Randall Flagg

It's more that for the first time in Jack's career here, I have no faith that I can take the sum of available cap space and assets in the organization not from Jack-Sam-Dahlin, and turn it into a winning team with those three on it. Not because of their flaws or anything, but because of the state of the hockey this franchise has built, which has fully sucked everyone in. I would have a pit in my stomach navigating an offseason, sure in my gut that I'd just be creating another high 70s point team. This would be subject to change if something crazy were to present itself to me - a serious offer sheeting possibility, or something out of the blue, like another team's Jason offering me their ROR for our junk. But if I am constrained by level headed GMing, and typical UFA limits, and our assets and our cap space, I think I have a better shot at moving the highest value pieces we have and building from there. But, I need to be confident in my management team and coaching staff, and I will not argue against anyone who does not have that confidence at this point, for I cannot make another person share my inexplicable belief in Kevyn Adams using facts, logic, or reason

As an early pioneer of the resistance to the "ROR cancer" line of thinking, I agree that I don't want to "Ryan O'Reilly" Jack. I'm trying to balance a multi-faceted scale and think I could fix the team quicker by moving Jack than playing him at this juncture. Through no fault of Jack It should be met with stern and critical resistance to make sure it stands up to scrutiny

I can't wait to watch the Sabres game tonight ^_^

Yeah, Dahlin is actually really good at *winning* in that situation usually, and it creates a lot of danger for the PK team that's lunging out of position. For me it's all on Hall. When you watch games, you can *feel* what the natural correct decision with the puck is on the PP, and Hall routinely violates nature, and he did there. Pass to Reinhart! I think our structure of running the PP on the walls (offhand on both sides) and with a point man in the middle is fairly new to the Eichel era. First Eichel - Risto - ROR leading a great PP from up there in 2016-17, then Eichel - Dahlin - Olofsson recently. It has spoiled me, and I never want to see guys on their typical wings on the PP again lol. It always seems like Hall is in an inopportune spot. That might just be him, but being a lefty on that wall is weird

I think Hedman and Ekblad are elite, if that's what you're saying. I don't know if I ever believed Dahlin would be a no doubt HOF guy, but I do still think he's got a real shot at Hedman status. Hedman himself was looking pretty bad a few years into his career. It'll be a battle for us to become the kind of organization that can do for Dahlin what they did for Hedman, but it was a battle for them too, and they succeeded, so we can

I remember coming out of Ekblad's rookie year thinking that he was going to be a top 4 defenseman ever, so I don't know if it was, but if it wasn't better than Ekblad's it'd be no shame. But I'm not saying it wasn't better than Ekblad's either, if that makes sense, I'm not remembering any sort of objective analysis, just my general sentiment. He then had injury and consistency issues before becoming elite the last couple years again. Ekblad was really really good. Might have been top 20 Norris finisher Let's get our Quenneville and Campbell (yeah, not the same teams) and do our best to fix the situation.

He had stretches of horrendous play both at the beginning and end of last season. There are posters that *notice* stuff long before they reach consensus, and those guys were sounding off back then. I've grown to trust them. PA and inky and weave for example. Then I think we're basically only arguing over hyperbole and on-the-spot, top-of-the-head examples, which is a classic Thorny-Flagg experience lmao

I think the rookie season was pretty good yeah. I was a bit deflated by it (this was exacerbated by the string of epic 1OA picks before him, MacK, McD, Ekblad (who is now elite again, eh? There is certainly still HOPE for Rasmus) and Matthews) but then in the context of the next few guys like Hischier, Laf, Hughes it feels a lot better.

I don't want to project "bust", I am simply worried that there is a possibility he is ruined and will become one. I argue against the claim that there is "no chance" of this happening. I think that is absolutely bananas to think. He is not a bust yet. I hope the Sabres don't casually dismiss the possibility of this happening as much as you and liger do, and I don't think they do, considering I saw whispers that we are internally very worried about him Haha it's short for "plebeian." That's how stats cultists (not you) seem to view people who still use +/-. I was more snarky than I wish I was when I said that, because I don't think you're one of those guys, but it's funny how sometimes that group will use that stat if it helps them out, but trash it when others use it

I definitely think a good part of the blame for Dahlin's collapse can be pinned on the shittiness of our franchise. But all that matters now is that he's ***** terrible at hockey, and if we and he can't pull it together he could be lost for good. Also fixed

If there are magic HOFers on the list that escaped me, then it's relevant. But it's time to circle back to my main point. I think Dahlin is a really bad hockey player right now, and through some combination of circumstance and his mental state and things both in and out of his control, he is flirting on the edge of a cliff that most hockey players cannot climb out of. I see a player playing worse than other promising players that weren't capable of fixing their issues, and nothing about his past or present situation can convince me that there is "no chance" he doesn't recover, which is the claim I'm combatting. You might not like my Yakupov example, but I introduced him to point out that they were players achieving similar levels of accomplishment for their position as rookies, and he fell off a cliff, and could never come back - it's just an example that shows that players who roughly hit a similar level of dahlin's ability to impact an NHL hockey game early on in their careers, have before fallen apart. Dahlin is not magically immune to this possibility because of a "historic" rookie year which is only "historic" based on technicalities and establishment developmental decisions

