Randall Flagg

I know it's august, but this is quite a stretch

Saw "Sobotka" trending on American twitter. Was intrigued, so I logged in here to see. Turns out a pitcher named Chad Sobotka gave up a grand slam. Dog days indeed

Love it

A leafs fan posted this on hfboards:

Show me the posts. And no I'm not - I'm perfectly capable of evaluating both the GM's entire tenure, and individual moves within it, while being generally cognizant of where the thing I'm looking at fits in the whole puzzle. If there's something in my posts that suggests otherwise, let me know and I'll change my mannerisms appropriately.

No it's not. People don't think we're doomed forever because it was a bad trade. They just see that Jason Botterill traded Ryan O'Reilly for 2018 Vlad Sobotka, 2018 Patrik Berglund, 2018 Tage Thompson, and those picks. That is the move they criticize, and even if he turned those pieces into Wayne Gretzky, it doesn't change the evaluation of the move that happened, which is what people are doing when they still bring up the trade: Evaluating the move that was made. Jason can be forgiven for a bad trade like every NHL GM to ever exist, and if he earns it, the fans will give it to him. This includes further manipulation of the pieces he got in the trade. It will not change the fact that he made that move when he did for what he did. And everyone sees that, and implicitly balances it all when talking about things like individual moves, or a GM's tenure as a whole.

Tronna

I think he has Vegas a little high, and NYR is also way too high

What is this? This guy's guess? Vegas numbers?

I'd do that package for Connor, Copp, and Morrissey. I'd add. Didn't study it too closely. Surely the Jets wouldn't want to

Yeah I like the players available at several tiers of talent (stuff we'd have to add to Risto to get, down to stuff we'd need several of to send Risto) than I do on Winnipeg. I would be okay with an Ehlers trade but it's not my favorite idea, and there's like one other combo of Jets forwards that's realistic and that I'd be interested in

Haha, but he was so bad last year that he could still be mediocre and have that be a pretty big improvement! In all seriousness, I remember reading something about off-ice issues with him, and this may be a complete fabrication by my memory, but something about vertigo? It's possible that he reverts to a previous form of Scandella and if he did, it'd take a big jump from anyone else to overcome that improvement amount IMO. But maybe others think higher of Scandella's past season, or lower of his previous ones, than me.

I'd still prefer making a move with a Florida team versus sending Risto to the peg.

I would give him the money he wants for 4 years lol

Ehlers should have so much more trade value than a Roslovic/Perreault package...that doesn't really make sense. Replace Perreault with Copp then maybe.

This is pretty normal, and I don't think it'll be an issue

Scandella

Gotta be retention there on Edmonton's end? Otherwise the Flames must think Lucic is useful as a player still?

Yes.

Lol, if you're referring to me, I plainly qualified about four times that what I was doing was essentially garbage and way outside the bounds of what those stats claim to do

Grateful for you bringing this opinion forward and turning it into a nice summer thread!

All we'll get to see is preseason games too - if Joki looks as good as Tage did last year, and goes to Rochester, us fans will probably be angry, even though Tage's excellent preseason didn't translate to the regular one. It'll be fun to follow for sure.

How much of those guys do you predict we see this year? I wonder if a numbers game (and Pilut's shoulder) puts them in Rochester most of the year.

Here's a ridiculously crude and ill-advised way of using WAR/GAR stats for our offseason additions. The additions of Miller, Joki (added later, not in picture), Johansson, Vesey total 2 overall goals above replacement over an entire season based on their previous seasons. Considering that not all of the players they'll be "replacing" are guaranteed to be replacement level players, the number might not even be that high. Of course, this is exactly NOT how to use advanced stats, I'm just messing around and having some fun, but the general idea here is that even with the cascading effects this has on the lineup underneath these players, the likely presence of the forwards on lines 2 or 3 anyway kind of limit how effective the improvement will be (as in we're not replacing bad top line players with great ones, we're replacing bad-to-meh middle six players with meh-to-solid ones), along with the fact that they're just solid players, and not anything particularly groundbreaking. It's tough to tie the additions themselves into a meaningful standings increase, particularly when you can go through most eastern teams and see just as much if not more roster improvement based solely on net player flux into the organization (in particular, teams we're battling with like Florida, NYR, PHI, and NJD). lol, for what it's worth, the total WAR/82 for the players listed above is -2.26. Again, this is ridiculously simplistic, and shouldn't be written down in ink or anything. Now, where can we realistically expect Dahlin to be next season? I don't have any idea. I picture a stronger man who is more confident in himself, makes fewer of those gaffes, contributes to fewer empty net goals against, is stronger in his own zone, and is capable of ~50-55 points. I'm not sure what this is worth in the standings when it's on the ice for about a third of the game, but I don't think it'd be more than a handful of standings points over what he contributed last year, which was quite good already. Mitts? I'm not comfortable projecting any notable growth onto him that would impact standings position, which is not the same thing as saying I don't think he'll be better. I just don't think, in the position he's likely to be in, that he's ready to contribute more than the average player in that position will to their team in 2019-20. If Reinhart gets used with Mitts, I can see the combined duo benefiting the team more than Sam with Jack and poor Mitts left mostly alone would, but I'm not comfortable putting meaningful standings improvement with that bit of change either, also, I'll believe a good Sabres coaching decision will be made when I see it. A few points here or there maybe. The defensive depth, to me, is the most meaningful place we've improved this offseason. All it will take to gash into that, though, is the simple vet-deference we've seen a million times dictating that a Scandella play a big role with a Ristolainen or something, and sticking with it far longer than we should, which again is something this franchise has been more inclined to do than to not do recently, no matter how obviously bad the results are for how long. I hope they ice the best six, whoever they wind up being, but I'm not going to assume it'll happen. Of course, it's possible that Marco bounces back and IS one of those best six, but his three year trend is consistent and doesn't point to that happening. We'll see. If the best case scenario happens with the current defensive roster, I can see a bottom-of-the-middle-third/top-of-the-bottom-third unit turning into a unit ranked 9th-12th, which might be good for a few wins in the standings. Taking everything combined gets my guess from a roster I consider a 70-75 point one last year (pulling that range from my preseason prediction) to a 80-82 point one now. But Jason isn't done yet and as always I could be full of ***** here, so who knows!

I'm only reasonably confident in Dahlin improving in a standings-meaningful way among those three players, I'm not convinced we won't be seeing plenty of either of 17/72, and new head coach might not be any good at coaching hockey, so it's a bit tough to buy into all of that at once and assume huge improvement from a supposed 65 point baseline. In fact Ralph seems like the exact kind of guy to try and 'get more out of' a European like Sobotka The Sabres as it stands still do not have a second line to compete with those in the east, and still have goalies that were problematic, and stand as good of chance at getting a slumping Skinner as they did to get the one they got last year. There are an impossible amount of things to take into account, but assuming everything is average this just looks like a low-80s point roster to me as it stands. I'll happily revisit when we pull off the blockbuster for awesome 2C