TrueBlueGED

Right, but the Sabres have been a cap team before with the Pegulas. They could have added that much money without subtracting and all of the available evidence suggests ownership wouldn't have blinked.

And I think there may be some mental gymnastics going on to justify a bad trade. Time will tell.

Oh, I am. How quickly we forget Ville Leino and Christian Ehrhoff! :p I mean, I think it was non-repeatable luck, but the Bills did break the drought.

Maybe. I hope he's right, regardless of motive. What else can I do at this point?

There is no evidence that the Pegulas care what they spend on the hockey roster.

Liger, please. Thompson is American and played college hockey. We both know Botterill never went to his stats team to make this move :p

Eh, I wouldn't be surprised if both Marner and Matthews are signed before they ever hit RFA status. In any event, we all know we're not offer sheeting anybody.

I agree, but it's probable St. Louis wasn't moving Thomas or Kyrou. Botterill could have said F it then, but I think he was dead set on moving the timeline. I don't think he got swindled at the poker table here, I just think his perspective on the rebuild is considerably different than many of ours.

Have you looked at Vancouver's moves? They definitely don't think they're rebuilding. Neither does Detroit. And really, I don't think that makes any sense. "Hey, we're starting a rebuild. Let's move the pieces we have to rebuild around for pieces we can rebuild around in 3 years!" NHL players on ELCs are gold, no team is moving them for lottery tickets.

But what team is doing that?

As much as I hate this trade, I don't think it shows Botterill is in over his head. I simply think it shows he has a vastly different timeline for contention than many of us thought was necessary.

Why? We're not winning anything, so may as well just ride out the bad deals naturally and keep our assets.

I bet Botterill wants to use those picks. His timeline for contention is clear, and it's not soon.

Not if the owner doesn't care about cash. It doesn't hit our cap.

Despite all of the locker room mumbo jumbo, I think that's it. Botterill doesn't plan on winning for several more season, and that was the impetus for the trade. Of course, it would've been nice to get a single A-caliber piece in return to fit with such a timeline, rather than stopgap vets and middling picks.

But whether it's Berglund or Mittelstadt at 2C, we suffered a massive downgrade there. Doubt upgrading the 3rd line makes up for it.

Certainly not Botterill.

Well yea, he's American and played in the NCAA.

Berglund hasn't topped 40 points since 2010. Sobotka has topped 30 twice since 2007. Both of them has Bogosian-esque durability. Tage Thompson had 9 points as a rookie and might make Reinhart seem quick. The Blues' 1st next year is probably going to be in the mid-20s, and their 2nd round pick isn't until two-thousand freaking twenty-one. We got impressive volume, but none of it is good.

They're not bad, but they're also certainly not what I would consider good.I'd describe them as okay. And that's with a pretty limited role. If he gets saddled with O'Reilly's minutes, he'll crumble.

Narrator: he won't. I never bought into the idea that this team was 2-3 years from the playoffs, but this trade makes me think that Botterill himself believes it.

I don't expect St. Louis to miss the playoffs, so luckily I don't need to expend energy hating this trade even more.

Oh, I always got your emotions, I just disagreed with your assessment of the situation as a whole. Anyway, I don't think we got a little worse with this, I think we got a good deal worse.

Not a single prime piece, though. We got volume. And much of it was short-term volume. Awful.

I would add that I know my reaction is wholly irrational. I said leading up to this that I expected to hate the return. That expectation should have made this an emotional nothingburger for me. But nope. EMOTIONS ARE RIDING HIGH BABY!