Randall Flagg

We can talk all we want about coaches, psychology, leadership etc. and those are all important things. But one thing that remains true is that building a real, full NHL roster will be the best thing we can do towards ensuring a winning hockey team. We need to get the other things right too, but getting all of those right without getting the roster right severely limits what you can accomplish. Between Eakin, Okposo, Rieder, Sheahan, Lazar, we have 5 guys on this team with a 4th line role. We thought some of them (Eakin, Okposo) could slot in above that in all likelihood, but that was always unrealistic. That is too many 4th liners on a team that doesn't have a 2C, or a real 3rd line. If you assume we get typical production out of the top 6 that we've gotten no production out of this year, save Reinhart, we still have huge problems. Given the names that will be available, we have to stop accepting such a flawed forward group year after year. We have to stop doing the bare minimum, with that minimum involving HUGE question marks (Mitts in 2018, Johansson, old Staal). We need a first line with Jack (or Jack trade return) that can outscore its opponent. We need a 2nd offensive line that is capable of sustained production as well. We need a 3rd line with some sort of identity, that is fluid depending on what is available, but it needs to be good at something and competent at other things. And we need a 4th line that can handle heavy matchups (it's a damn shame we may have to build this from scratch, for no reason). The way I view it, the pieces we have right now that I am confident can fill roles in this structure are: xxx - Eichel - Reinhart xxx - xxx - xxx xxx - xxx - Cozens Girgensons - xxx - xxx Zemgus isn't fantastic, but I've seen him play a positive role in this type of 4th line, that was GOOD at defense, and COMPETENT at offensive cycling (and he had 12 goals in 69 games). Cozens might be better than what I show, but the key is RELIABILITY - we cannot guarantee that he will be a top 6 force, so DO NOT assume that it will happen. From what we have seen, he CAN be a good piece on a good 3rd line, right now. He has a nice shot, great speed, good instincts, great effort. When Eichel is right, he's a 1C, and if we trade him, we had better get a 1C back, even if they're worse, or have a different plan to get one. so that should be filled. And Reinhart is good, and you'd better get a guy capable of being a winger on the first line if he goes too. The rest of this is up for grabs. Among guys on this roster, you are stuck with Skinner, you have Olofsson, you have Hall, you have Staal (these two will likely be gone), you have Mitts/Tage, and you have a crap ton of 4th liners - Eakin, Okposo, Rieder, Lazar, and Sheahan. The easiest thing to look at first is the 4th line. Girgensons is under contract, so you need TWO MORE 4th liners, and then maybe one as a 13F kinda guy. That is IT. PICK TWO, and dump the rest. The pool should not only include those five skaters, but it should also include UFAs and guys you can pick up in a trade. For simplicity, I'll leave a small sample size of potential available names: 4th Line: Pick two of Cody Eakin, Kyle Okposo, Tobias Rieder, Curtis Lazar, Riley Sheahan, Brock McGinn, Zach Hyman, Jordan Martinook, Cedric Pacquette, Sean Kuraly, Ryan Carpenter, Barclay Goodrow, Mark Jankowski, or others like these guys. Scout them, figure out which ones are still good, and make your move, and have fallback options, and maybe pick one out for 13F. For the sake of this exercise, say you come to an agreement with Sean Kuraly after watching his tape and seeing that he's still got it, and you decide to dump Eakin and buy out KO, while keeping Lazar for 13F. Then, for 4RW, you decide to add Jordan Martinook. Now the forward group looks like this: xxx - Eichel - Reinhart xxx - xxx - xxx xxx - xxx - Cozens Girgensons - Kuraly - Martinook extra: Lazar. We almost have two lines built. Let's look at line 3 next. You can go a few ways here - do you want another defensive/energy line that can chip in some offense? Or do you want a dynamic offensive line that might not be able to play as good defense, but can feast on worse competition? Some hybrid, something else? Whatever you decide is fine, BUT, you need to put REAL 3RD LINERS on this line. You may decide that we have some we can use (maybe you believe in Skinner, maybe you want Olofsson there). The key here is to NOT use our excess 4th liners in this spot. Let them go. The roster will not be good enough to win if you don't. We are done playing around with this stuff. Potential pool: Choose 2 of Jeff Skinner, Victor Olofsson, Brandon Saad, Tyler Bozak, Mathieu Perreault, Casey Cizikas, Scott Laughton, Alex Iafallo, Mattias Janmark, Blake Coleman, Erik Haula, or a trade piece. For the sake of the exercise, I am going to pretend we have come to an agreement with Scott Laughton, and will keep VO. Also, the reality is that Skinner is stuck here for a while. I'm not saying he's earned this or that he's still good, but I would give him one final 2 month stretch with Jack, without the threat of immediate removal, to see if we can't get some value out of him. If this combined with a new coach does not work, I bury and forget about him forever. So I'm going to write him in next to Jack. I'm also going to shift Sam down a line, just to get something established there. Skinner - Eichel - xxx xxx - xxx - Reinhart Olofsson - Laughton - Cozens Girgensons - Kuraly - Martinook Lazar Now for the top 6. Enough messing around at the center position. FIX it. End of story. When you do this at 2C, 2LW does not need to be a 30 goal guy, he can be an effective middle 6 player that can move up/down the lineup and plays a strong 2way game. Potential 2C candidates: Sign Danault (I know his numbers are down but I still believe he's good, but it doesn't have to be him), RNH is a UFA but no thanks. You may have to make a trade for this. Maybe you pry Schenn out of STL if they hit a cap crunch. Maybe Hertl can be wedged loose from SJS, or Dvorak in Arizona. You may have to take more risk than I initially deemed acceptable here, but if you add Laughton (who is playing excellent this year), and develop Cozens at C the rest of this year, this risk begins to diminish, which is the point. Still, try to make this your strongest move of the offseason, and come out of it with a guy that the consensus will agree is a 2C. I'll pretend that we are able to pool assets together to get Hertl from a rebuilding SJS (Hall fetches a 1 at the deadline maybe, and they like a prospect or two) Potential LW for that line: I'm going to leave it open for now and see what we have at the end. Skinner - Eichel - xxx xxx - Hertl - Reinhart Olofsson - Laughton - Cozens Girgensons - Kuraly - Martinook Lazar The reality is, there is probably going to be a big trade this summer, I'm not sure Reinhart is going to stick around, nor Eichel. If one is moved, I envision a couple of the 3 available open spots we'd have (the two xxxes above, and one of those guys) would be filled by the return. And you still have Mitts, Tage, Asplund, Ruotsalainen, and other available UFAs. You can shift guys around as chemistry and injuries dictate, but sticking with Skinner - Eichel/1C - competent prospect/stylistic mesh/UFA addition competent prospect/stylistic mesh/UFA addition - Hertl - Reinhart/2RW Olofsson - Laughton - Cozens Girgensons - Kuraly - Martinook Lazar or equivalent with different names, gives you 4 established lines that shouldn't be swamped with their usage. On defense, with the emergence of Borgen and Bryson, I think the job is easier. I try to keep McCabe. McCabe - Risto Dahlin - Borgen Bryson - xxx Jokiharju I fire Montour and Miller into the sun, and look for a good player to pair with Bryson (David Savard is a UFA, is he still good?). Add a goalie that is good enough to start for a couple months if Ullmark is out. Maybe that's Raanta. Skinner - Eichel - Tanner Pearson or something Mitts/someone - Hertl - Reinhart Olofsson - Laughton - Cozens Girgensons - Kuraly - Martinook Lazar McCabe - Risto Dahlin - Borgen Bryson - Savard Joki Ullmark Raanta Balance those D pairs, treat them like 3 second pairs. Hire Boudreau and go win some ***** games.

