DarthEbriate

I think Larry and Girgs will sign elsewhere, but the LOG line could absolutely be effective as #3 (as they were this year) if the top two lines are filled out with top-six players playing their correct positions. Then, the 4th line can be a line with a defined purpose and not just another misshapen and inept 2nd line. Look at VGK -- their 4th line plays 8 minutes a night but is great at what they do: go hit, cause chaos, and be energetic. Occasionally they'll get a goal. The LOG line does a lot more than that: they can shut down top lines. They don't score much, but they can get a cycle going offensively. They can suppress the best for 12-15 minutes/night. And for a few games here and there last season, the LOG carried this team. VGK #4 doesn't do that. However, VGK has 3 complete lines above them. If (a very big if) we get two bona fide top lines, then we can afford a top checking line like the LOG. And then line 4 can be kid/specialists or a defined energy line. All bookended by: I doubt Girgs or Larry is a Sabre next season.

And even Portillo is rating well (at this early point).

According to the images on the article's main page the top teams (in no particular order) are Buffalo, Toronto, and Vancouver (because Matthews counts).

It's GM Sheevyn. He's been the phantom menace behind the scenes for a decade. Now his army of clones is ready to unleash. His ultimate coup was the road trip with the team at the end of the year when he could raise the vote of no confidence in Chancellor JBot. Unlimited power! (This may not be true, but it's my head canon now.)

We must go further back than that. Anger Drafting leads to hate prospects; hate prospects leads to suffering; suffering leads to electing to tank. In 2011-12 we had an aging core we hadn't yet soured on. New owner and the was to build that up with overpriced free agents because we could with all this new cash. But the other reason for that is we'd been drafting poorly for years by that point and our young replacement core just wasn't up to snuff. (When Vanek, Pommers, Roy, Miller, and Stafford came up they supplemented some really good teams in 05-07 --- now in 2011-2013 seasons, the next group had a few good players but they weren't first-liners/top-pairing guys to build around. Trading a core player (or two) for top-end prospects (not say... Steve Ott), and getting the right free agents (not Leino) would've been the way to go to avoid the tank. But once you start down the Tank Path forever will it dominate your destiny.

A Canucks friend at work reminded me that it's not all Demko. Vancouver also removed Eriksson from the lineup after the 5-0 game 1 loss. (And remember, Vancouver was up 3-2 in the third in game 3.) They've been handily outshot, but Eriksson out and Demko in has given them a chance.

I'm beginning to agree with you. Oh Artoo, what are we doing here let's look at the numbers: Price is at 10.5M cap hit for 6 more seasons. His final season will be played at age 38. Now, if he were Hasek/Brodeur and still playing in front of elite teams that might be one thing. But Price's last three regular seasons are sv % of .900, .918, and .909. He's already been sliding downward to average-to-below average. Also, if bought out at any point, his cap hit is a full 9M through 2025-26. Only 500k for the makeup years beyond. That's pretty rough if he's playing near Sabres-level-Hutton consistently from here on out. He could come back up to form, but Hasek/Brodeur were really the exception and not the rule. Skinner is at 9M cap hit for 7 more seasons. His final season will be played at age 34. Now, if I sound a little doom and gloom on Price, let's start with: Skinner had an atrocious season. He also was paired with Johansson and Sobotka, and then Rodrigues, Sheary, and Frolik for a lot of the rest of the way. Give him a 2C (or Eichel time), and he'll get back to 25+ goals for awhile.The key is he probably has 3 more solid seasons before seeing the gradual decline of age. This was also the first season he's missed any significant time since early in his career. Toward the end, it might get ugly, but it should be a fairly short ugly stretch (two seasons). Another thing going for Skinner -- if bought out, CapFriendly shows him being a nuisance 2.5M or so for a few seasons after the contract ends, and one gnarly 6M cap hit in the final year 2026-27. However, if bought out anytime after a big signing bonus in 2023, the hits are manageable. And we've seen before that odd teams like Arizona will trade for useless cap hits if they can nab some picks. He's not completely untradeable. Sure... no one is going to call and ask for him, but he could be moved.

Your insight serves you well. Bury your cap knowledge deep down, @Thorny. It does you credit, but it could not be made to save the JBot.

The overage is vastly because of Dahlin and Kahun. It's part of why Pitt dealt Kahun for some fourth liners (one of whom had prior Crosby magic).

Two 30+ goalies when the next season begins in a flat-cap era on a not-so-good team (remember, yes, they beat PIT in a play-in, but MTL was 6 teams separated from the playoffs in a normal season; they were as bad as we were). That's way too much for a backup when your starter is making $10M. Maybe they'll get Price to waive his NMC to go to a contender. But if I'm a contender I can get someone cheaper than Price as a UFA this offseason where goalies are going to be in a surplus. There's not a logic to this move until they make their next move.

Perhaps more "anointed as having made it by the front office". I believe we all still have them listed as prospects. Our farm system is slightly skewed by Eichel and Dahlin being day one starters. It's been our top-five picks, Olofsson, and no one "on-the-cusp". But what we're missing is the next tier of player ready to get the call-up from the AHL (because they're all in Europe, they're just all defensemen, or they're borderline NHL prospects signed out of college to begin with [i.e., Casey Nelson, Andrew Oglevie]). For example, we needed a PK-er last year. Our GM went and got Frolik, rather than call up a Malone or equivalent (granted, Tage was already hurt and Lazar was already up). Maybe this year's prospect pool will be different.

