Randall Flagg

The tenor of these players suggests it wasn't to "get their attention"

Players also saying that the dude kicks, and hits his skaters in the head, while on the bench. I regret ever saying nice words about the guy if these stories are true. If they are, he's a psycho and an idiot

This probably isn't the right thread for fun random user-created trades, but I'm not sure which one is. Sorry! Trying to fix the skill problems, with emphasis on what the toughness posters want to improve as well. Casey Mittelstadt, prospect for Josh Anderson from Columbus Rasmus Ristolainen, Sam Reinhart, Victor Olofsson, 2nd rounder for Matt Tkachuk, Sam Bennett Vesey for a pick Miller (sorry True!), Thompson, Sheary, 2nd rounder for Stastny, Reaves, Carrier Skinner - Eichel - Bennett Johansson - Stastny - Tkachuk Carrier - Asplund - Anderson Zemgus - Larry - Reaves Dahlin - Montour Scandella - Jokiharju McCabe - Bogosian Cozens moves Asplund down a line next year. Yah I know this is silly

There appears to be something more, though - something to do with when they pulled him.

When you see stars of the week, or month, or watch/listen to an NHL-centric show, you regularly hear about star players going on streaks of a lot of points in a small amount of games. Invariably this corresponds with their teams winning a lot of hockey games. If a good team is scoring normally except their star is doubling his usual rate, well, look for 10 wins in 12 games, stuff like that. It doesn't work that way for Jack. 11 points in his last 6? Team is 2-4, only creating 4 goals without his hand in that span. 134 point pace for four weeks last December? team wins 4 of 13, scores 12 goals without Jack's help. 97 point pace after injury recovery last season, over probably 6 or 7 weeks? Team wins 7 of 20. Not counting that many goals, sorry! It must be frustrating.

I only glanced at the 3rd period, with the volume off. Can someone describe the Hutton thing to me in detail?

Eichel is an elite offensive talent. If you are within the top 2% of something in you entire field, which he is among NHL forwards with at least 5 games played this year, you are elite. If you take a few years together, that percentage shrinks. Elite offensive production given the fact that he's the ONLY danger that other teams need to focus on, and given his surroundings compared to those of the players around him in that ranking. I love Reinhart - not as much as I love one of Kucherov/Point/Stamkos, one of Crosby/Malkin/Guentzel, one of McDavid/Draisaitl, one of Kane/Toews/Debrincat, one of Matthews/Marner/Nylander/Tavares, etc. Eichel is obviously NOT good defensively. He just doesn't know where to go when, or what to do when he gets there. He is not worse than prime, in the middle of cup winning, Patrick Kane in the defensive zone, who was almost exactly as effective offensively as Jack relative to his peers at the time. Kane benefited from the Hawks being more than competent around him, where Eichel lost his Toews, and doesn't have a Hossa, Keith, Seabrook, Crawford etc. I'm comfortable using the elite word on Jack. I've seen a player with this offensive talent be the best player on a cup team. But the rest of the team is sorely lacking, and he's not of the superstar tier that can hide that stuff even a little bit. Which is what you'd want from tanking. But it's not Jack's fault we tanked for him.

