dudacek

Look, I get this post and acknowledge you are probably right. My perspective has long been that Sam is a 1st-line centre who was improperly developed by the Sabres into a 1st-line winger. It has also long been that Sam's game has been handcuffed because he was perceived — and has perceived himself — as Jack's sidekick in the room and on the ice and that limited him from becoming the player he fully could be. When Granato sees what I've seen, and starts using Sam the way he should be used, and we get the results we did, of course I am going to lean into my bias. I'm going to bet on the players I believe in.

Agree 100 %. Jack seems to inherently be a risk-taker and an "I want it now" type of personality.

Serious question: Did Adams get any questions about his plans for improving the team this summer? Granato too, apparently. Did you catch that bit where he made reference to the coaching staff encouraging players to stop doing that?

To the first, I absolutely agree. I would also say the same is as true for Adams as it is for Eichel. Two the second, I was editing in a final paragraph as you quoted me.

I think it’s pretty clear teams do have that control. NMC gives the power to the player to veto trades, not to force them. If Jack demands a trade, Adams has every right to say we will only trade you to (fill in the blanks), you can accept a trade to one of those spots, or you can stay here and live up to your contract. The player has three choices: pick the Sabres, pick one of the choices, or whine and pout and make things difficult. The bolded might be true, but only if you add the word eventually. Evander Kane asked for a trade every single year he was in Winnipeg. It took four years to get it. Also, NMCs and NTCs aren’t unbreakable laws, they are negotiating tools. Players waive no-trade clauses every single year. If Jack says I’ll only accept a trade to the Rangers and the Rangers low-ball Adams, Adams can simply say “no.” If Adams strikes a great deal with the Kings but Eichel despises Sunshine, he can dig in his heels. So maybe that leads to a trade to Dallas which Jack can live with and Adams thinks has made a fair offer. Unless it gets personal, it’s a business negotiation, where it’s in the best interest of each side to find a partner that is suitable to each side. To say Jack gains power when the NMC kicks in is absolutely true, because he has virtually no power right now. But to suggest he gains all the power is false. The NMC essentially equalizes things.

Venting is the wrong word. Slipped, perhaps? It was the chill that was calculated. The underlying heat was about the injury. The desire to move was never clearly articulated. About his future with the Sabres, I thought he was decidedly dispassionate.

After watching it, I didn’t think that that press conference was calculated at all. He was prepared to be easy and relaxed and was making it work until he dropped “whoever I am playing for” at the tail end of a response to a Hamilton question that pricked him at least 5 minutes in. As you say, his wears his heart on his sleeve and doesn’t have great impulse control. He was mad at the team for not letting him what he wanted to do, and he vented.

Sorry, My entire post was based on him for refusing to play because he had demanded a trade. If he’s playing, why are we forced to trade him to the team of his choice? If he is demanding a trade, why can’t we say “sure, just as soon as you open up your NMC”?

Even though I might do it to protect the kids, I can’t see Sam coming back on a one-year contract. The only way he gets that is arbitration and the Sabres will move him before that happens.

I absolutely agree that if he truly wants out, he should be auctioned off to the highest bidder and gone by the draft. I also have thought for a while now that Adams wants to move him. The only impediment I see to a trade is the injury. A Sam (1st line) Casey (scoring line) Danault (tough minutes) would be a strong spine assuming the recent Casey is real. *** Adams says screw you. You’re suspended. You can sit without your paycheque and we will use your cap space to fill our needs. Accept a trade to Calgary, or rot. Four years is a long time for a 25-year-old hockey player. Calgary might start to get attractive. (As I said above, it’s not my preferred path, but it is a lever)

I never get too passionate about coaching choices. I appreciate the value of experience, but I also know inexperienced John Cooper, Craig Berube, and Mike Sullivan turned out to be more successful than recycled Dan Bylsma, Randy Carlyle, Alain Vigneault and Claude Julien. I think I lean toward finding the Cooper. There are some coaches who have been around long enough that I’ve seen enough to say a firm “no” to and more that I’ll say maybe. But there’s too much we don’t see in terms of techniques and relationships, and I think 75% of the time a successful coach is as much about being the right man at the right time in the right place as it is about ability. All I can really do is listen to a coach speak, and watch how he goes about his business and decide whether I like that man and if I would be willing to follow him. I’ve decided Donnie Granato Is someone I can root for.

I wonder if the circles of “Men should be free not to wear masks if they chose” and “Men should be free to use women’s washrooms if they choose” ever overlap.

This. Plus, I can’t believe, given how he is wired, Jack Eichel being willing to miss more hockey games than Terry Pegula would be willing to let him rot. It handicaps the Sabres somewhat, but 4 more years gives them a ton of clout. Theres no way Jack could Taylor Hall them.

If he and Granato are back and Jack is not, Sam is the captain. Theres no question in my mind, and I don’t think there will be in the Sabres’ minds either. Also, if Sam is back, who will concede it is because he was willing to bleed blue and gold?