Can you give us a refresher on who this guy was?

Ralph is back on the menu.

Lmao sorry guys. I meant to delete "Other" but deleted Ralph. Hang on

Thread title says it all. What a miserable 10 years it has been. Which name to you brings about the biggest sense of dread, seeds a pit deep in your stomach? It doesn't necessarily have to be the guy you think MOST responsible for the current state of affairs. For me, it's Botterill. The best shot we had to climb out of this was when we won ten games in a row, to surge to a 17-6-2 record in 2018-19. The Sabres had never been more confident, never more ready to finally remove the shackles of expecting to lose, being defined by losing. But they were missing one or two players - they were using a 4th line LW, who could take faceoffs, but would gradually decay to below replacement level, as their 2C. They had a 3rd line that was in a bit over its head. We all saw it and talked about it at the time, we needed a move. Phil knew we needed one too. We never got that move. Not after losing 5 straight post-win-streak, nor after gutting out 3 wins in 4 games after that, including playing the Capitals and Bruins phenomenally tough. Not after the slow crumbling that sent us to the bottom 10 in the league, the only team in NHL history to be in first place after Thanksgiving to miss the playoffs, and we missed them by a ***** MILE. Not one move was made to help a team that had earned it. Jason did the same thing the following year, and this team is now broken beyond repair. Their psyches are shattered, and they can no longer complete basic NHL tasks with any competency. I would have really liked to see where we could go, and where we'd be now, if we had shown that team that we believed in them. But we didn't, and I blame Jason for creating those holes, not addressing them, and then letting them destroy something so good. I've heard a whisper or two that some parties believe Jason really, reeeeeally liked Ralph, and because of this, he wasn't so quick to stem the bleeding as he could have been knowing Ralph would be available. But that is just whispers in the wind - Jason mangled my relationship with this team without them. He completely changed the way I prioritized hockey, and the way I've watched it ever since he came on board. So that's my pick. What is yours?

I would protect them over pretty much any other defenseman, if we had to.

