dudacek

Remember when the pathetic Chicago Bulls hired a baseball scout to be their general manager? Dude had zero management experience. None. What a freaking disaster that was.

His production did not fall. Not even close. He got almost as many points in 23 fewer games. He went from .54 P/g (33rd in the league) to .68 (15th). Where do these made-up narratives come from?

I don't want him to shark Tampa, I want him to make a trade that helps our hockey team.

Lehner is Tim Murray for me in a nutshell: he had an eye for spotting talent, but not a clue how to nourish or blend it.

I wonder if he has a relationship with Frolunda’s Lucas Raymond, a possible Sabres first rounder.

Yes. ?

Bingo. This has been my point all along. There are scenarios where the smart move would be trading Cirelli. It really comes down to the market -financial and trade - for its three young RFAs versus the options they have with their NTCs. Is it smarter to deal a veteran for peanuts, or at a loss, or Sergachev/Cirelli for a substantial return?

Reasonable take. I would suggest that Mittelstadt and Montour are better value than Thompson and a late 1st, and that O'Reilly is of higher value than Monahan. Now that clearly wasn't a smart trade, but my point is sometimes teams decide to move on and take the best offer available. In my view, Tampa has run out of cards. They might not lose Cirelli, but keeping him is going to cost them some other good players for very little return.

Is Strome even playing? I haven't been giving it my full attention, but I don't recall hearing his name. Not getting a 2C vibe.

Great... The Canadiens just handed Pittsburgh Lafreniere.

There are always reasons for player movement that have nothing to do with what we see on our TV screens. One possible reason for Calgary to move is their purported mutual interest in Taylor Hall. As for Tampa, maybe their NTCs won’t waive, and Cirelli won’t sign for a discount. Why would it be in either of those party’s interests to do so?

Sure, just so long as the acquire him at the price of a stopgap, as opposed to the price of a solution.

Fair enough. I misjudged your valuation of him. I'd give up a 2nd for Strome before going into the season without a 2C, because I think he's an upgrade, but I don't think he's the solution.

But if he was on another team, would you be trading a 2nd to solve a problem on your top four?

Sometimes you just don't like a player. The best analogy I can think of is what you think of Risto, even discounting his analytics. Risto looks the part on paper: he's big, he's aggressive, he's a strong skater, he works his tail off on both ends of the ice, he can play the PP and kill penalties, he puts up 40 points regularly, he wants to be a difference maker; he ticks all the boxes for a prototype defenceman. But when push comes to shove, he just can't carry the mail in a matchup role and you are looking to upgrade. (In Risto's case, the issue is IQ) Strome is big, with silky smooth hands. He sees holes and delivers the puck to them with the right touch, he's got the size and wingspan to protect the puck, he puts up 50 points with ease, he can connect with elite players because he processes the game at their level; he has the tools of a top-six centre. But he can't carry the mail in a matchup role and you will be looking to upgrade. (In Strome's case, the issue is compete) Play him with Pat Kane and he will put up points, but the line probably loses most of its matchups. Play him with Skinner and Mojo and we probably get caved. He's a luxury.

Strome is a pillowy-soft Luke Adam with John Tucker's hands and Alex Nylander's world view.

This would be so good. Twitter would explode.

It's not about being nasty, it's about winning battles — getting and protecting the puck. Tage and Rasmus needed to improve in that area and I suspect they have.

Short-term pain for long-term gain. Krueger did it the right way: demand he focus first on the things he needs to improve in order to make him a complete defenceman. We want him to become Lidstrom, not Housley.

Absolutely. I would not give up #8 on its own for that package. IMO Strome is worth about a pick in the 20s (I personally wouldn’t pay it, but it’s a fair price) and Saad In the 50s.

I wouldn’t mind the roads being like the 50th anniversary jersey in traditional colours. Loved that look.

Is everybody expecting pretty much an exact copy of the unis Perreault wore and will be disappointed with any kind of variation?

This ^^^ bothered me enough to dig. "If you think about the amateur draft, we have more access to video and higher-quality video than we’ve ever had. We have access to data, to things that will tell us about player tendencies, than we’ve ever had and we do have time now to really implement a data-driven player evaluation process, specifically over the last month I’ve really enjoyed working with Jeremiah and our scouting staff. They’ve been working hard in revisiting the 2020 draft and trying to incorporate more information, to be open-minded when it comes to evaluating players and I think also to develop a scout calendar and a process that can be a hybrid of both the data and the experts’ opinions, the scouts." —Jason Nightengale "I would say the vast majority of information we take in – we have multiple data sources the league has used for a long time. We create our own proprietary statistics. We purchase third-party statistics. The majority of that data from a statistical standpoint is extremely noisy. I think it’s natural to have a vetting-out process and I think that’s one thing over the last seven years that’s happened. To me, it’s imperative on the analyst to earn trust with the hockey staff and to be able to put forward useful information that is predictive of success and repeatable." —Jason Nightengale “I asked (Kevyn Adams why I was fired) and I think his words were, ‘clean slate,’ ” — ChrisTaylor "As we build our scouting department, [we want to] sync up our scouting and analytics to become seamless and work together. There's a process that we want to go through in our scouting - both from the amateur and the professional side - of how we measure players, where we see value, what certain traits are we measuring, and at what level. That, from the analytics and the scouting, will be combined into how we ultimately move forward." —Kevyn Adams "Obviously, you want hockey IQ, and the game is moving so fast right now, and to be able to process the game and understand it at a high level is extremely important. You need competitive, hard-to-play-against, resilient hockey players, and you need players that can skate. This league is fast right now, and you have to have players that can make plays and have puck skills — not just the obvious ones. It’s the little plays, the small-area plays, the plays that maybe the average fan may not even notice because it’s just through a guy’s stick or feet that it happens so quick. But that’s how the game is played now in tight areas. Those are just some ways of identifying how we will find Buffalo Sabres hockey players. —Adams "When we look at the scouting and our player development and the analytics, like, how do we put all of those together to where they can work seamlessly together?" —Adams, in response to the question of how he decided who to keep and who to let go. There's enough there for me to conclude that this was not just about cutting staff, it was about implementing a new method of player evaluation. There is no point in revisiting the 2020 draft if its just repeating the same process; there is no point in having open minds and striving to work seamlessly if previously there were no closed minds, or no seams showing. He comes across a lot better in his personal interactions than Botterill ever did, Hopefully there is more to it than that.

God, I hope you are wrong about this.

I don't have many issues with what Botterill preached. I have considerable issues with his execution: he showed little acumen in his ability to rate and acquire players and I am increasingly questioning his judgement in his hockey department hires. In short, he was probably a capable administrator, who was in over his head as a leader and a visionary and seemingly maxed out his skillset as hockey bureaucrat/assistant GM.