@Brawndo absolutely on fire today. The Sam question is easy. If he wants to be here, you sign him for term and count your lucky stars.

There is some logic in this proposal, pending a closer look at the possible picks. Separately, the thought that some people want Tkachuk and not Sam because of “character” tells me that people have significantly different ideas of what character means.

It was also a contract year last year, and two years before that. I think you can apply that logic to outlier season in a contract year. One could argue Sam had his best season, but it wasn't an outlier. And I don't think anyone is advocating paying Sam $9 million. The going rate for a 25-goal, 60-point scorers approaching UFA? Hell yeah.

It's impossible to answer a question like this without the context of other offers. But if the decision has been made to trade Eichel, and the decision has been made to trade Eichel for the best package of futures we can get, I don't expect to get a better offer than this. I don't expect to get this much.

Welcome back!

So basically if Sam isn't producing at close to a point a game, the Sabres aren't winning anything?

I'm curious. When does a player who comes to work every single day and has earned more than his paycheque for six straight years stop being a gamble? He led this team out of the 18-game losing streak. It was obvious to anyone who was watching. Even Pi.

I take Adams at face value when he says he wants to interview as many people as possible to see what he can learn. I suspect he has his eye on a few people under contract and will want to see what shakes loose after the playoffs. Also, he may feel somewhat comfortable with Donnie as a fallback and rank him ahead of some of the people already out there.

Casey not interested?

I don't think there should be any surprise Sam is well-perceived around the league. Anyone who played the way he did in the mess that was this season has earned that. I also believe there is a disconnect between Sam and Paul Hamilton and possibly others in the media that has coloured the public's view of him as much, if not more, than the unwashable stench of the Sabres over the past 6 years. I've been saying it for a long time: he shows up every day, he produces, he doesn't complain, he treats his body like a pro and his teammates with respect and he keeps getting better. He grew up immersed in hockey culture and he epitomizes it. Listen to the way Donnie Granato described him on Wednesday. Of course he has the league's respect.

Three days later, the entire hockey world has convinced itself Jack Eichel used Media Day to drop a bomb on the Buffalo Sabres, basically telling the world without actually saying it that he wants out. But what if that isn’t what actually happened? Bear with me here. Consider the mindset of an elite athlete, best of the best. Someone whose entire life has taught him that he’s invulnerable, a winner, an inevitable success story. Special. Consider the mindset of Jack Eichel entering this season. You are coming off your best year, your game is in order. At times you’ve almost questioned yourself given the Sabres’ ineptitude, but you know it’s actually been the organization, and the supporting cast. The results haven’t been there yet, but you love the coach. You believe in him. And the new GM has brought in a Stanley Cup winner to back you up on the second line, some tested vets to improve the PK and a former MVP to ride shotgun on your line. This time it’s going to work. But it doesn’t. Right from the get-go your game is off: sluggish, out of sync. When you look honestly into the mirror, it tells you that you suck. You don’t recognize what you see. Yes, you are carrying some injuries, but they aren’t enough to stop you from playing. You are Jack Eichel. Nothing stops you. Your coach, your guru, has no answers - for your struggles or his own. For maybe the first time in your life, you start to question yourself. “This is me not pulling my weight. This is me holding us back. This is my fault.” And then you get really hurt. Not aches and pains hurt, not a give-it-a-month playground hurt. But a real injury, an adult injury, one that is not easily tackled by surgery or busting your butt in rehab. One that requires you to be patient and to wait. You don’t like to wait. You are stallion, you attack, you charge. But the doctors want to keep you in the stable. You chafe. Sitting apart from your tribe and your passion during a pandemic, you start to consider the long-term consequences of a spinal cord injury. For maybe the first time ever you ponder the possibility of a world where you are not a world-class hockey player destined to adorn halls of fame and Stanley Cup legendariums. And you get restless. You get scared. You pour your being into researching your condition and you find a type of disc replacement surgery that has worked with MMA fighters. It can fix the problem and get you back into rehab in a matter of weeks. You can be ready to be prime Jack Eichel in the fall, to reclaim your birthright. You start to obsess. Action. It’s what you crave. It’s what you need to reclaim your identity in a season that has mercilessly stripped it away. You march into your season-ending meeting with the GM and you lay this all out on the table. “This is what I want to do, and I want to do it now.” Kevyn Adams listens politely. “I hear you, but the doctors said we were going to give it three months and that is what we’re going to do. We’ll talk in June. You aren’t used to “no.” And you especially aren’t used to it in the context of something so precious, something that means so much. And, as you try to process, Adams takes control. He wants to have “an honest, hard conversation.” “Jack we have to fix this. We know you had a tough season, and we know there are reasons, but we need you to be better. We need to get better. We have to figure out who is going to bleed blue and gold every single day, and who is not. We are going to look at anything and everything, and that includes possibly trading away pieces of our core. That even includes considering trading you. I can’t predict what is going to happen, but there will be changes.” They march you out to meet the media. Consider that back story. Sit down and watch the tape again. Tell me what you see.