TrueBlueGED

Seriously. I'm about to go for a run. Outside. In shorts. In Buffalo. In February. And I'll be perfectly comfortable .

Unsurprising. Sizeable cap number with term left isn't exactly attractive at the deadline before the expansion draft. Or any deadline, really.

Congrats on falling prey to the fallacy of the NHL point system :p

This is a significantly better assessment of what I was trying to get at. Pay attention to this guy, not me :lol: Uuuuhhhhhh. Why?

The best way to think of it is still just points percentage. We're sitting at 62 points with 22 games (or 44 points) remaining. If 96 is in, we need 34 of the remaining 44 points, or 77%. Maybe we get lucky and it only takes 94...still need 73% of remaining points. In the last 10 games we're at 60%. On the season we're at 52%. Folks, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but...

Yea well, it's not always a good thing to get what you were promised. After all, you were also promised suffering :nana:

When he was Eichel's age, Voracek hit 50 points in his second full season. In an era with a lot more scoring. Yup. This. Hell, Kane only had 70 points his second season at a time when scoring was much higher.

I blame the lack of multiquote on the mobile site! Besides, ThirtyEight said it too :)

Nope. Not being a dick, I honestly don't. I'm my experience workout preference is an incredibly idiosyncratic thing. My advice would be to try a bunch of different stuff for like a week each and figure it out from there. That said, I'm a big proponent of functional exercises for people who aren't your traditional gym rat. Ropes, tires, jumping. Stuff like that.

Yea. Essentially I don't think he has as natural of sense/vision as Matthews, thus requiring more experience to fully excel the way his skills are capable of in the NHL. Has to see it before he gets it, if that makes any sense at all. I see him making fewer unforced errors this year than last. If he hadn't gotten hurt, I think he'd have at least flirted with 80 points. I expect next year he'll be even better.

The "it" is hockey sense, IMO. And I think he'll go down as the second best Sabre ever, and best forward. I can't get over JVR. I mean, really? Not to mention Kesler. 2009 Kesler? Yea, sure. 2017? Uh, no.

I wasn't going to go there, but...yea. He dictates the entire game with the puck on his stick. He can single handedly change a game with one shift, and help get a win when we don't deserve it. We have a coach who wouldn't recognize even strength scoring existed if it stuck a finger in his pooper. We have a blue line that is offensive in the wrong sense of the word. Oh, and he suffered an injury which is hell to come back from in any reasonable length of time. And he's still one of the most productive players in the league. While I'm all hot and bothered, he was not the only product of the tank. Risto, Reinhart, the assets to acquire Kane and O'Reilly. None of that happens without tanking. The "we wasted two years and only got Eichel" is utter hogwash.

It did, you just don't recognize it because you have such strong priors to the contrary. Know how I know that? The second half of what I highlighted. To say that Eichel is "on track to be a decent player" is to ignore that he already is, at minimum, very good. He's 35th in the entire league in points per game. Ahead of guys like Voracek, Gaudreau, Hall, Kuznetsov, Getzlaf.

So when your position gets bludgeoned with facts, you default to a comically bad list. To say nothing of Eichel's ranking...Cam Atkinson, Oshie, and JVR above the likes of Jones and Gaudreau? It's a name recognition list. I think that he is.

I'd be overcome with joy if we could offload Gorges at any point between now and the start of next season.

I'd add a #3: pre-draft comparisons to McDavid, particularly among Sabres fans after we lost the lottery as a sort of coping mechanism. The expectations game set him up to disappoint in the eyes of some.

Probably a minority opinion, but I wouldn't move Nylander for Larkin. Reinhart would make me hang up the phone laughing.

My two cents: find a workout program you actually enjoy. While a transactional approach can work for some, I've found that most who do so don't stick with it long term. Enjoyment of the workout itself, however, keeps people going for the long haul.

The answer to those questions exist in the full articles from which the charts are taken. But it's not every game, so really can't draw conclusions from it. How about this: we get utterly shelled every game, even in wins. Our possession sucks. Therefore, I conclude that coaching is at least some of the problem.

A lot of those guys you listed were RFAs, no? Okposo and Lucic are the most appropriate comparables, I think. Let's say he gets $6M. Let's say Reinhart and Eichel average that on their next deals (Eichel higher, Reinhart lower). Add that to O'Reilly and Okposo, that's $32.5 million, or ~43% of the cap assuming a $75M ceiling, for 5 forwards. How many championship teams have had a similar structure? Maybe so, but I'm not sure Murray has demonstrated the ability to do so. The problem with your scenario, in my view, is it's essentially banking on Guhle solving our top-4 D issues. It's also worth noting that McCabe only has one more cheap year remaining after next season. Basically, I think our blue line expense is going to have to increase relative to where it's at now to fix the top-4. That's where Kane's contract is most problematic to me.

Wow, Flagg's takedown of ThirtyEight's Eichel position is the most brutal beating in the history of Sabrespace. Savage and unrelenting.

I could hug you. I won't. But I could.

Someone should compare his shot distance and location during his hot streak to the past year and a half. I'd bet anything he's consistently getting to the high percentage areas rather than just flinging it from the wing.

With respect to getting me to buy in, the manner of the win means a lot more than the win itself. Win while getting thoroughly outplayed? Shoulder shrug. Win while looking like they belong? That's different.

If we can snag Scandella with Larsson or Girgensons as the centerpiece, I'll be thrilled.