Randall Flagg

If the Sabres added Sean Monahan, there is almost nothing that would dampen my immediate spirits. But if the Sabres add Monahan, there is a massive pile of assets missing. We are likely not making picks in our next draft, or missing a lot of them and Reinhart, something like that. And Monahan is genuinely flawed such that a large portion of our other forward moves need to be cognizant of it. We can win games and be dangerous, but we could also quite easily max out in a way comparable to Toronto since 2016 He can be an offensive passenger a la Skinner, struggling to create much of anything on his own with worse defensive abilities at a more important defensive position, when things aren't going well Again, I'd be too happy to care in the moment, but they'd need to be careful and smart with their other moves, with a severely diminished asset pool, is all

His reputation/value versus overall impact would mean giving up a lot of stuff and still having critical problems in the forward corps....UNLESS we build two rock solid defensive lines

I only want Monahan if we can build two rock solid defensive lines below Eich and Sean Like, keep Larry and add Copp or Bonino or something

That's what I appreciates about yous

Not in favor of Brassard, by save I mean "besides these two" I know Hertl blew up a knee or whatever but damn he and Samson would be amazing together

Also, Copp and Beauvillier would be pretty nice adds. Not to SOLVE the 2C/top 6 problem, but if we proceed down the smart, solid depth route. Skinner - Eichel - Beauvillier Olofsson - Bonino/Stepan/Henrique - Reinhart Kahun - Copp - Johansson Smart - 4th Line with - Okposo here Is pretty decent, though I agree that I don't want to lose both RHDs for those guys, I think you could get them for less

Not big on Brodie in the last ~3 or so years. Everything I've seen and read indicates he's pretty bad when not with Giordano now. It's a good idea to be thinking about defensemen though, depending on how the forward moves play out. I still think Ian Cole could perfectly replace what we were doing with Scandella last year, and would be downright easy to get from Colorado for nothing, because they have so many good young D ready to jump in, and Cole's cap is a little annoying. There's always a chance he's ready to flop right this second, but if he's got one more solid year in him, if you wind up losing one of the extra RHDs, Cole probably brings this roster more next year than a Montour did last year, and in a style that was missing once Scandella was gone (PK, d-zone staple), with convenient handedness Warning: this is the type of player I get wrong more than any other, from how down I was on Scandella before last year, to how high I was on that Dallas UFA whose name I can't even remember now, who went to Minnesota a year or two ago

Save Turris and Brassard if we were able to acquire some combination of the remaining names to improve TWO center positions this offseason, and if goaltending is average, we are fighting for home ice next season.i will not allow myself to get my hopes up for an offseason like this

If we cant get a stud center with a pile of assets this summer, I'd move a pile of assets for Boeser and then small assets for a Stepan or Henrique. Skinner - Eichel - Boeser Olofsson - Stepan - Reinhart Johansson - Kahun - Cozens Would be a good hockey team Canucks fans I've read are pissed all the NTCs and cap space have gone go crappy roster filler

Plenty of his peers will not have his processing speed issues, which are generally killer for prospects, even though those peers haven't "made it" as far along the curve as Tage has, if you can call Botts' handling of him as him making it And so I'd take plenty of them over Tage even if they haven't made the chel yet

We only know Tage to be a bad NHLer. We don't know that about those peers

Whether it's Dudley or someone else, I think we'd all just be relieved to have a talent evaluator with credible evidence of NHL results. That isn't to say that the Sabres can't build something good without this, or such that it exists but we don't know about it, but I think an optically pleasant offseason of front-office additions would do wonders for the board's optimism when the pucks are flying again, and certainly wouldn't harm the Sabres' prospects for next year

I'd definitely do that deal.

Tage will be 23 before he skates in his next pro hockey game. How does this make us feel

A Lance error! I don't blame him because of how little impact MDC has had

"all possible centers that meet the criteria" means I'm describing the floor and everything above the floor

Something that stuck with me from the Dudley story in the Buffalo News: "I think (Dudley's) one of the great talent evaluators of our era," said Brian Burke, former NHL general manager. "I’ve drafted some really good players, but I usually have to see a player two, three or four times before I’m convinced. Rick Dudley can watch a kid for one period. ... I remember watching a summer camp with him in Toronto. It was (New York Islanders defenseman) Michael Dal Colle's draft year. We watched two periods and I said, 'Who do you like? He circled five names out of the 35 or 40 kids on the ice. All five were first rounders a year later and this was before the central scouting list for that draft year came out." https://buffalonews.com/news/rick-dudleys-hybrid-scouting-model-in-carolina-could-be-option-for-sabres/article_8023a4cb-b40b-53ec-b835-ccf13cb0cd3a.html

I will include all possible centers that meet this criteria for me, no particular order: Elias Pettersson, Brayden Point, Nathan MacKinnon, Auston Matthews, Connor McDavid, Patrice Bergeron, Leon Draisaitl, Anthony Cirelli, Ryan O'Reilly, Sean Couturier, Steven Stamkos, Mark Scheifele, Nazem Kadri (yes, he's good), Max Domi, Dylan Larkin, Anze Kopitar & Toews (though I wouldn't actually pursue them cuz contracts/age), Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby, Bo Horvat, Tomas Hertl, maybe Couture (has he fallen off?), Tyler Seguin, John Tavares, Claude Giroux, Nick Backstrom, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Mika Zibanejad, William Karlsson, Mathew Barzal, Sebastian Aho, PL Dubois, Nico Hischier, Elias Lindholm, Sean Monahan, Brayden Schenn, Robert Thomas, Aleksander Barkov RNH would be the threshold, anything above him really. Obviously 96% of those guys are untouchable, which is why this is a difficult thing to do. I'd say one, mayyyyyyyybe two of those skaters have greater than a 2% chance of moving this summer and if they do we need to be the ones to get them It's also possible that the braintrust uncovers a young player that flourishes in a new role, and avoids having to give up the eighth pick. Maybe Adam Gaudette or someone like that. That type of move would go into the other category for now though.