I ask him where Jason is on the trade front - this team is still some injury luck and the RIGHT good trade away from exciting March hockey and a just-miss of the playoffs, with things pointing in the right direction and fans feeling good. If Jason's hands are tied and everyone knows he's backed into a corner and so won't give him anything of value, since they don't have to, it's time to move on from Jason, as it's unforgivable to have this roster right now with no way out, and with teams actively trying to keep us here, using our own situation as leverage against us. That's just never an acceptable situation to blunder yourself into. However, if things are moving and I like the sound of what's coming, I'd tell him to let that play out, and then judge where the team is at the end of the season. Either way, I'd suggest finding a hockey czar that has a track record of success and knowledge, and hiring him above Jason to oversee things, telling Jason that as long as this team isn't spinning in mud and is moving in the right direction, he has nothing to worry about - that it's simply a move that should have happened 9 years ago. The Bills' front office has a LOT of very good names in scouting and management fields. It's LARGE and it's well-defined, everyone knows their exact role. Sean and Brandon expect continual growth and demonstrated results, and everyone holds to that. I recall reading posts from knowledgeable football people on TBD, and articles written by sports journalists, that highlight how the Bills' front office is ideally put together. Even though there's not some football president, the sheer scope of the operation and the fact that they have it all covered with competence and interdependence has led to NFL stability rare for most franchises, certainly including ours. It has allowed them to routinely move in new team leaders, avoid embarrassing off field stuff, regularly shuffle in successful late round picks, and develop their own players. There has been meaningful, observable growth in nearly every important young player and draft pick. The culture Sean and Brandon have created is applied to all members of the organization, including themselves, and works well. Sean is far from perfect, but even the biggest skeptics can admit that he's gotten better about things like 4th down decisions. He's won his last two challenges as well. All they ask for is a little improvement every day, and they do their best to make sure it happens with them too. This is so important in the NFL because 16 games creates unheard of levels of importance and clutch/choke opportunities in ways we don't even think about, ways that don't compare to hockey. This level of importance makes it so that most teams are a mess, even when they're good. we may not yet be good, but we're not a mess. The only team that is both elite in players and not a mess is probably New England. A few teams join them every year, but don't stay for more than a couple. They are so obviously trying to create their own New England. It's not near complete, and it could easily fail, but it's working so far in these early stages, and is fun to watch. It helps that Russ Brandon is gone. The Sabres like to talk the talk w.r.t. unifying messages, but they flagrantly violate their own terms with regularity, which erodes the trust in the process on the players' end. They couple this with demonstrably poor player evaluation. They've shown little evidence that they understand their own problems, much less know how to address them. Ralph is probably fine, I don't think any less of him than I did when he was hired (though I don't think more yet either). They likely need an entire front office overhaul and restructuring. I don't know the details of their coaching staff behind Ralph, of their pro and amateur scouting, their development team, but the sum of them doesn't work. I'd tell Pegula that the first way to start is to do what Toronto did with Shanahan. Find somebody who knows something about hockey, and have THEM make the next move. You obviously don't know enough, and that's not a big deal - none of us would either. He doesn't need to sell the team if he can find this czar. If he insists on being THE ultimate say in hockey stuff, then I'd prefer he find someone he knows is intent on keeping the Sabres here forever, and selling it to them, but that's not a comfortable thing to assume, and so I'd rather he just find the right czar and chill out in Florida, only thinking about how fun it'll be to watch his team, rather than pretending he knows how to fix things and trying to act on that

I'd definitely say so. I believe over an extended (5 years) period of time, he's top 5 in the NHL in points, and is an effective defensive player (not so much the last year and a half, but overall) and incredible on the penalty kill, a part of stifling units, and with the most shorthanded goals/points of anyone in the league in that span.

