In The Buff

You two guys with the 2nd line / 3rd line thing. What we can all agree on is our middle 6 is what the issue is & in that you're both right. We need a better 2C since Mitts isnt ready yet for that role, and we need another winger or 2 that can produce now for the 3rd line. Ideally we'd want to have 4 rolling lines, 3 of which that can score. As opposed to what we have now with just 1 top heavy line. But theres no way in hell do i want to go into next season with Mitts as our 2C. He's got talent no doubt, but he's a couple years away from the added muscle growth & strength he needs to play at this level. We definitely need to address that spot going into next season if we have any hopes of having 2 solid lines

There's a reason why my avatar is a photo of Rick Vaive. When I was a young kid I used to watch him get pummeled every single night, often having to get helped off the ice as the nerve pain in his neck would flare up after a crosscheck by the net. But he would always get back up again & go right back to the front of the neck. Watching him play back then was at least for me motivational & a trait I don't often see in todays game anymore. He had some good offensive skills but man was he tough too

Trading Risto as if he's causing more harm to the team than bringing positives to it is ridiculous imo. He's big, he's smart, he plays tons of minutes & the most important ones during games, & is a well rounded dman with good offensive skills. And when he goes into beast mode & starts throwing his body around, he looks like a tough player to play against. I've been waiting for him to take on a bigger leadership role on the ice & these past few weeks it appears like he's coming into his own in that regard, which is exciting. But I don't see what we gain from trading away Risto lol, i really don't. Scandella would make more sense or even McCabe or Pilut, even tho I'd rather keep Pilut around since i see a lot of potential in him as well. Beaulieu should be on this list b4 Risto. Pretty much anyone else since Risto is our best Dman right now, along with Bogo who has really impressed me this season. The turnaround Bogosian has had here has really been nice. I had all but written him off. Like others have said, it takes a long time for a dman to mature & come into his own. Especially a young kid coming over from Finland & having to adjust to so many new things. He's been asked to do way too much way too soon & now its appearing to pay dividends & people say trade him as if we're missing out on the playoffs because of him. We have 1 offensive line that can score so lets trade one of our top dmen. Brilliant idea! Luckily its not gonna happen.

I think while evaluating Eichel one needs to keep in mind he's only 22 years old & still coming into his own as a man & NHL player. I think if Eichel were playing on another team with a deeper talent pool he probably wouldnt have gotten the C. But since we're not one of those teams with a solid roster, he got the C for lack of having anyone else to give it to imo. Jack is the leader of this team & our offense revolves around him & his play making ability. I would like to see Jack shoot more personally, as he has a super quick release that is pretty darn accurate. I'm not a big fan of his one timers tho. But he's gotten better defensively since last year & as he gets older & gets more experience, I only expect that to improve & for him to turn into a great 2 way player. But I dont see any scenarios where we trade him. Maybe a few years down the road if anything, but by then I imagine our team will look a lot different than it does now & we'll be one of the better teams in the league. Hopefully making all the negative thoughts & posts we've endured these past few years a distant memory.

Just because one player leaves a team & has a solid season, it doesnt mean that the previous regime made a mistake in letting them go. Timing is everything sometimes. He was given multiple chances to succeed & failed, was given a big investment by our team to have him here & failed, only for the light to finally go on & play up towards his potential. Getting clean & staying clean from the pills & alcohol & whatever substance abuse issues he was dealing with before is a big part of it too. After all that then maybe you can get into scheme & whatnot. But I don't see how Lehner's career turn around has anything to do with our GM's ability or inability to evaluate him, thats just ridiculous. It sounds like he just turned his life around & focused more on hockey & tbh i'm happy for him. I just hope he gets pulled in the 1st period after letting in 5 goals as the Sabres storm towards a much needed victory

I hear what youre saying & while i may agree with ur broader point that he wants to be successful in his role & career, i think the rest is a bit unfair on your part or maybe you're just trolling a bit, who knows. But imo this guy is more of a Sabre than you or I am or will ever be. Why? Because he was an actual player for our team. Something that no fan is. Not to mention his stint with Rochester. He's shed blood sweat & tears for this team on a physical level. More than most fans who sit in their computer chairs & type away like you & I. I just dont buy for a second that he doesnt care about this team as much as his career. He's invested. And while he's not sitting in the dark with a bottle of whiskey in his hand staring down the barrel of a shotgun listening to conway twitty songs all night, i'm sure the stress & subsequent disappointment of where this team is at right now does bother him. But unlike fans emotions that rise & fall everynight, he seems to have his plan & is sticking to it. And when you think of it, wouldn't you rather have a GM like that? Seems to me GMDR & GMTM wouldve felt the pressure to make a flashy move desperate to appease the fan base. We've been there & done that & we know how that story ends. The ownership has given him this opportunity & he will be judged on it as time goes on. But he wont be judged on our ugly loss last night, anymore than our 10 game winning streak. But you better believe he'll be judged at the end of next year after we're on the other side of this rebuild. The year after we cleared out our cap space & made some use of it. This year was all about the reset & i know u know that. But I'm sorry i dont doubt for a second that he wants to bring the Cup to Buffalo. Us fans want it yesterday I get that, but who knows, perhaps the patient build from within plan is the one that actually gets us there in the long run. Because we've tried the other way & it didnt work out so well. If we're as good as we think we can be a year or so from now, all talk like we see on these forums after a bad loss will seem like a distant memory. We can only hope haha

