dudacek

It is a tough scenario for Adams, but he is the one who has decided to hit the reset button, decided to hire Granato and will make the decisions on who we acquire. I mostly agree with your post Im not going to give him a pass or fail based entirely on his record, but I will need to see improvement that includes wins. This is a last place team that was awful last year. Improvement shouldn’t be hard.

The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler has released a mock where he projects who he thinks teams will take, as opposed to who they should take. I think how different it is from his own personal rankings points to the volatility of this draft. This is his personal top 10 Power (1) Johnson (9) Clarke (8) Beniers (2) Eklund (6) Guenther (3) Hughes (4) Lucius (10) Sillinger (12) McTavish (7) This is his mock Power (1) Beniers (4) Guenther (6) Hughes (7) Edvinsson (11) Eklund (5) McTavish (10) Clarke (3) Johnson (2) Lucius (8)

This is what I was trying to say.

The New York Rangers, as a rival, are irrelevant to me. Must be a western New York thing. If the Rangers make the best offer, I make the trade. They could make a winning bid, but if Drury only offers what their fans would offer, they aren’t getting Eichel.

I don’t get that sense with Sam. I think he’s the one who wants the fresh start. With Jack, however, I absolutely agree.

Me too. If he succeeds with this roster next year, I will give him a ton of credit. If he fails, I will give him very little blame. Adams is the one I’ll be be putting under the microscope.

The Sabres will have the ability to appeal to Sam’s pocketbook by offering him a better contract than he will likely get elsewhere. They will have the ability to offer him a better role than he will get on any other team: 1C and likely team captain. They will have the ability to give him a coach he knows he connects with and is valued by. And they have a month to demonstrate they finally get it. Its not a foregone conclusion. I still think he’s gone.

I’ve never heard of Ohtani until these posts.

“I’m sure he’ll enjoy his time in Columbus and be a good player for them.”

I sometimes think the genial health care professional thing is a facade and @Brawndo is actually an AI.

Yes, or Columbus could kick back a Tampa’s 1st to Philly as well. I think Philly needs a sweetener.

Columbus: Eichel Philadelphia: Seth Jones Buffalo: 5 OA, 13 OA, Konecny, Merzlikins, Patrick

Nugent-Hopkins deal is very notable. First long-term UFA contract post-pandemic, other than Pietrangelo, who is on another tier. $5 million AAV is significantly lower than one would expect. Very much a Reinhart comparable.

I think this is likely a very strong element at play. I also wonder about the July 1 element. It has long been rumoured that Adams is bringing more people into the hockey department. I’m wondering if they are planning to stack up multiple hirings in a single announcement, but need to wait until contracts expire before making things official. There is very much a business/marketing element to this whole next month - giving the fans and sponsors a reason to invest and to be invested. Of course this is premised on the coaching decision being already made. Unless they have extraordinary interest in one of assistants still in play, there is no reason for it not to be.

It occurred to me when reading over some draft rankings, what a leap of faith the top end of the draft will be. Virtually every prospect will be ranked on an extraordinarily small sample size, filtered through distant memories of impressions left from a season that wrapped 18 months before, with no testing and limited knowledge of physical growth and trends. Whose to say the guys ranked 8th or 9th wouldn’t have established themselves as top three candidates in a normal year? That Chaz Lucius would have put up Cole Caufield goal numbers and been this year’s Alexander Holtz, or that Artu Raty’s struggles continued and plunged him all the way into the 2nd round? I’m not going to be shocked if somebody says (for example) Kent Johnson is the most talented player in the draft and plucks him top 3 or that nobody believes his talent overcomes his style and he falls like Josh Ho-Sang. Its that kind of year.

Don’t let the shortened season fool you: Accounting for that Sam’s past three years are 65, 59 and 60, if I remember the math right. ROR’s at the same age were very similar. It took him 10 years to break 64 points. Like Sam, ROR was also frequently used on the wing prior to being traded from the Avs.

Overall

Sam will probably be moved for roughly the value of 10 OA and 50 OA. Jack for 3 OA, 15 OA and 50 OA. Id say about double for Jack is ballpark.

So what you’re saying is if we offer him a UFA-type contract, we will almost certainly stay.

The report didnt indicate to you that the opposite of the bold is the case?

Minus Jack and Risto, and assuming no major contracts returning, Adams would have nearly $50 million in cap space. It will be very interesting to see how that is used.

And the youngest is Dylan Cozens.

What is unusual is for a co-worker to be disliked to the point that several people make a point of complaining about him to the boss.

Right, but watched him in the lead-ups. He was dominant.

I see him as almost identical to Dach, big, skilled but lacking the alpha dog quality. I know there is a huge age gap that explains it, but Dach was so much better than Byfield at the WJCs. I know that’s not the be-all, but the fact Byfield was just a face in the crowd there two years in a row nags at me.