I think this is "particularly good" semantics. He had a season that nobody outside of Buffalo will ever remember, think about, or write about. There's nothing wrong with the season he had, it was a decently promising rookie year, of which there are many in the NHL any given year

Also, the 'Names Dahlin passed' He didn't pass Housley He passed Orr by scoring 3 more points in 21 more games He passed Iafrate, Ekblad, Bogosian, Hanifin, and defensive D man Scott Stevens playing trap hockey in the dead puck era, in points I'm not big on hockey history, so I don't recognize many more names than that. but while neat, it's nothing tangibly special Yakupov's projected goal total passes names too, like Francis, MacKinnon, Stamkos, Neely, Bergeron, Lafontaine, Marleau, Hull, Messier etc. So what

Correct. He barely finished 3rd in Calder voting, and many people wanted him to finish 4th. There are 3rd place rookies every single year

Why are we talking about second seasons? I never brought that up. It is not relevant to my point that Yakupov's fall happened one season later, while Dahlin's happened 1.5 seasons later. It has nothing to do with anything.

And Yakupov passed a much larger list of better names on the rookie forward list lol. This comes with sample size issues. Dahlin's season was, I guessss, unique, but it wasn't particularly good or special. It's uniqueness stems from smart hockey decisions made by other NHL franchises, and not anything else.

The magic of plus minus. Disingenuous garbage when PLEBS use it, but relevant when I need to use it

I would rather have a rookie forward that scores 30 goals than a rookie defenseman that puts up Dahlin's 18-19 season. I'd have a better shot at winning that season by making that trade.

It was true. He made the same mistakes he makes now for the same reasons, and did not have some skill or mental element that shut people down and is demonstrable on tape, which he now lacks. Using regressions with garbage performance metrics that show his xGA/60 has increased by 0.12 goals since his rookie year doesn't wave that away Also, his competition for his "historic season" as an 18 year old defenseman, there are only 19 defensemen to ever play at least 50 games in the 100 year history of NHL at age 18. Of these, I recognized about 9 names. The framing of his season as special never jived with me, and the ensuing 2 seasons have shown why

The all-timers numbers were only because he was 18, the numbers themselves weren't anything special. I get that it's rare for an 18 year old to be in the NHL, but that's entirely because most teams prefer taking the long route with D prospects and don't draft them so high. 44 points along with bad defensive play should not be spoken of in hushed, awed tones, even if he happened to be 18 instead of 19 while doing that. Yakupov's rookie year was as impressive as Dahlin's. And Dahlin's peers have been much more interesting than he, and they only got 1 year extra of development. Dahlin spending one more year in the SHL could have possibly closed that gap, but I am skeptical, and it can never be proven of course. His problems stem from a sort of timidness that he's always had. And his rookie successes climbed the list only because he had a competition sample size of about 4 18 year old defensemen in the last several decades lol, while Nail's competition was an order of magnitude larger in sample size Ignore the draft stuff, and the super epic historical secondary PP assists. Nail and Rasmus were at a similar level of hockey player in their rookie seasons, and Dahlin's quality as a hockey player has since deteriorated to the point that he is really, really bad. The same thing happened to Nail, and many other prospects who have achieved a player-quality level Dahlin has had now, and many have never climbed out of that hole. Dahlin is not special because his rookie year had some nice passes to Jack, and he is not immune to this possibility. He is bad and it is alarming people in the organization, and probably around the league, who know that ruination could be around the corner.

The Sabres' xGF% ranks the same over Housley's two years as it did over Ralph's

I haven't seen anything better than Yakupov's rookie year (he would have scored 30G in a full season) from Dahlin, and Yakupov never reached those heights again, why is Dahlin immune from this possibility? Dahlin's low right now is staggering Ralph sucks, and the sucktitude magnified in a bizarre and unique way over the last 15 games, given the circumstances of this season which probably aided that along. But aside from that, Ralph's tenure was not uniquely bad whatsoever. It was quite similar to Phil's

He's got a looooooooooooooooong, loooooooooooong haul to get to this point. Just as long as countless prospects who never pan out. That's why I think there's a bigger chance than some admit

All good points. I do think Hall deserves a lot of focus too. Dude was begging to hand the puck away for an odd man rush against 3 or 4 times before he finally succeeded.

There are so many times where Hall can create a favorable situation, as someone closes in on him, by passing it to a wide open teammate that's 4 feet away, and every single time he chooses not to do so and loses the puck. It's unreal