the team seemed to give up tonight late in the game. After we pulled within one i think everyone here felt a comeback. But then that weak goal puts them up by 2 & after that it was like the life fell outta them. That was the 1st time this season i felt the players gave up on a game. Not a good sign when youre supposedly fighting for a playoff spot. We had tons of giveaways tonight which has been a recurring theme. We hear all the time housley saying that we need to just put pucks on the net & play a simple game, but our players never seem to be doing that consistently. Idk who takes the blame for all that. Line wise i dont know how much any coach could do. Do you bring one of the guys from the 3rd line to the 2nd, 4th to the 3rd? You're just moving crap around. We dont have much to work with besides from our top line & maybe Mitts & Thompson. So that leads us to what we've been saying all season long, we need better forwards. We have games when we're totally out playing & dominating the other team but the pucks just dont go in the net. I dont think the problem really is the system & i havent heard one player allude to that either. They need to just play a more simple game & not turn the puck over. Crash the net, set up screens & work the D. I would like to see some fire from Housley tho. When a player turns the puck over, get in his face & show him thats unacceptable. Idk what else he can do other than that.

think ive seen Okposo cough up the puck 100 times this year while skating back towards the blue line, literally 100 times lol

The issue with people asking for JBots to make a deal for a younger forward with term left on his contract is that every other team in the hunt is looking for the same thing. Nobody wants our under performing players in a trade for a player like that. We'd love to trade Okposo, Beaulieu, Pomminstein or Scandella but there isnt a team out there thats gonna give us anything good for them. We'd have to do what we did last year by moving ROR & hope that the sum of the return is greater than the whole (and we know how many reacted to that). Or we'd have to give up a 1st, a prospect who is almost on par with the player we'd be looking for & probably even a combo of more picks or prospects. Just look at what Toronto had to give to acquire Muzzin from the Kings. The price to acquire such a player is simply at its highest right now. We can wish all we want but I think we're a bit unrealistic while floating the idea around. I'd love Panarin here, Simmonds too, but nowhere on hockey sites will you see the Sabres as a team mentioned as a potential landing spot for them. Why? I'm guessing its because they've objectively analyzed our current situation & figured we're not willing to part with the assets necessary to pull off a deal like that. Its just not happening imo.

Record wise yes we've been losing games. However we're not losing these games like we were last year. How many 1 goal games have we lost this year? Those are games we very well couldve won had we had better secondary scoring. So no I'm not on the "we're not much better than last year" train. We're actually a lot better. We were the last place team 3 out of the past 5 years & not much better in between. Anyone expecting playoffs at the beginning of the season was just a hopeful fan imo. This season was all about fixing our cap, developing our youth & farm team & evaluating what we have in order to decide what moves to make, all while competing for the playoffs. Thats why we've added some pieces & removed others. Trying to be competitive now while building from within for the future. That doesnt mean i dont wanna make a push for the playoffs now & I'm sure JBots would like to do the same. But he's not gonna veer off his long term plan & who knows, maybe years down the road we'll be thanking him for it.

nope, that was a pretty slick shot... too bad it misssed

well he's still young, they'll drop eventually

No, unless he's bringing Kane & Toews along with him

The ROR trade has been discussed ad nauseam but the Blues picked him up with the expectation that he would push them over the top & look at whats happened to that team. While statistically he's having a good season, just like he was having here, that team has been in the bottom part of the league. Is it a coincidence? I have no idea. But it is ironic that they got worse after acquiring him & we got better. I hate over simplified generalizations but it is an interesting footnote to the subject. If he was such a player to build a championship team around, it surely hasnt paid off for the Blues just yet. @ GASabresIUFAN 's post pretty much sums up my take on everything & i appreciate him taking the time to write that up, as i simply dont have the patience for that haha. We have 4 1st round picks in the next 2 years, lots of young promising talented players. Depth in our organization with our farm team turned around & the culture has changed around this franchise. The future looks a lot brighter than it did a couple years ago & that didnt happen by accident.

well he aint wrong though, at least in my opinion. We as fans have the luxury to play hindsight, a GM doesnt. Big picture our team was the worst in the NHL & today we're in the race for a playoff spot. So some will say what they will i suppose but who here doesnt think our future is looking up since JBots took over? And not just a one & done season but the ground work to be a contender for years to come?

