TrueBlueGED

Dahlin continues to be underrated defensively.

Bring me Huberdeau!

Yes. Risto blows defensive coverage against bad players just as much as against good players. Existing evidence suggests underlying numbers don't vary much with quality of competition, and my eyes tell me Risto's problems aren't competition relation, but Risto related.

I need to see Pilut and Risto together for more than half a cup of coffee before I'm convinced of anything. And I'd much rather trade Risto than find out the cup of coffee wasn't sustainable.

It's weird to me you have Risto where Miller belongs, Bogo where Montour belongs, and Miller where Nelson belongs. Yes, my new wet dream is we emerge from this offseason having jettisoned both Risto and Bogo.

Miller's #fancystats are significantly better than Risto's.

Probably.

Excellent trade. More of this please.

Does anyone actually believe he isn't doing this? And I'm not talking obvious #dosomethingbotterill snark. Well yea. But when I hear "aggressive," I think "get the guy I want with big money and/or term."

I would actually argue that aggressiveness in unrestricted free agency may be inversely related to GM competence.

Sort of like Turris, Stralman had a notably worse 2018-19 than other recent years. I figured it was more blip than gradual decline, but I could easily be wrong.

Said nobody ever. I'm sad that your love of Samson pushed you to an uncharacteristic strawman.

@Randall Flagg Seeing you so wildly optimistic about a Sabres prospect is just weird. Unusual, but in a good way.

Even if it's relatively low-risk? I get not wanting to commit long term and concerns about durability, but he'd instantly be our best RHD defensively and a decent stopgap when we trade Risto.

Paging @inkman to the development camp thread..

The following obviously comes with a mammoth sample size warning for Nylander, but... Tage is terrible by eye test and metrics. Nylander was better in the preseason and in his very limited NHL action.

I don't think there was any stretch that Thompson was playing well. He scored a few goals in a short period of time, but I don't re actual good hockey from him.

Couldn't they have terminated his contract for failure to report?

*glances at popular opinion of Nylander* I honestly don't think we would be more optimistic.

...are you talking about the players or the staff?

The team should want Samson to anchor his own line. The team should not plan on him doing that from the center position.

This year? Bad news bears. Before this year? Pretty good. At the time of the trade, there was actually a reasonable argument to be made that he was better than Duchene. Turris this season vs. the past 3 seasons combined paints a pretty stark picture. While I have no doubt that different teams have proprietary measures and methods, I'd be shocked if any team's analytics department didn't emphasize even strength scoring. Even strength play has been all the rage in the analytics community since its infancy, and is one of the things that causes a disconnect between analytics types and broader observers who focus on traditional counting stats.

Duchene, especially since you probably get salary retention on Turris.

I would like to offer a 3rd prediction: it snows in Buffalo again before January 1. ? But yea, I don't think we see anything fun.

Conceptual question: if Botterill actually signs an RFA to a four-1st offer sheet, do you think it might mean he feels more heat internally to win now than the conventional wisdom holds? Because I agree, it doesn't strike me as the sort of thing he'd do unless he felt he had to.