This team took its first meaningful gash out of me on July 1st, 2018. I believed so little in their direction, or talent identification abilities, that I lost something that day, which hasn't been regained since. Hitting the ice this October with this roster made it worse. Tonight was another big leap. I've spent less time on anything hockey related, be it our Sabres, watching other NHL teams, or just playing in the driveway, than any other span since fifth grade when the lockout ended and I got my first taste. I've taken that time and put it into another sport, that captured my attention a hair earlier than hockey, but didn't do a good job of holding it, because of the Bills' incompetence. The teams' roles are decidedly reversed from the positions they were in for most of my fanhood, and it's actually been that way for a few years now. This isn't crowning the Bills - I've seen two successful Sabres seasons in my life, the first two. Since then has been a whole lot of nothing. But man, that game is beautiful too, and there's a LOT more that goes into it tactically, making it fascinating, all while being completely accessible if you put in the work. I'm enjoying this slow learning process immensely. It helps that every inch of their organization is on the same page, and that the book it's in makes sense to me. Every step of the way, this regime in Orchard Park has told me exactly what is coming, and the results have been slightly better than expected. I expected 7 wins their first year, got 9 and a surprise drought end. I understood the dead money situation the following year, why it was happening, because they straight up told me. I accepted it on the condition that things wouldn't be derailed and that immediate steps would be taken in the right direction upon its conclusion, with appropriate player development and continued drafting success. I expected about 3 wins, and got 6 - in fact, the Bills STILL wound up drafting in a lower slot than any Sabre team has since 2012, despite their situation. Impressive as hell, to be honest. And this season I wanted 7-9 wins with development from all the important players. We got to the median of that spread before we played our last November game. Their QB, who looked far different in December 2018 than September 2018, again looks far different as we approach December 2019. There are plenty flaws and a long way to go - and yet, who would have seen coming the best passer rating in the NFL in both the fourth quarter, and on any pass between 10-20 yards down the field, coupled with as many passing TDs as brady (with 6 more rushing ones), the 3rd most total TDs in the AFC, a 14-1 total TD/INT split since New England, and the best conversion rate of 3rd and 8+ yards in the NFL on pass attempts? Not me, I hated this kid going into the draft. I'm seeing what they promised me, and I'm seeing it sooner than I would have allowed for. I'm seeing it in Tremaine, in Tredavious. I'm seeing it in 5th round STUD Matt Milano. Undrafted Levi Wallace. Late rounders Siran Neal and Taron Johnson, controlling the slot, blowing up screens. Guys added late in drafts or after the draft, contributing immediately, growing obviously. UFA additions like Hyde, Poyer, John Brown, Andre Roberts, Feliciano, all doing their parts, big and small. A swiftly rebuilt line (identifying and attacking an area of need, all in one offseason) getting better by the week, putting out a STUNNING performance this Sunday against a no nonsense Denver DL. A firmly established culture doing it's job, so that we are a model of a franchise when compared to most of our opponents week in and week out, even if those opponents are capable of out-talenting us RIGHT NOW. I can see this playing out in real time, and I can see how quickly it has the potential to create something great. 90 mil in cap space this offseason, and a draft loaded in our roster hole positions. Cap guru? I'll show you a cap guru. I would encourage people frustrated with the Sabres, long-past following the Bills, to give the Bills another chance. They're not ready to go win road playoff games yet (they'd have a chance if they get in this year) and they might not get in this year. But they're a franchise that doesn't frustrate the ever-loving-***** out of you, and they tell you what they're doing and why they're doing it, and anyone who is honest with themselves and watches other teams can see why they're choosing to do it this way. I've felt sports feelings that I've not felt in a long time with this Bills team. They're great guys, and fun to watch learn in real time. I was at the Denver game, and spent the whole time bathing in nostalgia and reflection. The weather was so similar to my first games as a youngster, brimming with misplaced hope and optimism, not understanding how bad our roster and management was. I wish I could go back in time and show that kid what this 8-3 victory felt like in attendance, while thinking of him. Then I realized how stupid that is, when I could just BE that kid again. Who knows if McBeane work out, and they certainly have a lot of work to do on themselves (offensive talent evaluation, game clock management, cough cough), but if you are pining for a team with a direction, a plan, and with a scrappy attitude that consistently brings more wins than expected (and 43 passing TDs allowed in 43 games? um holy ***** Sean you absolute freak) there's one that would love your support this Thursday. The Sabres? This team is lost. They don't deserve the effort, attention, care, and time we've all put in. They don't couple their flaws to brilliant talent evaluation in any one spot, or infectious attitude, relentless effort. They cobble together a squad of poor saps who could individually be a part of any great team, but who together don't make any sense and never did to anyone being honest with themselves. They combine the most obvious and boring cliches and mottos with a tendency to avoid following them in practice, preaching change and giving us the same Risto treatment we saw 5 years ago, the same scoring issues we've lamented since the end of the tank, the same fake-accountability for some players and not others, the same inability to develop any player other than what little development the player can scrape together on their own. Whatever you think the importance of grit, or talent - it doesn't matter because we ALL agree that the team has neither in any meaningful quantity. They compound a crippling, talent-gutting mistake with an unfair, development-stunting mistake, and then go a year and a half without touching the situation after that. They have let some of the most toxic roster-construction-driven situations I've ever seen a hockey team have, between last year's collapse, the previous year's entirety, and whatever this is, go without doing anything more than trading for Scott Wilson, and then for a defenseman that they're using as a 4RW for 10 minutes per night after a few injuries, only one of which was to a remotely important player in Johansson. It is sickening. Imagine staring at a growing hole in your tooth, a festering cavity, and deciding that you'll go see the chiropractor about it sometime next July, or maybe August, or maybe you'll just hit October and see what it looks like then. We've purged ONE player from this organization who was skating in games while we won just one of about 23 games in March! ONE! They're all still here! Nobody lets rot continue to rot like Jason Botterill. His finger is on the pulse of this team - he just doens't care that it spent a year dead, then came alive, and then died sometime around January 2019 for good. There's no way he doesn't see that stuff. He was just okay with his creation. All of this, all of Jason's bizarre obsession with getting Krueger here, glowing as if it was all we've needed this whole time, all of the "roster surgery" BS, the garbage depth forwards, the way too many defensemen and not utilizing them at all to do what we've wanted to see done to Risto's minutes just to help the poor guy out anyway, all of the tanking and losing and high picks who are actually good players but can't hope to save this thing, all of this combines to give us.... what amounts to another Lucic moment. Thanks Sabres. From top to bottom, you are a ***** joke. You are a sick, flailing, shadow of an NHL franchise, of the franchise you used to be. I feel zero ill will towards any of these players. Even my whipping boy Sobotka. I feel sorry for all of them. None of them asked for this, and none of them could come within a million miles of being able to change it on their own. Yes, not even captain Jack. It's that bad. It was always going to be that bad, too, with the roster decisions that have been made in the last three years. Jason doesn't know what a good forward is. He just doesn't. If Skinner doesn't have that fluke NTC request, where the ***** are we? Picture that. Because he got lucky, and would have been okay with his decisions had that not happened. And Pegula, the man who started off justifying the hire with the fact that Jason won a WJC as a player, has no idea what a good GM is, and I'm not sure he wants to, given the consecutive rookie hires with nobody in between them and him. Cody Hodgson won a WJC gold too. Is he up next? Where is the fix for what ails this team coming from, and when? Nobody can give a serious answer to that. They can only guess. And while maybe a year and a half ago the guesses were flowing readily in response to "negative nancies" with "bad attitudes", guesses emphatic in their belief in the team they love, these guesses are now far less forgiving, far less convinced, far less optimistic, as each day goes by.