I agree. However at this point the types of players JBots would have to be looking for are those with term remaining on their contracts, all while looking towards the future. Because by waiting to make a move at the deadline, we've wasted too much time already & we're pretty much already out of a playoff spot. I know thats not what us fans want to hear, but just the other day was that post about how many regulation losses we could have & still make the playoffs. Only way its even feasible is going on a 5 - 7 game winning streak & winning at a 70% clip. All doable in the minds of us Sabres faithful but from JBots perspective he's probably looking at next year. But youre right about this offseason for sure. He's had 2 seasons to evaluate the talent or lack there of & has a good cap situation & assets in his pocket. I fully expect him to be making moves come the draft, when the prices for players arent as high as they are now before the deadline. Imo the time for JBots to make a move for this season was a month ago.

I like probably most here have been hoping to see us make a move for a 2C for some time. But now at this point its almost as if its too late in the season for it to make an impact this year. Whats more likely to happen at this point is we'll wait til the offseason after we have a firm idea on what we have now & then we'll make a move or 2. The market should be cheaper too at that point in terms of what players will cost in return. Stinks imo because we very well couldve been a playoff team this year. But JBots has a long term plan & it appears he's sticking to it

Without knowing the type of game Leier plays, this trade is kind of a head scratcher in that theyre one in the same. Flyers get our AHL winger in return for theirs. Both have similar numbers. Perhaps Leier will be a cheaper salary option for Rochester down the road than Bailey? Beats me I got all excited for a second that we made a trade & then i saw who was involved lol

Seems to me the right way to go about getting more playing time would be to #1 play a game that demands it or #2 ask the coach what you can do for more playing time. Instead he tweets about it where his agent needs to "clarify" his remarks in a little damage control. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

To me this is great news. Leave it to Beaulieu to force Jbots into doing something to help this team. Its not like Beaulieu was making a real difference out there. Perhaps if this is true we can package him away for some much needed secondary scoring help.

Yeah I agree. Wilson doesn't really give us much more than what we already have now. Yes he technically has a few years of experience, including some playoff experience, but production wise his best year was scoring 8 goals over a full season. We have plenty of players here now that are just like him. Thinking his return is gonna provide some boost to our team is just wishful thinking imo.

Do they really hate us? I figured they would just sleep right thru & not even realize we were there ? I went down to Raleigh in that great run of 2006 with 4 other friends of mine. Somewhere adjacent to the big parking lot is a big Stanley Cup we made, buried in the ground there. I haven't been back there since, but if we're ever in a series like that again with them, perhaps i'll make the trip down again to right my personal wrong haha. I'm with ya in hoping Skinner lights it up & often. I imagine he's gonna have a lot of emotions & I expect him to be flying all over the ice. With Jack being back & our secondary scoring seemingly improved, a win of 6-1 sounds good to me ? GO SABRES!

That'd be great, however its gonna take a helluva sweetener. My fear is that Seattle tries to go after Ulmark. We're gonna have to give them a good asset to protect the right players, yet alone getting rid of Okposos ghastly contract. Surely KO knows he hasnt lived up to his contract. If he was such a class guy, it'd be nice if he'd restructure his deal to give the team more flexibility to improve the roster. But of course that won't happen, KO is no Tom Brady

Some posts here are looking for just a 1 or 2 year rental so to speak that can push us over the edge. Others are looking for more of a longer term player. What we all share is that our GM should do something, while not veering off course for our long term plans. I think we could do it & I have faith in JBots that if a deal appears worthy he'll pull the trigger. I'm of the mindset that no season should be written off & if youre in striking distance of the playoffs you need to take advantage of it. Because theres no guarantees for future success ever. 1998-99 we made our Cup run. Most of us probably thought we had many more coming. Whenever you have a chance at being in the playoffs you gotta try to make the most of it imo. If we can get some scoring help that won't disrupt our long term plans I think you gotta go for it.

I hear ya. When the #2 goal scorer doesnt get to play in the All Star game, somethings wrong with the selection process. In my opinion its due to how the teams are split into 4 separate teams. Our division is stacked with great players where as it stands now, you cant really justify taking one of those players out for Skinner. But when you look at the other divisions team, you could easily find a spot for Skinner there. Some divisions just have a larger amount of better players than others. I think they should go back to the East vs West format personally. If that was the case I think Skinner gets in. I tweeted to the NHL last night the same idea, because as a fan what else can I do to bring that up to them? Dude belongs in the All Star game, period