Darryl Shannon's +/-

I went back and looked at it.....and the Vanek first round picks were not top 3, except for the last year. And if they had Vanek, it may have been even worse.....

If they are hellbent on tanking next year as well, it may make sense to throw big money at Tallinder and Scott. Personally, I wish the league allowed for you to go the youth route and forced you to modify the contracts on the team for the year to make up the minimum. So everyone on the team would get a bump up for the one year that you want to be at the floor.

I keep saying to myself for being as big as he is, he seems to be moving quite well. But don't discount the call up from the AHL factor here. I remember Mancari looking like a solid pro as well in the same type of situation.

Harsh precedent may make teams think twice when they find the loopholes in the latest CBA?

Nice Al Bundy shoutout

He's 30, I think the organizational plan is to be in the top 2 of the draft next year. By the time we're totally ready to contend, it will probably be about the time Kesler is hanging em up. I know the counterpoint to this is that we can attempt a rebuild like the Kings - go crazy and bring in established veteran help in the offseason. I just don't think that is the path Murray and company want to go.

That Marty Erat really gets around.....

Agreed....this broadcast team seems quite solid.

Disagree....if you agree to do something, you can still be viewed as a quitter if you don't complete or give a complete effort. If I decide that I hate my boss and need to leave, there is a graceful way to leave, and an abrupt way. LaFontaine, at least from what I can tell, chose an abrupt way to leave. So much so that the Isles tried to scrub him from their history.

Haha....I laughed. You very well might have sources, but to the people like me with zero connections - I think you can easily see the hesitation to go all in and say that this is clearly a Pegula problem. Especially with Pat's complete lack of a resume to prove him as a reliable person.

Isn't it entirely possible that he was a horrible person behind closed doors and a prince in front of the camera? I find it curious that an owner who has been blamed for being too slow to pull the trigger got rid of Pat in about three months. It's not as if LaFontaine has a gigantic resume where you can say he is a stable employee who is a great team player, right? The thing making me laugh....do you know how hard it must be to be fired from a high level executive job in 3 months? It's pretty obvious that it was either a huge disagreement on his role and power, or he was such a distraction at the corporate level that they had to can him.

The thing gnawing at me is this.....obviously getting in front of the cameras and saying all is well, there was no power struggle whatsoever has not worked. If they told what we believe is closer to the truth, would it look better? Is it really that difficult to say something along the lines of, "In the past few weeks, Pat and the rest of the leadership team had different opinions in terms of decision making abilities. After trying to mediate this for a few weeks, we found it best to move forward without Pat in the role of president, but we wish him all the best in his future endeavors." Any probing questions could be deflected saying that we want to keep this in house. Right? I hate the current path because it's as if the braintrust thinks that we are all dumb enough to believe the spin. But let's be serious. There will be more trades, the team will have huge turnover. We will all move on and continue watching because we don't pay money or post on this message board for a management team. All this does is make us skeptical every time they speak.

Damage. Control.

Wow....if that's the case, what were they talking about?

Not after he leads them to the conference finals....haha. Oddly enough, now that I think of it, if we are worried about slotting for the pick, we would want them to lose in the conference finals.

Furthermore....there is nothing wrong with trading him and making a run with a big contract on July 1

Agreed.....it's impossible to truly know what's going on until the dust settles. And that assumes we'll actually know what went on here. If it was personnel issues, it just speaks to us creating a management structure that obviously didn't work. My frustration out of this thing has nothing to do with the party at fault (we don't know who it is), more that we look like one of the dumbest organizations in hockey. Dirty laundry is being aired in a very public, very embarrassing way.

No - my ideal would be to have a management team that is able to work together without petty squabbles. Patrick is as good as gone too, especially if he believes that Pat was wronged. So now we have a GM who has been said by many to be severely lacking in the people skills department. We've spent the past 3 months or so talking about how the culture shift has been fantastic. I think that this destroys that, and our culture is in the hands of Murray. I also hate that we just hired this guy and have something this divisive this quickly. I think it speaks to us not planning well in the least. Let's assume the issue was over Ted Nolan. This really wasn't handled in the interview process? I just think that it makes the entire organization look pathetic.

Our "braintrust" will be dissolved by the end of the year. No way Patrick stays around if he thinks LaFontaine was wronged. Seems to me that we just took about five steps backwards. So what if Murray won a power struggle, for all the talk about culture that we've had since Darcy's departure, do you really want to celebrate having a guy around who destroyed our entire management structure within the first month and a half of being here? It makes it look like the entire team has zero plan. Which is great.

Knowing zero details, I think the person who looks bad out of this is LaFontaine. This is now twice that he's up and run away from front office jobs before even settling in to get comfortable. I do think that Nolan is in big trouble though....

My opinion is that we see the playoffs in 2-3 years, and this huge stockpile of draftpicks will help us add pieces when we want to pull the trigger. I love the idea of trading Halak and Stewart and continuing our fun. In addition, we have huge salary cap flexibility. I'd be very interested to see if we can help teams by taking on a bad contract or two for next season too. Murray must be in heaven, he has low expectations at the moment, wealth in future assets, and an owner who is willing to help the team. Don't discount eating 1.75M - that may have been the piece that made the conditional draft pick so sweet.

I like the trade if only for the fact that it frees up Murray to be able to spend more time trying to spin Moulson and others. If we waited till deadline day, there would be too many moving parts.

The first instinct I have is that Myers' name being put out there is meant to get GM's on the phone. When they don't want to drive away in a 57, maybe they'll be willing to take a 10?

It may be unpopular, but given where the Sabres are currently, I don't want them touching Kesler. A center who is about to turn 30 is not what this team needs at the moment, especially if you'd have to spend big to land him.

Agreed....defensemen with an offensive pedigree are very prized during this time of year. Almost too much to be honest. Leopold was worth two 2nd round picks, and isn't in the same class as #10.