Randall Flagg

Yeah, he deserves credit for the Skinner trade but we were also graced by the hockey gods on that one for sure. I'm just being picky about trades I guess. if you held a gun to my head and asked what I think of Jason I'd have to blurt out that my money is on him being some degree of incompetent unfortunately

I was thinking that that one was before the ROR trade, so I was really just quibbling with the "his last trade was a failure" semantics. I don't like Sheary (which is funny because I thought I'd like his addition more than Skinner's #yiiiiiiiiikes) or Scandella but in principle I want him taking those shots nearly every time so I'm not going to complain about it. And maybe Scandella gets better again - was he dealing with off-ice stuff this year, I maybe read somewhere?

I think Huck's got it. You could ask for more scoring from your fourth line, and try to acquire it. I see the idea that guys like Larsson are completely replaceable, though, and I don't buy it at all. Jason has attempted to bring in a handful of bottom six types over the last two years, with the aim of improvement, and every single attempt has failed - Nolan, Pouliot, Griffith?, Sobotka, (Berglund was good in that role but not acquired to be there and also a quitter), Elie, Josefson. Wilson up for debate. Not a single one of these guys touches Larsson, and IMO they aren't even as good as Zemgus, who is an off-brand Larsson to me. If it was trivial, why has nobody been able to add a better defensive depth type of forward since GMTM brought in Gionta? Maybe it's easy, but we've sucked at it for years and if we moved on from Larry my confidence that our checking line will be not dreadful at its job is incredibly low. Larsson is certainly no superstar with the puck (though if you re-watch that Vancouver @ Buffalo game, there are a couple times you'll laugh out loud at how good he looks on Jack's line while Jack was nursing injury) but you can build your team so that doesn't matter. We actually did for about two weeks, and we won ten games in a row during that span. During the streak, that line that Huck mentions, I did this little exercise with them: Which ultimately showed that using the effective checking line that was capable of keeping the puck and pinning the other teams' top lines down in their own zone had a ripple effect on the rest of the roster, and helped lead to an 80% increase and goals and 10% increase in shot share from the non-Larsson lines over when we switched that combo out for an iteration that involved one of the two skaters we had who were probably bottom 5-10 players in the NHL this year. It's a lot easier for Jack and Skinner to come on the ice with the puck and a tired opposing D-pair than it is to come out after a hectic defensive shift, and have to expend energy to get the puck back and skate 200 feet before they have a chance to start trying to score a goal. Committing to a line to be used like this is a valid hockey strategy and it worked for us, but it worked because Jack-Jeff-Jason were being a legit superstar line, so scoring wasn't an issue (also the goalies were running around .960 but that's a discussion for another day). To continue to succeed with this structure going forward, you not only need your top line being like a top line and your checking line doing its job, but you need the guys between them to score regularly. Because guys that get Larsson/Zemgus' role generally aren't going to score regularly, even though they'll be invaluable bedrock that you can build winning hockey on. 5/72 6/73 3/57 7/71 6/61 2/50 4/74 3/70 These are the goals/games played for a handful of players on the list in the picture, so it's not like guys in this role around the league are popping in ginos left and right. Zemgus and Larry are the first two. Plenty of those guys got their minutes on playoff teams too, so it's viable strategy. But Toronto's Frederik Gauthier is "more successful" not because he's better at it, but because behind the Tavares line, there's a Matthews line and a Kadri line making it so they don't need 15 goals out of him, they just need 3. How did our scoring depth do with their single job of providing that scoring depth? It's worthwhile noting that Mitts and Sheary, two of six members of that scoring depth, were 2nd and 3rd in the entire NHL in terms of offensive sheltering via zone start percentage (yah yah, it's not a great proxy for usage, but their usage was fine because Jack saw every team's defensive focus and Larry saw their best players). Well, starting in the beginning of that very same win streak, our middle six (defined by lines not centered by Jack Eichel or Johan Larsson) went on a ~72 combined game stretch (six guys for ~12 straight games, I don't remember the exact numbers) combining for ONE single goal. Six guys, 72 combined games, one goal, and their only job is to score. And again, this started during the win streak. So it was obvious that if Jack or the goalies cooled down, we were in trouble, which is why I emailed Jason every night asking kindly to add some middle six scoring so we didn't waste away a season with a beautiful gift like a 10 game win streak. But I digress. The 2nd/3rd lines didn't do their jobs and I have charts showing just how severe it was that I'll break out at some point, but for now, I just conclude by saying that you can win with a checking line that does its job, Larry has an abundance of chops to get the job done, Zemgus is perfectly fine with him as a partner in crime as long as their third isn't a bottom ten skater in the NHL, and if we choose to move on, we'll be left with a 2013-2017 era fourth line again that gets completely blown to pieces every night, kneecapping the lines above them in ways impossible to quantify. Simply because any "improvement on Larsson" we find (and I'd bet against us actually finding it) will get sucked up into the many holes we have in the middle six, leaving a checking line devoid of anything