I watched Bryson closely today. Kept waiting for him to make a mistake or get caught out of position. Didn't see anything of the sort. He had several marvelous, high quality NHL level defensive plays to squeeze guys out and get his teammate the puck. He used his legs to get himself out of disadvantageous situations and into advantageous ones. He's a keeper. Seriously impressive, and he's grown so much already in the couple of short weeks he's been around. I don't think a single other player made me feel anything today. Hutton was impressive. If he could play the Pens every game, yaddah yaddah

I see a lot of the armchair psychoanalysis we got in 2018 being applied in a similar fashion on this board to Jack, regarding character/effort/wanting to play here etc. Just as unsubstantiated You'd think being burned so badly the first time would have turned people off from that sort of thing. I'm not talking about criticisms of his play, his leadership abilities, or his time here, but a specific kind of post It's ugly stuff I appreciate Jack for all he's given us and I don't blame him for not being enough, I don't think any single player in the world could have turned this clownshow operation functional. Maybe another player could get us a squeak into the playoffs once or twice in this span, but nothing more. We are broken

No worries, really appreciate you taking the time.

So I'm kinda vindicated on wondering if his weightlifting contributes to his deterioration. Pressing is incredibly hard on your front delt

I've actually never seen probability explicitly converted into "odds" like that so that was kinda cool. I've always just offhand pieced one together from the other (without noticing or establishing the precise distinction). (1 - anything) is one of the most satisfying expressions one can ever write. Very elegant

Because that 1:1023 isn't a fraction of the same thing the "probability" is. 1/1024 is the same thing as that ratio, that ratio says for every 1 time event 1 happens, event 2 happens 1023, event 1 represents 1 out of 1024 total occurrences. My mistake was saying the word odds instead of the word probability, just because of sloppiness with definitions that I wasn't aware of.

I'll take your word for it - statistics always made me wrinkle my nose, and I only touched it if I absolutely had to 😛

If dudacek's plan was enacted this weekend, I would do my best to purchase as many tickets for the rest of the season as possible.

He was very disingenuous. At the time, I compiled a whole bunch of quotes that made him look pretty bad.

Dreger once spent a month telling me the phones were ringing off the wall for Kane, and then after we traded Kane he said that only 1 serious offer was ever made for Kane, and it came like 5 mins before the deadline

I don't know, but apparently they increase as a function of X, Y, and Z, where X is the number of Olofssons on your team, Y is the number of Eichels, and Z is the number of hockey gods you've pissed off

I don't have these stats for this year. I will say that, the previous 2 years suggested that our goalies were helped by our defense, and weren't doing an adequate job on the real shots on goal, the important/dangerous ones that separate goalies into tiers. But our defensive system did enough to hide that

incredible

The odds we miss the playoffs the first year are 1/2, since half the teams make it and half the teams miss it. The odds we miss the first year AND the second year are (1/2) * (1/2), assuming they are uncorrelated events (they aren't, but I lose the ability to give you a number if we assert that they aren't). Similarly, if you flip a coin twice, the probability you get heads first and heads second again is 1/4, or (1/2)*(1/2). Keep up the pattern, for ten years. this gives you (1/2)*(1/2)*...(1/2) (the tenth time), or (1/2)^10

(1/2)^10 = 0.00097 There is almost a 0.1% chance that a team can miss the playoffs 10 straight years in a league where half of them make it every year. This is obv an estimate because in reality not every team has the same resources/competence etc. But if playoffs were decided by coin flips every year that's roughly what the odds of this streak happening are

Hey, can't complain about a freed up Saturday night.

Damn you, Howard Burger

Wasn't sure where to put this, but I thought I'd check in on the NHL production each team has received to date through the pieces exchanged in the BUF-STL trade on July 1 2018. Buffalo has received: 184 games played, 16 goals, 18 assists, 34 points, and a +/- of -47. No trophies that I am aware of, though I think Tage was 5th place in Buffalo Sabres ROTY voting St Louis has received: 179 games played, 48 goals, 116 assists, 164 points, a +/- of +43, along with a Selke and Conn Smythe trophy added to their trophy case (along with what the latter implies) No pressure, Ryan Johnson!

@john wawrow I know it's your prerogative what questions you ask when it's time for press conferences, so please just take this as a humble request that I understand if you cannot or don't feel like fulfilling. A lot of Sabres fans just get so confused about why we don't do any meaningful experimentation or changes during massive stretches of meaningless hockey. 3 straight years now, we've had a ~2+ month stretch where we know we have no shot, and almost all of those years it has been the case that we were doing okay-to-very good, but then went on a several month long free fall with no actions taken to stem it, be it trades or firings or anything else. We want to know why they don't use this time to learn and establish new things. It is quite likely IMO that 2 of those seasons include riding it out with coaches that they plan on firing. Why not hire a guy now (between Boudreau, Gallant, Julien, you have THREE established coaches with a boatload of wins that could use this time as a very unique 2 month long training camp and boot camp for their system) to give fans hope and establish things, instead of waiting til the offseason and then having another "establishing and evaluation" kind of season next year? I understand money is tight right now, but this pattern isn't new, and I wonder if the Pegulas or our GMs have even thought of this as an idea, since they don't seem to mind letting these ungodly situations fester for ludicrously long times. They could extract value from the next two months, but once again, we all fear that that time will be wasted and relegated to the dustbin of history. Much appreciated either way, John.