Randall Flagg

I held out hope anyway since they're the team that brought in Dan Girardi a couple years back.

I like Marcel a lot better than Rodak so far. He seems, like, enthusiastic to do his job, and it makes his content good. Go figure!

William's surface stats last year are 100% a reflection of bad bounces and jumping into a season after not playing hockey for 8 months, while everyone else was in midseason mode. He was back to dominating the puck by the end of it. He maximizes Matthews more than any other winger on the team. He's got a sort of "attitude" issue that nobody can concretely define and point to objective evidence of, but it's the kind of thing that makes a coach like Babcock angry. Drouin has it too though, and in Willy's case, the fact that he owns the puck and funnels dangerous chances into the other goalie's mouth is worth it. Drouin is less capable of positively affecting his entire team's play, and is more of a puck-hog, one-shot-and-done off the rush kind of player. There were blue checkmark reports at the deadline that they were among the most interested in Rasmus IIRC.

My dreams have been shattered Offersheet Cirelli next offseason for the love of god

Drouin's sucks more because he's a substantially worse hockey player than Willy

But what if he looks at Steven Money Stamkos, or John Money Tavares, or Sidney Money Crosby, or Patrick Money Kane, or Jonathan Money Toews? What Jack and Connor did, term-wise, is pretty rare.

I was going to say "replace Sheary with Vesey maybe" but man do those players occupy the same space in my head as meh scoring depth that I don't really like. If I was GM, one of those guys, fine, but no way would I have both in the lineup in October

For the cap (which is what you're referring to), yeah. For playoff contention? I hope he understands that it is.

My heart

I think Jason is going to trade for someone, but i'm not sure if it will be a 2C or a top six winger. Wasn't it said by the Friedmans etc. earlier this offseason that another top six forward, preferably 2C, was high priority on his list? We still have the trade pieces, we have too many players, and we know what all of our players cost now, so I think it's a matter of when, not if.

I'd love to add Toffoli.

For the record, I would prefer keeping McCabe to Nelson too, though I think True was just illustrating how little he wants to give McCabe near what he asked for. And if we actually tried to emulate the Bruins or Blues, it would be another 3 or 4 years of rebuilding. This roster ain't close to that style of hockey. I'd prefer trying to do the best with what we have, and building on our strengths, that's really the way you win cups. The Pens didn't copy the Kings, the Kings didn't copy the Hawks. The Caps didn't copy anyone either. The Blues are like the Kings, except they're not, because they prioritize shot quality rather than shot quantity offensively. We need to find the thing that WE can be with Eichel, Reinhart, Skinner, Dahlin etc. It's probably not Blues/Bruins style hockey, but it doesn't have to be. This also doesn't preclude your and others' desire to see a bit more "sandpaper." I struggle to really identify Boston's style - I see things in all three zones that don't speak to "big and mean" or "small and skilled" but rather "team play honed over 6+ years of being together and doing the same things." I see a team that has some high end skill, but more importantly, very good structure that allows players to know where their teammates are and where they are going without having to think about it.

Like little Taylor Fedun, a Sabre castaway who's never checked a fly and found success (for a depth D) in 50+ games with a playoff caliber team in Dallas? Joakim Ryan on San Jose? Is he particularly gritty? Dean Kukan played the seventh-most games for Columbus defensemen and was just over a half a hit per game. I know nothing about his playstyle, but I highly doubt it's extra gritty. Hayden Fleury in Carolina, Igor Ozhiganov in Toronto, Christian Djoos or Madison Bowey in Washington, are any of these guys substantially grittier than Nelson? Are any of them substantially better hockey players? I'd definitely say that Djoos or Bowey are better, but they seem as soft as they come in my limited viewings. These are all successful teams this past season. I don't think it's that big of a deal that Nelson isn't super physical (though in general I don't turn away from people who want the Sabres to include more physicality in their game the way others may), and I can actually be convinced that your depth forwards/D are like backup NFL QBs - you want them to have a similar play style to the guy that starts, to have their strengths match those of your team, so that if they have to play, it's less of a wrench in the overall plan. Of course they won't be as good, but chucking Roman Polak into the Pittsburgh Penguins' defense when injuries hit is probably not as good of an idea as it would be with the St. Louis defense. And our defense is being built with a pretty clear emphasis on the thing that Casey is actually good at.