WAR/GAR models (which also isolate player impacts from team, opponent, and situation) have Cirelli as a top 30 player in the NHL, so it's not just my eye that sees it. Mitts was a bad NHL player this year. I completely buy the excuse that it's because he's little and weak, but what Cirelli showed in the NHL this year in terms of potential (of course his raw point total is low when every offensive situation imaginable is force fed to the Stamkos and Point lines, and when his linemates are Joseph and Killorn) dwarfs anything from Mitts' high school year, or his college year, or his NHL year. That's not to say that Mitts can't become a good player, of course he can - but Anthony was an excellent two-way NHL forward this past season, and will explode in the proper setting, just like Brayden Point flipped a switch from 66 point rookie season to top 10 NHL player, despite chasing every team's best player around the ice all night. Mitts' development curve is eerily similar to Tyson Jost, however you feel about Tyson Jost. There is plenty of potential, it's just the other guy we're talking about already has a measurable and tremendously positive impact on NHL hockey and is also young with loads of room to grow.

It's hfboards, I didn't do anything! It was just a warning point pile that got too big. Things like not being able to find a post in a megathread, and so just referencing it in passing without citing it - and waking up to being banned from the thread with a bunch of warning points. Like, if it's that important, just ask me, and I'll go find it?? lol. The mods there are just brutal

Skinner and arguably Montour were significant trades, and I think he won both of em

This is honestly what pulled me back. It's my favorite time of the hockey year and I've been banned from every other online mode of hockey talk, and I was driving myself nuts without an outlet, so y'all have to deal with me again Time to spend two weeks wasting hours refreshing the internet for something that probably won't even happen

I seriously read more bitching than praise from Tampa fans all winter

I can't help it, I see him in my dreams I'm not going to cry about missing out on JT Miller in that situation is all. Believe in RistoPilut But yeah, that's why I'm so intrigued to see how far teams would go for him. It hurts nobody to call and check, and I assume Jason is doing that, though I have varying degrees of confidence in assuming Jason is doing things good GMs do

What you call inconsistency I call playing behind an utter abomination all season long

Larsson is in the top 3% of all NHL skaters in shot suppression, including when you weight the shots based on how dangerous they are, despite having literally the most defensively skewed usage in the NHL. That is inexplicable, unless you're wrong about Larsson being able to defend at an NHL level. And if you're dubious of considering shot locations and shot rates, which I know you are, consider that this is after regression has been performed to isolate player impact independent of teammates, opponents, and usage. If you still want to hand-wave away an outlier as big as that as nothing at all, it's not exactly difficult to find tangible on-ice reasons for why the numbers suggest what they do. In five minutes, I just picked a random game against the best team in the league, found a Larsson shift, and watched him snuff out two rush attempts, including one by the guy who scored more points this season than any player has since Lemieux's prime, uploaded the clip to youtube, and posted it here.

It is likely the case that desperate people in charge of hockey teams think Ristolainen is currently as stands a top pairing player JT Miller is irritatingly ambiguous - a stop gap and long term solution simultaneously, when I think I could find a better player firmly established as one or the other (Stastny, Cirelli (yes Cirelli is my offseason theme this year)) Risto and Pilut didn't just do well together by chance - they fit each other's weaknesses like a glove, and it produced tangible results to my own eyeballs, to NHL.com's counting stats, and to Micah's linear regression. I have no qualms trying that again for a while. The guy was a minus five billion this year, his value isn't going to change all that much to the GMs that are going to trade for him, and I don't think he could get much worse in the eyes of the people who don't like him, so we can always just do this again in a couple months if JT Miller by himself is the best we can do right now My rewatching of Sabres games so far this offseason has really muddled things up for me w.r.t. Risto I don't really like JT Miller in a vacuum and it's too painful to think of how many assets on that same team I adore

In all seriousness, I've finally made it back to my loved ones and my wounds have been cleaned/stabilized. I had to chew my left hand off to get out of the handcuffs, and then sustained deep lacerations breaking through the small window and barbed wire to make it out of PA's basement. He's in custody now

Charity bet? I'll warn you, I'm good at Tampa centers: @SwampD was that ever official??

