dudacek

$15 million. Not sure about that one either. They must have really liked his game. Value is fine, but there are a lot of goalies on the market that they could have had at a lower cost.

I’ve been saying this for months. Larsson is gone, not because the Sabres don’t want him or need him, but because after 6 years of crap he owes it to himself to check out other pastures. The Sabres surely have known this for months. What Botterill did with UFAs this year - giving up a 4th for Frolik and a fifth for Simmonds, while gaining only a 4th for Larsson, Girgensons, Vesey, Scandella, Sobotka, and Bogosian is just bad asset management. At least he made a good move with Sheary.

All valid opinions, although I’m not sure what the bold means. In my opinion, Mittelstadt, Thompson and Asplund are not “special” but they are three of of our five best forward prospects and their exclusion makes a difference. They are comparable to forwards 2-5 on a majority of teams I have looked at. Ruotsalainen Pekar and Davidsson (likely our next three) are not.

That pool they are ranking 18th doesn’t include Mittelstadt, Thompson or Asplund: high picks from ‘16 and ‘17 who weren’t on the NHL roster in 2020. If you write those three off as never-wills, then it is scary.

Sabres at 1.2 million in cap overage. Can split the bill between this year and next. https://www.tsn.ca/13-nhl-teams-will-carry-salary-cap-overages-into-next-season-1.1517304

Who are the outlets? I don’t doubt you, but as far as the outlets I follow closely (Hockey News Future Watch, Pronman and Wheeler) I honestly haven’t seen a ranking in years that puts the Sabres in the bottom 3rd of prospects. I’m used to seeing us in the top third and rolling my eyes and saying a lot of good that has done us. As far as the bigger picture discussion goes, I think most of the arguments come down to where people are choosing to to draw their boundaries and, in the case of the forwards, what you think of Tage and Casey. Dont matter. Ted Nolan had the right of it: All prospects are suspects heading toward rejects, at least if you are a Sabres fan.

Except his offensive production is pure 4th line. Or worse. Over his 6 year career he ranks 146th in points by NHL centres. Guys who have played only 2 or 3 years, or who retired, are ahead of him. There are only 120 starting centre positions.

Freddie Andersen to the Canes? Chatter.

How long has Risto been on the trade board? Four years? And that is an intriguing list of players.

Danault easily. More rounded and reliable and probably cheaper contract. Danault is a rental, however. Danault would be a great centre for Skinner in Ralph's system, IMO. Has all the supposed defensive pluses of Sobotka without being a black hole for offence. Add a RW with a prime Wayne Simmonds skillset and that would be a perfect complement to Jack Sam and Victor.

Like a lot of potential trade acquisitions, Domi has his warts. His game lacks discipline, in that he likes to freelance, his attention to detail without the puck is lacking, and he will take stupid penalties. He also strikes me as entitled: his being available is due to him wanting to play a top 6 centre role and he wants a big contract. Montreal's coach preferred to use two 20-year-olds who have 80 career points combined ahead of him. With the caveats out of the way, he's easily a top six forward on the Sabres, is a legitimate centre despite playing most of his career at wing, can drive offence on his own, has a mean streak and had great chemistry with Reinhart at the WJC. So hell yeah, if the price is right on both acquisition and contract.

Yes. It's shifted the focus of his rankings. It's basically now a ranking of "best young talent in the organization" as opposed to "best talent not already on the team"

His rationale: ..this year’s version will have full evaluations with tool grades of all players in an organization who are 22 years old or younger as of Sept. 15, 2020, regardless of how many NHL games they’ve played, to go along with the rest of the players in the pipeline. It will not include skaters older than 22 as of Sept. 15, 2020, who have played 25 NHL games in a season or 50 career games; goalies with 10 games in a season or 25 in a career; nor any player age 26 or older as of Sept. 15, 2020. Thus, all players from the 2016 to 2019 NHL drafts who were first-year eligible at their draft are incorporated into this year’s organizational rankings. There were pros and cons to this decision. The pros were the ability to incorporate a lot of great young players who were on the fringe of graduating based on my old definition, those who were barely regular NHLers or had been sent back to the minors but were cut out because they were “graduates.” The cons are the inevitable complaints when people see where Toronto is ranked, largely on the back of Auston Matthews. There is no perfect way to define the players for this purpose; ultimately someone is going to be upset by the way I set this up, but I try to make this feature better every year by getting closer to an ideal definition.

I'm sure a few of you are watching Pronman's countdown on organizational depth in terms of young players. Sabres haven't shown up yet, but this was an interesting exchange in his Q&A today: Jimmy E. 2h ago Was expecting the Sabres to be in the bottom 10. Do Dahlin and Cozens lift them up that much? Corey Pronman 2h ago @Jimmy E. Dahlin, Cozens, Mitteltsadt, Thompson, Jokiharju etc all qualify. Also, Pronman (who led the Casey hype machine two years ago) still sees him with top six potential and takes a mild (unrelated) shot at prospect watchers for recency bias.

I’m just happy because I get a growing sense that the Sabres will very active this off-season, there are plenty of options available, and that the focus will be on re-balancing the roster and shaping it for the game the coach wants to play.

I think of him more as a 4C playing a 3C role, at least if you subscribe to the 3C as a shutdown matchup role.

Wading into this discussion against my better judgement, but Randall was pretty clearly responding to things far beyond the scope of the preceding discussion in the thread. And I certainly read Ruff’s farewell as about what is happening in professional sports, not what is happening on Sabrespace.

Wasnt insinuating planned, but the idea of collateral damage is a possibility: group of employees sees itself as undervalued and not liking new direction they are seeing from struggling org. Bosses not particularly valuing said group of employees, have different view on direction struggling org needs to take. Frustrated employees leave. I've lived it.

Massive layoffs and firings? During a pandemic full of race riots? Tied to a pair of sports franchises with long histories of failure? There’s an obvious purge going on. It would impossible for there not to be morale issues and collateral damage. The question is whether we are witnessing culture change, or the continued need for it?

September is the new June. Just like 2020 is the new 1942.

I guess I should have said “help solve”. Right now we have 2 D with any history of PK.

Off the top of my head, six years, $50 million...? There isn’t a team in the league realistically capable of adding a $10 million cap hit under a flat cap, and term for a 30-year-old was risky prior to COVID.

Pietrangelo makes a helluvalot more sense for Buffalo than Buffalo does for Pietrangelo. Alex will eat Risto's minutes, solve our PK issues and combine with Dahlin in a legit first pair for a while.

Asplund started playing in the Swedish Elite league at 17 and put up 28 points in 50 games there as a 20-year-old. 2nd tier is not a reflection of his standing as a player. He's still under contract to the Sabres. This is about finding him a place to play while they wait for the season to restart, just like Lukkonnen and Ruotsalainen.

Pominville was another. Also signed relatively high profile UFAs in Okposo and Moulson and Johansson, also re-signed O'Reilly, who we acquired as a rental, so he wouldn't go to UFA. It's amazing how many do come despite the ***** show we've been.