If this happens, I will have more trust in the Sabres' front office than I have had at any point since 2010. There is a fair bit of evidence that Dudley is a tremendous evaluator of hockey talent at all levels.

The ROR trade absolutely should have been made. He is a Selke and Conn Smythe caliber player, and we gave up a bunch of mediocrity for him. There is a whole lot of garbage in the list of things given away, no genuinely good NHLers aside from a year of McNabb, and no guarantee that we would have taken those prospects anyway. Especially considering Cernak was taken by an organization that we didn't trade the pick to?

I see two realistic paths of change this summer. Both assume we can get either better play from Hutton, or a closer-to-average backup, bringing our goaltending to near average and hopefully not playing a major role in the season (unless in a surprisingly good way, but I'm picturing more like the goaltending the Canes got the last 2 years) Path one has a 2C trade with the excitement level of the first ROR trade. It likely sends pick 8 out, and more. It fills the biggest hole in our roster, and leaves a diminished asset pool that limits what we can do elsewhere. There won't be enough assets available post-trade to do anything more than grab a Vesey or two. But nailing those depth picks becomes less important, because Skinner - Eichel - Cozens/someone Olofsson - electric 2C - Reinhart Johansson - Kahun - kid/Vesey-type addition Lazar/GIrgensons - Larsson/UFA/Asplund - Okposo Dahlin - Miller McCabe/vet addition - Risto kid - Jokiharju Ullmark hopefully backup upgrade The cap available for the vet additions to fill in the bottom 6 and a defensive spot likely mean that 3-4 forwards are fairly weak, and that our defense isn't as good as it was last year, but the ability for 2C to play the role properly gives this roster a real shot, and gives Cozens, Mitts, Tage a chance to really be sheltered or protected by their role, and still give upside for Kahun and Olofsson in particular. The ceiling for this roster is fighting for home ice in the playoffs, which means anything is possible beyond that. It's going to be tough to find that trade. Path two involves finding a 2C, but one that won't break out the champagne for a celebration. Think Stepan, Henrique as a best case scenario, Strome or a Faksa level player as a worst case scenario. This likely keeps 8th overall in the organization this year, which isn't nothing. It also leaves other assets available to go after real depth. This is in theory easier than finding the 2C trade, though the path feels dangerous because of our abysmal track record of finding above-replacement-value depth forwards. Assuming they can do it though, you're looking at a roster like Skinner - Eichel - Cozens Olofsson - Stepan - Reinhart Johansson - Kahun - solid 3rd liner (Copp?) Zemgus - Larry - Kyle, or the equivalent of a GOOD fourth line, one that can go + 8 in tough minutes like Larry/Zemgus did if they price themselves out. Kids, Lazar as depth Dahlin - Miller Cole - Risto good vet - Jokiharju McCabe/Kids goalies In this case, we have more cap and assets to put something together for forward depth and can maintain a balanced defense group with real depth as well. In the first case, an injury to the forwards means there is nothing behind them, and we are stuck watching something like we saw in 15-16's best forward production. Not horrid, but nowhere near good enough to be the focal point of the roster, which the move is intended for. Similarly, their defense is weak in depth and doesn't have a proper distribution of roles. Injuries could ravage this team and make them indistinguishable from the 15-17 Sabres. If things go fairly well on that front, I see that team being able to go +14 on line 1 +10 on line 2 ~even on line 3 -4 on line 4 For a goal differential in line with a 3 seed in an average division, ~10th in the league. In the latter scenario, injuries become less of a problem unless they hit one specific player. we sacrifice line two performance to upgrade the contributions of the ones below it, and I can see something like +14 +1 +1 +2 potentially giving similar results. On the back end, Ian Cole gives you the ugly-but-necessary Scandella role that nobody is really good at on our current roster, someone else to give Joki the stability that Scandy did, and also likely helping the PK. On special teams, PP1 is likely the same while PP2 suffers compared to the first scenario. There are trade offs for each scenario, and the harder one depends on whether or not finding genuinely good depth, a rarity in Buffalo, is actually easier than making a hard trade for a 2C. It might not be. But I could feasibly be happy with a milquetoast 2C if genuine forward depth is brought in, and we can build a bottom six like Mojo - Kahun - Copp Faksa - Larsson - Okposo Reaves or something, giving appropriate insulation/more time in development for the kids, ensuring they ONLY make the team if it's plainly obvious theyre ready

What the Patriots did was annoying, and against rules, but the footage they got is available to anyone inclined to purchase All-22, if I remember correctly. I'm good with the punishment. Cam's body was obliterated by the NFL. He was so fun to watch, but there's a reason he has lost his last 8 starts. He's not good anymore

Just dress up the deal. Losing guys like Tage or a defensive prospect is not going to materially harm us going forward. Make it sting a little, anything to get the piece that will make all the difference to our immediate future and ripple forward in time to pull us out of this rut

That being said, I like that offersheet idea too. Scared Tampa would match and find a way to make salaries work, and move other players or Cirelli to other teams after getting pissed off at us

Because Risto and Thompson and Johnson don't possess the trade value you think they do/calling them 1st rounders implies And Mitts, for that matter Something like Montour (I assume tampa doesn't want Risto), Ryan Johnson, Tage, Mitts, a crappy forward (I did forget about Kahun, let's not include him), and the 8th overall pick is definitely worth giving up for a young lad on an ELC that is going to be a Selke finalist in a position of need with all of the immeasurable boxes in terms of desirable play style checked I don't care where those players were taken 3, 4, 7 years ago, their value has changed