He's like really effin good too

Thanks fam, power was knocked out by a wind storm for a bit there Wonder if we do Hutton at home/Linus on the road this Friday/Saturday to stick with their performance pattern. Gotta get this back on the road quick or we might be talking wild card instead of home ice this spring. Have I told anyone we should stop using Sobotka like we are yet? At least the Blues should be an easy win big draft ramifications for Bills/Lions this weekend ? It's not about Mitts it's about Cirelli

Larsson is an actually good hockey player he's one of six Sabres I would describe as performing their role at or above average last season roles roles roles baby

I think the white-and-gold is gonna be sweet

With rumblings that Myers and WPG are talking extension, Ristolainen is like the only RHD of note "available." The cap being lower than expected is at least a little alarming to some teams. Tampa still needs two RHD, and fun teams like Columbus are supposedly interested. I certainly would never decide "I'm trading Ristolainen" or "I'm keeping Ristolainen" and you should never, ever do that with any asset you have. But I'd pay a lot of money out of my own pocket just to hear what kinds of things GMs would put together for him. If you're getting packages built around Virtanen or even a player as good as JT Miller, then just say no thanks and let Krueger watch film of Ristolainen and Pilut yin-yanging each other If you can build up something and fix a key spot for ten years, take a bunch of salary to yoink Cirelli out of Tampa, then let's goooooooooooooooo

John Gibson was the best NHL netminder this season and got zero first or second place votes, and one third place votes Nobody actually watches hockey i guess

"What is your best case scenario?" 7 + something small for 12 + Zucker, take Newhouse at 12 or whatever his name is Ristolainen, Mittelstadt, Nylander + for Cirelli, Cernak, and whatever salary makes it work (adding Mitts is a lot but it's hard to get Cirelli here with just Risto and lesser pieces) UFA: Brandon Tanev, Ryan Carpenter, one of Brett Connolly/Donskoi, Benn/Nemeth We will need to make something else happen to fit under the cap but let the cap guru figure that out (waive Sobotka, dump Sheary/Scandy for picks (Marco seems far more possible after that Braun deal)) Skinner - Eichel - Donskoi Zucker - Cirelli - Reinhart Tanev/Rodrigues -Tanev/Rodrigues - VO Girgensons - Larsson - Callahan/KO Callahan/KO Dahlin - Cernak Pilut - Montour McCabe - Benn Bogosian plays somewhere when healthy - Do not label pairs, 20 minutes per skater, 26/Cernak get general usage, skew 24/62 offensively and 19/Benn defensively Goalies "What is your worst?" Moving an asset for Wennberg Moving more assets for Turris including Larsson in an above deal under the guise that he and someone like Sobotka bring similar things to the table and are thus interchangeable Declaring the center problem fixed Risto for something built around a Virtanen-tier player UFA: 4x4 for each of Corey Perry and Wayne Simmonds Hunwick and Scandella in the top six together in October as Pilut, Bogosian recover Letting Skinner go, leaving us with two top-six forwards in the entire organization Thank you Jason, you're batting 2/2 so far this offseason Skinner - Eichel - Reinhart Sheary - Turris - Okposo Wennberg - Mitts - Simmonds Girgensons - Sobotka - Thompson/Risto trade trash Scandella - Risto Dahlin - Montour Hunwick - McCabe Goalies "Prediction" Somewhere in the middle

Here's the thing though. You guys are all working on a postulate that Botterill wanted to trade Ryan because he felt Ryan was a problem in the locker room. Well maybe not you, but that is a clear and repeatedly articulated stance. But it's fundamentally different from so many other hockey takes, including locker room culture takes. Because in the NHL these exist with far more evidence than we've been given in this instance, and the conclusions that get drawn in those situations are exponentially less far-reaching than the Blues locker room nonsense that you might not be saying but that is the stuff that's making me even bother to reply. Because if you notice, I'm never the guy to bring this up, but I'm always the guy to jump in when things depart from the ground. I can make an equally valid postulate with sound reasoning and equal evidence: Terry Pegula does not like when guys make his teams look bad. We've read whispers of this, in more substantiated form (about Kane, in I think TBN?) than anything that's ever been in print on Ryan ("vortex of sadness" is the best I've ever seen, and it was based off of locker room interviews and the obvious observation that ROR was sad that the Sabres were bad). Terry did not like ROR driving through a Tim Hortons, and said to Jason, since stuff needs to change, let that guy be the change. Supporting evidence: None, but in the vein of "things that could have happened so why not, they did," that Jason spent a full calendar year discussing the importance of center depth and mentioning Jack and ROR by name as being incredibly lucky to be set like that there. It's certainly a supporting observation. But I would never put this out there the same way the cancer thing is put out there, because I see it as what it is. An idea that probably has some parts of it true (in the same way needing a locker room shakeup this past offseason is almost certainly true) with a conclusion that gets phrased repeatedly (and with snark, hell hath no fury like a Buffalo fan to a guy that used to be a Sabre but isn't now) as necessarily following, but doesn't actually logically follow using any sort of evidence we actually have. This distinction between ROR's locker room "evidence" literally stemming from tuning into interviews and making projections, and locker room evidence that actually gets put out in the spotlight, like, really goddamn easily in this league, is completely ignored here and ONLY here. If you've noticed, I throw a lot of words at things that I think need more scrutiny than are getting, and that's what's going on here. I know what freaking drugs Jeff Carter and Mike Richards like to use. I know who Duchene would and wouldn't talk to after his trade request while still playing on the team weeks, skipping training camp. I don't even care to know this stuff, it just made itself known. And if people only said "damn dude blow this core up cuz it didn't work, and ROR, you're 28 or whatever, see ya buddy we'll use that money on younger players" I'd literally never post about ROR again, but people think that's the same thing as "You're just mad that it's true that ROR is a malaise on the St. Louis Blues because of who he is as a human being."

