. I hope they base it on either Lagertha or Floki though. If they base the spinoff on one of Ragnar's kids I probably won't stick with it for too long.

Yes, he should blame himself for bad performances even when he plays well. Isn't that what got everyone to start turning on O'Reilly? Then he can just throw a "losing his love for the game" as an added cherry on top and FXGMJB can trade him for a collection of lesser pieces while everyone gets excited over the supposed depth we've added while also fawning over that 1st round pick coming in 2020 or 2021 that won't be able to help the team until 2023 or 2024. By that point we can trust the process to get the team contending sometime around when Dahlin turns 30.

I think the team would definitely be better if we kept O'Reilly and Kane. Kane I'm not so upset about losing thanks to landing Skinner but I wish FXGMJB would get off his kick of trading quarters for a couple nickels and a slug. This horse has been beaten ad nauseam but I would have rather gotten a solid near ready prospect for him then a first round pick and Danny O'Regan. That guy will probably never play more than a dozen games for the Sabres and the pick won't contribute till 2022 or so. That means the return for Kane will yield absolutely zero help to the Sabres until Dahlin's and Mittelstadt's ELCs are both over.

No, you sir, are wrong. Rob Ford was the best mayor ever, or at least the funniest. I say this with absolute certainty, even though I've never been to Canada. Also, I find the fact that you use the term Great Satan in derogatory fashion to be insulting. The dark one should be treated with as much respect as any other deity. Sincerely, Drunkard, Devout Atheist/Satanist/Flying Spaghetti Monster fan

No city that elects Rob Ford as mayor can be all bad.

I hear it's the new Bye Felicia down at the seminary school.

I'm liking Reinhart playing with Mittelstadt. Those two guys have the talent, passing ability, and drive to be a formidable duo in the future. It may even lead to (dare I even say it?) depth scoring.

Technically Nashville didn't do anything but match the offer sheet that Philly gave to Weber. They had no choice but to match it as written or take the 4 1st round pick compensation.

This. Montreal will have very little cap recapture from Weber because by the time they acquired him his actual salary was close to his cap hit. Nashville reaped the lions share of the benefits so they'll get the lions share of the cap recapture if he does retire early. It likely won't matter though. They'll pull some Chicago type nonsense where Weber will claim some medical condition that means he can't play when he'll really just be allergic to playing for only $1 million per season or whatever his contract pays on the back end.

The Sabres have been so bad recently that Ryan O'Reilly is sending them anti-depressants and self help books (rim shot).

Looks like we're going from being a team with 1 good line to a team with zero good lines. Excellent. I'm curious to see how Skinner and Mittelstadt play together but I wish they had someone else with speed playing with them.

Yeah, it must be O'Reilly's fault those teams never won, including this season's Blues team even though he's leading the team in scoring by a fairly wide margin. How many Cups did Gretzky win after he left Edmonton? That guy's career must have turned to *****. He must have been a locker room cancer too.

The same reason Ovechkin never won the Stanley Cup until last season. It takes more than one good player to win, even if that player is a stud.

I agree. If he had kept O'Reilly while still managing to luck into Skinner we would have had 2 legitimate scoring lines with some combination of Skinner, Eichel, O'Reilly, Reinhart, and whoever (personally I would have played Mittelstadt at wing in the top 6 this season while giving the last spot to whichever guy performed the best in training camp/preseason. I think that lineup with the improvement in the defense and goaltending would have us in a much better position than where they are now.

Yeah, Botterill has the vast majority of the fan base firmly in his camp despite some mixed results at best. Not unlike the knucklehead running the other Buffalo sports team and his trust the process nonsense.

The cap hits of Berglund and Sobotka came out to roughly the same cap hit of O'Reilly.

Pick away, buddy. The only part that was hindsight was Berglund going emo/quitter and in the long run that's actually a good thing for the organization since his cap hit comes off the books. O'Reilly was a 1B defensively responsible center and solid face off guy in Colorado before we traded for him and he was the same while he was here (if not even better over his time here). I and several others here called Berglund and Sobotka camp dumps when we found out they were included in the deal while others seemed to consider them valuable depth. I didn't like the trade then and I still don't like it. Berglund being solid on faceoffs doesn't mean all that much when he's slower, less talented, and far less productive. He was closer to Paul Gaustad (overpaid 3rd/4th line center that could win some faceoffs) than he was O'Reilly. Trading him gutted our center depth and it was obvious even at the time.

I'm still firmly in the camp that trading O'Reilly was stupid and I've felt that since I first heard it happened so it isn't hindsight. I love Lord Casey (PBUH) as much as anyone, but it's clear that he wasn't ready the center the second line and he shouldn't have needed to be. So future ex GM Jason Botterill trades our 1B 50-60 point defensively responsible center who is great on faceoffs away for some cap dump forwards who earn close to the same money as O'Reilly (one with the same emo/depressive personality he was supposedly trying to purge from the roster to boot), a 1st round pick (in a year or two), and a prospect who seems to be more smoke than fire in Stupid First Name Thompson. Berglund then quits but at least we recoup the cap space and now our once formidable center depth seems non-existent. So now FXGMJB can continue to limp along with a weak center spine while he waits for Mittelstadt to develop or he can look to the market (FA and/or trade market) to get a new center. That replacement center will likely be a significant downgrade to O'Reilly or he will likely cost more than it would have to keep him. Not looking good and it feels like we are all but assured to piss away the ELC of Dahlin looking to find a replacement for O'Reilly. On the plus side, he did luck into Dahlin and Skinner though. It's just hard to give him too much credit for either of those events because any idiot could have made those decisions.

Same here. I can't stand that team and the constant ball washing they get from almost every talking head on tv. I've been watching less and less NFL over the past few years and I haven't missed it at all. I used to watch every game I could, then I started watching just Bills games and a handful of "premiere" type match ups. Then it was just Bills games and now I even skip some of those. I don't miss it. I used to feel my blood pressure spike when the Cheaters received questionable calls or came back and won after looking like they were going to lose. Now it doesn't bother me nearly as much, even though I still hope for every single member of that organization to die in a fire.

Does this mean you wake up several times during the night crying? You piss and ***** yourself? Both? No judgement, mind you. We've all been there.

I voted that it adds to the forum but posters who use it should be banned anyway with no dedicated threads. Clear as mud, right?

Still not enough. The reasons you want Couturier are the same reasons Philly would want to keep him. The fact that they have center depth is irrelevant. They can always move someone to wing. Couturier is still relatively young (26) and is on a great value contract. Scraps isn't going to get him. There would need to be at least one piece included in the deal that makes you cringe and Guhle is no where good enough to be that piece.

Dahlin? Because it can't be Eichel. That bum can't even will himself healthy. No compete in this guy. On a side note I love how compete is a verb to the rest of the English speaking world, but Buffalo fans have turned it into a noun. Thank you Teds Nolans.