TrueBlueGED

Is Stastny worth *daydreaming* about? He'd be a nice add, but I need convincing.

Back and forth on a message board? The horror!!! 👻

It's not just NHL games though. It's NHL games *and* waiver eligibility that I'm looking at. And he has less than 82 games and waiver eligibility, so he's covered by my definition.

Yes, and he's obviously a huge outlier. You're not going to come up with a definition of prospect that prevents any and all outliers unless you simply say all players not in the NHL are prospects. Edit: Sometimes players come from unexpected places (either literally or figuratively in the case of a career timeline) to be regular NHL contributors. I don't think a reasonable definition of prospect needs to seek to include these players.

Seems logical to me they'd have to free up cash to pay Aho.

If a player has had 3 AHL seasons (which could potentially be...5 seasons post-draft including juniors?) and hasn't stuck in the NHL after 3 cracks at it, then yea, they're likely no more than a replacement level player.

Because they're probably not regular NHL material at that point.

...exceptionally well-played.

Yea, most (maybe all) other lottery protection that has been put in is automatic, not discretionary. Also @Thorny way to ruin a most excellent joke!

I would simply say waiver eligible and less than 1 full season of NHL games played.

I really don't think you can consider someone with 100 NHL games to be a prospect if you want the word to have any meaning whatsoever.

Oh, I definitely don't think it can get much worse for Buffalo from a recruitment perspective. I'm just trying to frame it the other way: I want to do something to make it better rather than avoiding something that makes it worse.

Know what else can hinder the team long term? Continuing to miss the playoffs so players are less likely to waive trade protection to come here and UFAs need to be even more overpaid to be convinced to sign. Long term planning isn't as simple as holding onto picks and prospects.

Agree to disagree. I think a team can always use a 90-point player. It's the same reason the Leafs are going to keep him even though they also have Tavares, Matthews, and Nylander up front.

In 4 years maybe. It all depends on timeline. For a team starting a fresh rebuild, an offer sheet of this magnitude doesn't make a ton of sense. But for a team that already has a foundation in place? Hell yea.