I have 24 straight hours of a house to myself, no responsibilities, and no family/friends available to hang out with. I'm dying to spend that time on a hockey post, but I might have to go be productive instead (firewood has to be split and in the garage before I go back to OK), since nothing of note has happened yet. The freedom is nice. However, a miracle would involve the big trade happening sometime in the next couple hours

I think you can make a similar list of problems for 95% of the 7-8D in the NHL, so perhaps people just don't see value in dumping him and assuming his place will be taken by someone better. He is a good puck distributor, which fits in with the blue line build.

That's pretty interesting. It's been said here that coaches probably shouldn't ever show their teams charts and metrics and stuff, and I completely agree with that. If you feel you have a problem from something analytics is telling you, diagnose how it manifests, and fix it by being a hockey coach.

Likely true, but at the same time Sobotka was far more detrimental to the 18-19 season than Elie. Tennyson was probably our worst player overall though.

I agree with that! Botterill has done exactly one thing this offseason that I didn't either like or love, and that was the Vesey trade, which still isn't bad to me, just meh.

https://hockey-graphs.com/2016/03/04/quantifying-the-importance-of-handedness/

I don't think Darcy would have done that, and that's not an argument - it's an unknowable, unconvincing claim. Tanev, Girard, Compher have all shown more in the NHL than any of our guys. Sundqvist wouldn't have gotten that had he not played a key role on a cup winning team while substantially bumping up his production this year. I can agree that Botterill tends to prefer 1 or 2 year contracts for all of his players not named Skinner or Eichel. I'm not sure why, and wish it wasn't the case, that this list includes Sam Reinhart. The bold isn't something that you can claim is a solely good (or solely bad) thing. He kind of did it with Eichel, though. Jack had never scored sixty points upon signing what was one of the top 5 largest contracts in NHL history at the time, no? And in any event, that's not the sentiment I was objecting to - I don't see any of this as pointing to some unique and good GM quality best described as "hardball with the lower guys on a bad team," the way you originally described it. I think he's applying common sense to the players he has, in the contract situations they're all in at the same time. The metanarrative in that isn't really compelling. And if it was true, I don't think I like it. I don't want him treating a guy like Larry or Rodrigues, each of whom is not the problem and does their job well, as if their role on the team is relatively unimportant and implicitly saying that the reason the team is where it is is because of that - this comes from the "on a bad team" part of what you said. That's irrelevant to what an individual hockey player brings to the table. Of course, given what Jason has shown us in two years, especially in what he appears to see in his pro-talent evaluation of depth forwards, this wouldn't be surprising at all, just like our collapse this year wasn't surprising at all

I read some article showing that analytics indicate playing guys on their off hand is a horrible thing to ever do

Which of those guys would have been given term by other GMs? Those players all reek of arbitration QOs, and any of us would have said so at any point last season. I recognized at the time that my desire to give ERod term was not a common opinion And the Sissons deal was weird or quirky to every single fan and analyst I've seen discuss it to this point. I think you want that to be the sentiment for the guy in charge of our team, but I don't see a hint of that being the case any more than it is for other GMs in the league

I don't think Jason cares about a full draft slate - he's only made 18 selections in three drafts, when 21 is what you'd have if you had all of your picks

This seems like projection more than what's actually happening. Offering McCabe 1.95 in an arbitration case seems completely normal and par for the course, and so has every other number I've seen this summer. I think Jason is being a fairly normal GM doing a fairly normal thing with the players you'd expect him to as far as this stuff goes

If by 2nd and 3rd you mean 2nd line center and 3rd round pick, then let's do it Zero reason to give up Risto for picks, especially two picks after the first round