Hoss

Maybe newly acquired Caleb Jones’ brother Seth.

Something I’m sure McDavid is thrilled about!

Thankfully Power has been commended for his skating and hockey IQ on a consistent basis.

We have finally entered Jack Eichel photoshop territory on Twitter. Someone posted this one.

If we’re actually comparing profiles I figured it’d be useful for everyone to have something to go off.

It never got this far or close to it with McDavid and our path to winning is not a simple one but yes, I imagine if we held on and got to the playoffs the tone changes.

Aaron Ekblad was considered a contender for the Norris Trophy at 25 years old this year prior to being hurt. He has been very good since coming into the league. Seth Jones is being railroaded by the out of touch analytics community (analytics are great, clinging to a few metrics to claim a very good player is bad is foolish) despite being a Norris Contender in multiple recent seasons. I’d be happy with those results. The anti-defense because it isn’t fun bias is strong.

I would also like this but he has a NTC and I don’t believe he’d have any interest in coming here. I also believe, despite assumptions to the contrary, that he has real value in a trade coming off a season where he was voted the literal best goalie in the league. The viable replacement behind McCabe is Owen Power. He’s just in Michigan. This lineup isn’t final it’s just what it would be in the immediate aftermath of that deal.

Another poster pointed it out that ESPYs are fan voting which I had forgotten so we can’t blame ESPN here.

For those that haven’t dove into the draft I want to reassure you: Owen Power’s size is not and has not been used as the primary justification for his draft ranking despite Liger consistently claiming it has been. When you’re as big as Power your size will be mentioned every single time you’re brought up because you simply do not see many hockey players who are that big but it’s his skill on the ice that makes him that much more attractive. If he were three inches shorter he’d still be considered an elite prospect in this draft.

Pierre McGuire: off the airwaves and into the Ottawa Senators front office https://ottawasun.com/sports/hockey/nhl/ottawa-senators/sun-exclusive-senators-bringing-back-pierre-mcguire-and-his-30-years-of-nhl-knowledge-to-assist-the-front-office

The more I look at Vegas the more I like what they have to offer. Especially Alex Tuch. He's not a center, sure, but he's a 25-year-old BIG RW who has played and performed in a lot of big games. He put up 20-32-52 in 74 games at 22 years old and this year at 24 he put up 18-15-33 in a 55 game season (27-22-49 in 82 games). You also have him locked up for $4.75M over the next five seasons and a semi-local factor in him being from Syracuse if you care about such things. You can't beat that deal for what you're getting out of this kid. Peyton Krebs is the prospect everyone likes and others are definitely higher on him than I am but he's the center prospect you want to get in a deal like this. Then if you can continue to build on those two knowing their firsts have very little value in a deal you're really starting to get a good package going. Tuch, Krebs, Hague and a 1st (probably too rich for Vegas but shoot your shot) is a nice looking package. You have to take on another contract to make it work and Reilly Smith is the popular pick there. So let's add him and we'll add a mid-round pick and one of our lefty dmen (Bryson?) going to Vegas. Gives a lineup something like: Skinner - Reinhart - Tuch Krebs - Mittelstadt - Smith Bjork - Cozens - Olofsson Asplund - Girgensons - Okposo Dahlin - Joker McCabe - Borgen Samuelsson - Hague FIND GOALIE This is before other moves and I didn't "add" anyone here with a Risto deal but if you can add an NHL forward in his deal you're cooking something if you can convince Samson to stay and be a part of the solution.

Williamsville East catcher Joe Mack went 31st overall to the Miami Marlins

I believe the interview was done last week. It was posted and discussed here and got some mixed reactions but it's interesting. He knows the situation he's in and the current perception of his desire (or lack thereof) to be in Buffalo so he knows how those comments would be taken. I do believe it was a bit setup and snipped out of a larger answer and a leading question as another poster pointed out but he still needs to understand what saying that is going to look like. I believe he DOES know that and still said it.

As pointed out this takes some major assuming but it is absolutely something the team has to consider. We don’t have to assume that Jack wants out - he made that clear with his “wherever” comment. What we don’t know is if he wants out because the team made it clear already that they wanted to move him and he said “well ***** you too” or if his comments were part of his first strike.

You definitely lose a ton of leverage once that NMC kicks in. The only way Jack could really take it all away, though, is to go nuclear as you said and refuse to play. That’s the only way he could force his way to a specific team BUT he could demand a trade and then nix several interested teams and drive the price down. The team can play hardball. It can and will get ugly at that point and will turn players off from coming here. I personally believe sports franchises should ban no-move and no-trade clauses but that won’t happen. I’m a yes on that Vegas deal. I don’t think Vegas does it, though. Maybe with one first.

I wrote that knowing he wasn’t much older but didn’t bother to google the age difference. I thought it was a little wider than that but I stand corrected. But the contract portion doesn’t change and is the more important part of it. Jones has had the big contract. Samson has not. I stand by the point that you’ve got more control acquiring an RFA who you have to negotiate with anyways vs a player with one year left before UFA who has no reason to negotiate anything.

The reason I look at a player in Samson’s situation having more control than a player in Seth Jones’ situation has to do with age, essentially. You’re more likely to get Samson to commit to a long-term deal because he hasn’t made the money on a big contract yet and isn’t coming in on the end of his prime so he likely isn’t looking at this as a situation where he must contend immediately. Seth Jones is looking for that. You’ve got more control with Samson, I believe.

At the deadline is a different story and a good debate. So far we haven’t heard Samson is ruling out signing long-term deals. We’ve already heard Jones is doing exactly that except for a few teams.

It’s insufferable to see them losing, too. Their fans are running through the streets beating everyone in sight. A lot of ugliness on Twitter right now.

Colton Parayko is not average but okay. Oh yea, for sure. I am lucky enough to be juuuust old enough for good hockey in Buffalo. Not old enough to remember the No Goal but old enough to remember just about everything after.

I really am looking forward to the product ESPN puts out but they’ve got a lot of legwork to do to get there.

Power and Eklund but I’d be fine with Power and Beniers. Beniers and Eklund is intriguing but I think we need another high-end defender because right now we have zero with a shot at one with Dahlin.

We do have evidence that it’s Buffalo. This thread/his comments in the OP are evidence. Now that evidence could be an impermissible lie but I feel like it’s unlikely. The kid would probably love to stay close to home and go down as a first overall pick. Nothing about him indicates he’ll be average. We get it, Guenther is all you want.

The ESPYs named Patrick Kane the Best NHL Player of 2021. Yikes.