Agreed here. A prospect can be a prospect, then make it, and then return to being a prospect (Mitts-style). You can also have the old prospect who one day finds himself 26 and all-but-forgotten but then gets the call-up and makes a career of it (Moulson-style). Age doesn't see prospects ("Too old! Too old to be a prospect."). Our prospects pool is: Asplund, Cozens, Mitts, Tage, Pekar, Ruotsalainen, Davidsson, Huglen, Samuelsson, Bryson, Borgen, Laaksonen. Johnson. UPL, Johansson, and Portillo. And a handful of skaters still over in Europe. I'm not sure where this list stacks up League-wide.

But can he become an Angry Asplund? Queuing up Han Solo's Fever Dream --- "Angry Asplunds! Very dangerous. You go first."

Shoots left. Posted a -32 in 2018-19. So... he logged a lot of minutes on a bad team. Welcome to the Amerks (Sabres) family, Jones!

The bonus applies this and next year I believe, and Pitt would have had to re-sign Kahun. So they moved him out for rentals that would then be off the books. So if Kahun signs for $3.5M/year + $1M in performance bonuses in 2020-21, then they saved a bit of cash by moving him and getting Kapanen for this upcoming season. I'm not sure how the Performance bonus breaks out across cap hit by season, but Capfriendly has Kahun's bonus at 2.8M. Of course, they could've just kept him and the prospect and we'd have peddled ERod and Sheary elsewhere (hoepfully).

Pitt didn't want to or couldn't pay Kahun's bonuses (and possibly higher than Kapanen's base salary) so they moved him despite a good season. They got the experienced Sheary as a rental and took a flier on ERod. Of course, Sheary had dwindled to a 4W on Pitt the years before so it was odd that they wanted to rent him back for the playoffs. Anyway, they overpaid a bit to find a comparable player (Kapanen) that they already had on their roster (Kahun). But they may have saved some cash to do so. When you have Crosby-Malkin (for a couple more seasons) you try to go all-in, but basically you tread water and hope for the breaks to go your way. Maybe Kapanen will be the next Kunitz and have a wildly successful ride at Crosby's side.

Hold your fire. There's no lifeforms. It must have short-circuited.

Truth is a point of view, Anakin Dudacek. ? For me it's not the quantity but how I feel about the quantity. I want my top/eldest prospects to be either killing it in their league (Ruotsalainen, Cozens) or making the valid push to make it to the NHL in their role (Tage in the AHL last season maybe? but too small a sample size). My concerns are: Ruotsalainen needs to prove it on North American ice surface and pace, Tage is now a big target with a shoulder injury, and Asplund didn't have it last year in either the AHL or NHL. I also want them to force me to protect them in the expansion draft, and none of them have done that yet. (Only Cozens, Ruotsalainen are exempt.)

Agreed, I think they take Stutzle. But --- they may have him and the next forward closely ranked, and rather than risk losing Drysdale to Detroit (or a trade up with Detroit), they could elect to take the top D, and then the next-best forward at 5.

I'd think that means they have to leapfrog Ottawa once, if not twice.

I don't think we take Sanderson because his name, to quote myself from the Sabres Picking 8th thread, is: Yes, and now that we have all those JBotted defensemen within the pipeline and all will need development time (and ice time). If Sanderson isn't well above a forward in the draft board rankings, I think the forward has the advantage. We've got near-empty pipelines of forwards.

That's my thought as well. Koivu and Staal are both going in the next couple years (if Koivu doesn't retire outright before next season, he'd be staying on on 1-year offers from here on out). Steady all around center? That screams Wild. Well, no, not wild exactly. But it absolutely reeks of Minnesota.

RE: Sanderson at 8. We could take him if we're moving Montour/Risto, or if Johnson being the previous GM's guy and is therefore being moved in a package deal as he'd be made redundant. But more appropriately, you consider Sanderson for the leverage of a draft-day trade. Sanderson wouldn't get past Winnipeg is my guess. There are teams who would look to trade up to get one of the top two D-men in the draft. You look for the team that believes Sanderson is the next Heiskanen and if the offer is right, you entertain them and push for more. And if Winnipeg really likes Sanderson and fears the Wild also likes him, maybe it's a simple swap of 8 for 10 + whatever. Unlimited power! (of possibilities.)

So... a franchise tank salesperson peddling tanks to teams.... Friends... you're driving the wrong vehicle! You need safety for your family! You need style for you mid-life crisis! You need all-terrain capabilities for your weekend jaunts into the hills. Friends... you need a tank! Nothing safer. It performs great in collision testing with other midsize sedans! Mid-life crisis? Solve it with a 120 mm cannon! All wheel drive? Hah, you want yourself some treads. ....Is what that guy who wants to tank longer would say. Myself, I'd take the AT-AT. I'm down to take Jarvis/Quinn at 8, I want the person who shoots, scores, and repeats. If trading down closely (10-12) then it's whoever is left and that's where I entertain a Lundell (i.e.: the safer pick), although I think he'll be gone with MIN or WPG.

Agreed. Management overreacted to an end-of-year locker cleanout interview instead of remaining calm, at peace, and passive. Nearly all players are despondent at the end of a losing season; they care, they want to win. It's even worse if they're seen as the leader and best player on the team because it's on their shoulders. They need time to recharge. The offseason has a draft (hope future), free agency (hope now), and plenty of time (healing), and constantly revs up the hype engine. Maybe management makes a coaching change (not that particular offseason, but a possibility), or they bring in Skinner for Pu, or win the lottery (they did! Dahlin!). Give the players a chance to regroup and reset. ROR would have. And this franchise would be in a better spot with him on the roster the last 2 seasons (of course, minus Cozens most likely).