There are posters here that were calling this guy's captaincy a mistake because of the Boston game

It's possible. In a league where I read while on the shitter that Duchene asked to be traded, I'd be thrilled for any sort of substance. That is not a very good application of Occam's Razor though, which requires the simplest possible explanation that can be shown, which IMO, is not that ROR "was a cancer" but that a last place locker room needed a shakeup, and the best piece to do it would be the old guy with a decent-sized cap hit. You wouldn't risk subbing out worse-than-tank-seasons center depth for a guy who can do 60 points with the most defensive usage in forward history? Because his surly brow might have made Eichel sadder during the win streak and thereby kill the win streak?

You're just saying two different things with these two different posts. The point I'm arguing with is what has been insinuated in the first one, and is the only time I'll ever actively make posts about the topic. And it was laughable because your first take, six games in, was "he's not doing anything and they're losing." Well, once he became a positive player on a -15 team, with positive possession numbers despite his team being very negative, and an awesome stat line compared to that franchise's center history, you had to shift to "well, they're still losing and you're wrong for claiming that we don't have proof whatsoever, he's a locker room problem, that's where it is since he's been excellent where the hockey actually happens." Well, sorry for not realizing that your source, who for all any of us know is probably a guy named Steve who works at New Era and has been in the same room as a guy who's been in the locker room twice, was also traded to the Blues and has gotten the lowdown of their culture and what's going on, eh? I didn't hear about that part of the move. These are not the rigorous deductive tactics of someone with the goal of understanding a situation in full. There are awesome players with awesome production on garbage teams where their "stats don't matter." In fact, on every garbage team that isn't tanking, this is the case. You've given nothing to show why ROR is a special case of this and why I should believe his presence in that locker room is causing a season whose spiral began during their 1-7-2 February stretch and 1-5-1 playoff-killing April the season before he got there. Why I can't do the same thing for OEL, Alex Barkov/Trocheck/Huberdeau, for Larkin, for anyone on a ***** team with obvious reasons for their problems that aren't those guys. Or even guys like Carter, who have tangible rumors that come from things that aren't tea-leaves reading of locker room quotes and a whisper about ROR getting drunk in Vegas like everyone else did this year without him. Will Ryan never exist on another playoff hockey team? That's a pretty ridiculous bet, and it'd be even more ridiculous to pin this is a reason why. With actual context to your brushing off, his "meaningless stats" were a part of Colorado's best regular season since they were loaded with HHOFers, their only playoffs in a fairly large stretch, and the absence of his "meaningless stats" almost immediately led to the worst non-expansion-team season in NHL history. Furthermore, context shows that his nothing stats helped the Sabres to a 27 point improvement after a tank season. The variables that affected the two seasons after are countless, there are too many to name, and the whole thing just looks lazy. You've got nothing and pretending you have something that excuses any attempt to meaningfully analyze even a single part of their entire franchise (goaltending would be a beauty place to start considering what I've shown would happen if you gave this team Lehner and Johnson last year), even giving vibes of being proud not to have to do that, when taking a simple step back shows how ludicrous it is to do so (I know Doohickie has stories of how defensive Blues fans get when he broaches the subject, but I've seen those interactions, and could not have read them more differently, and more broadly Sabres fans essentially get made fun of for trying this ***** by even neutral fans over there on the mains) is just weak sauce, and I'd expect better from those among us so cultured as to read Dostoevsky instead of bothering with the plebeian Bills. Still waiting for the mechanism, btw, by which his mere presence can make bad goalies play bad and Petro ***** his pants every other shift, and have been since July