TrueBlueGED

Let's assume that Pegula told Botterill to trade him before the bonus. Given that, the way I see it playing out is Botterill wanted to trade him, and Pegula said that's fine, but I'm not paying him $7 million to play for another team. The fundamental blame still lies with Botterill for feeling like he simply had to trade him.

Tossing Montour in is obviously a better deal. Of course, we could have kept O'Reilly and still had the assets to get Montour, so... Yea well, you can thank Botterill for that. If the return wasn't apocalyptically bad, nobody (okay, some would) still be pissy about it.

I really just don't think age has anything to do with why Thompson is useless. Flawed? Sure. But he's completely inept at everything that's required of an NHL hockey player, let alone someone who is supposed to be able to play in the top-6 eventually. Can he get better? Sure. But better for him could just be a 4th liner.

Avatar bet? I bet Olofsson has more points in the NHL next season than Thompson.

Who says the Sabres never win anything?

Right. I don't expect Thompson (or anyone else) to be a mature NHL player after 100 games. But after 100 games, he should have shown something to really grab onto and instill hope. He hasn't.

Very well then. Carry on!

Well that's certainly not going to happen. Also, the number of players who can't play wing but can play center is incredibly small. There's way too much dancing around Occam's Razor with Thompson.

I have no idea how you got that out of my post.

I don't have a specific segment or episode to single out, but the The Instigator Podcast (not to be confused with the awful show on WGR) with Chris Ostrander is almost always a good listen: https://twointhebox.com/ Right now Eichel is more Tyler Seguin than Nathan MacKinnon...but in year 4 of his career, MacKinnon was looking like a real disappointment. MacKinnon's point total in year 4 was 53 on a horrible Colorado team. MacKinnon's first 4 seasons: 63-38-52-53.....then in year 4, he exploded for 97. Eichel has posted 56-57-64-80. I use MacKinnon because I think of all the elite prospects to come into the league recently, he's the best comparable to Eichel. An otherworldly physical talent whose head wasn't on the same level of some other players who broke out more quickly. But then he put it all together and...holy smokes.

Yea, there are two sides to every story. I certainly wouldn't expect Moulson to speak glowingly of Bylsma and Murray, given what transpired. And there is more than enough smoke to believe that both of them were inept with the people side of running a team. But I'm also not sure what he expected Bylsma to tell him. "Matt, you just can't skate at an NHL level anymore, and your hands have died with your legs." I'd like a coach to say that (in a nice way), but I don't think it would have made Matt feel any better about the situation.

Or maybe, he's just bad. How often does a player go from looking completely useless to being good? Can you honestly point to a single thing Tage does well? Sure he has a hard shot, but if you think his shot is good, you must have loved Zhitnik's shot.

How many wins do you think a single 55 point winger is worth? For Kane to have cost then the season, you'd have to argue he's worth 15 or so wins. Also, if we had Kane, we may not have Skinner. It's possible we'd have both, but who knows if Botterill would have pulled the trigger.

Hold on now. Let's walk that back a bit. Losing a 55ish point winger is not something that sets a franchise back years. He's a good player, but it's not like we traded the other Kane.

I'd always rather have the higher pick, of course. But I'm not gonna really judge a trade worse because we gave up pick 24 instead of 34, ya know? It's whatever. I'm much more concerned about Botterill's trades that send actual players away than those that have brought players in. For example, he did quite well in the Sheary/Skinner/Montour trades. O'Reilly and Kane? Less so. Probably the exact same thing Murray alone did.

I'm certainly happy that Murray saddled us with Okposo... Murray's tenure wasn't as bad as his worst detractors would argue, but let's not go pretending there weren't major problems with the roster he was assembling.

No, what he did 20 years ago means nothing to me. And it shouldn't to anyone else. And his continued unemployment should be evidence enough he's not NHL caliber in 2019. Because people need something to yell about. If nothing else, everyone saw what good being honest did O'Reilly with the fans.

The 1st we traded has the same likelihood of producing an NHL player as our 2nd rounder would. Once you hit pick ~20 you're basically in a really long second round.

Personally, I just wish people wouldn't care about these things at all. Or at least, not confuse them with whether a coach has emotion or how he coaches the players.

Right. How many of Botterill's acquisitions in Rochester are likely to be NHL players?

Please, Ted Nolan is not an NHL coach.

I didn't want Kane long term for a bunch of reasons, but it's hard not to think at least a little about what having him, O'Reilly, AND Skinner here would have looked like. It would have been doable with a little cap massaging.

How bad is it that the best post-tank season was the first one? Botterill should absolutely be on the hot seat. The team has gotten worse with him having turned over almost the entire roster.

My sister got this from somewhere on Twitter. I enjoyed it.

I cracked up when Duff said that. Marty even looked like he hated everything.