Botterill told us this summer that he was okay trading D for a F because he liked our depth. He said that if he had to play Fitzgerald or Borgen in the NHL due to injuries, that would be fine and wouldn't stop him from making a move. There is a glut of like 6 guys insulating them at this point, and he's still talking about "retaining depth for November." Things aren't consistent Apologies to PA and the rest of Team Stormcloud. I was on your side back then. But I felt this hard tonight.

It really boils down to this. This makes everything Jason has said and done make sense. They don't think they're "ready" yet, whatever that means. And no franchise wins without being hell-bent on doing so, letting that desire drive every individual decision, from top to bottom.

I wanted to find a way to bring that guy here so bad this summer

In two straight seasons Jason has been content to let desperate, alarming "situations and scenarios" like this one fester for indefinite amounts of time.

By the way, is Johansson playing soon, or is this a classic Sabres "we expect him back maybe next week"-turned-8 week absence?

To be fair, Buffalo's inability to discern between a Johan Larsson and Vlad Sobotka, or a John Gilmour and a Casey Nelson, is also ever-prevalent, and makes a difference in games, even if on a smaller scale than the big boys. On a forum that covers the most minute details of a hockey season, the rancor that meets discussions of a potentially non-ideal waiver situation as a small but existent ripple effect from a poor roster construction and offseason is also surprising. Over the years, I've read literally hundreds of posts complaining about Casey Nelson. To accept that it's silly to talk about this on a forum that provides this level of discussion, I would also demand assurance that, should GIlmour have been claimed, I wouldn't see a single complaint about the inevitable use of Nelson or whatever depth defenseman we'd have gotten to eventually in his place. This is obviously unrealistic, because people will obviously complain about mediocre hockey, which I think is a good barometer for the fact that this discussion is reasonable/valid.

It's a shame there's so much at stake with a player who has a demonstrable recent history of missing a lot of time - his last season without a significant injury was when Bylsma was still here And FWIW we lost the last 5 games he appeared in

It's not as egregious when Johansson is healthy and when Jack and Sam are winning their line matchups (which is more common over the last few weeks than the first few). I still want Jack-Jeff, of course.

It's amazing how the Gilmour discussion can be miscast within 24 hours, to be honest.

A month and a half ago I'd be nodding my head at the lineup and saying "that makes sense." That was when I was assuming Scandy was the same player as last year, and Joki was the player I thought I saw in training camp. Now that they've made up what has to be unarguably our best defensive pairing to date...

I agree that it ALWAYS takes two to tango, and you can never be sure opportunities were there. But I give far more leniency to GMs for not making a move to help the team when things have, on balance, gone well, versus when we may be on a crash course for 3/3 seasons being unacceptable in outcome. There comes a point where a GM earns perhaps even unrealistic expectations on a given offseason or for a given roster move, even if they're "unfair" in a vacuum, because he has contributed enough to the problems in the first place. That point is usually very close to their termination. ie, yeah, it's hard to trade for a 2C and most offseasons you can't. But when you're willing to dump yours for Sobotka, Tage, Berglund, a first rounder that can't be in an enticing position due to lottery protection, and a 2nd rounder 3 years out, you had better damn well be the guy to find a way.

Put another way, when I see "OH! Zach Bogosian is back and ready to play NHL hockey for the Buffalo Sabres, in addition to benching Scandella or Miller already out of sheer volume. So we have to waive John Gilmour" I don't think "wow our GM is savvy", or even "meh I couldn't care less," I think "what on earth are we doing, what is the plan here?"

Are we keeping all of these defensemen? It sure doesn't sound like it. If one of these trades goes down, then we're a better team for having one more player between us and Nelson. If we make a move, then we should have made it before we came into camp with no forwards and 10 NHL defensemen. Or before our forward roster ever got to this point in the first place. The fact remains that it's a tiny, not super significant, but still existent consequence of something bigger about Botterill's roster construction that deserves the scrutiny it gets, and so it's with that perspective that the move will be talked about. Even if that move is waiving the 7D. Because details matter

He could also be looking at it from a lens of bending your decisions around the presence of Bogosian's play and availability over the last few years for some bizarre reason. But I've also watched enough Falk, Nelson (who I don't hate as much as others do), Antipin to be upset if Gilmour does get claimed. Not ranting upset, but like, "basic roster competence would have made it so this didn't have to happen" upset Belichick doesn't shrug off fringe roster moves, or allow them to make his team even a fraction of a millimeter worse, and neither should we

Typo on that Granlund AAV?