DarthEbriate

That's remains the great debate -- is he demonstrably the BPA or is he the most noticeable since Hughes is hurt and Team Canada is icing a really poor roster at the Worlds that barely eked out an elimination round ahead of Latvia and Kazakhstan? And I must say, I'm good with taking Power if the Sabres deem him the BPA. My reservation is the future. What this team needs is ROR or Bergeron. If that's Beniers, then that's the tiebreaker. This team also needs a scoring winger who can stay on the top line (looking at you, Skinner) and push Olofsson to 3W or even specialist 4W like Kotalik was. Maybe Guenther is that guy. That's the fun of these discussions. What I'm reluctant to become is a team like Anaheim where they've got Lindholm, Fowler, and Manson (and had Theodore and Montour) and still were floundering because they could only ice one quality forward line whose best players were past their prime and carrying all the cap (for us that's Skinner, and I guess Eichel if he's still here). We need more balanced lines for all the young D we've already got on the way. Note: I don't count McCabe or Risto for the future. McCabe should get a one-year rehab-prove-it deal as he'll only be about 9 months from his major knee injury during training camp. He'll be untrustworthy to start the season, but I would like him to sign as it would allow Samuelsson to get more time in Rochester logging top-pair minutes. If McCabe signs as the 7D after next year, fine. Risto is gone at the deadline if we're not contending (likely) and gone after the playoffs if we (somehow) make it. (And, only half-sarcastically, if we did draft for need, I'd point out Wallstedt. 1st is too high, but this team needs all the goalies.)

JBott spent his drafts (and European FA) trying to stock the D cupboard. And... admittedly, it's still in progress. But we do have a lot of smooth-skating puck-moving defensemen. So much so that we acquired and moved Montour and moved Guhle for Montour in the first place, and lost Antipin and Pilut back across the pond and still have a bunch of PMD. Dahlin, Joker, Bryson, Laaksonen, Johnson. We only have 2 young D who are heavy (Borgen and Samuelsson). Getting a starting goalie (Ullmark if healthy, maybe) and an NHL-caliber backup (UFA) will do a lot for our back end, arguably more than another PMD. I'm good with going for the best forward and rolling 4 solid forward lines, which we've not had since 2007. We need quality F depth. One-line forward teams don't go very far in the playoffs.

Classic sitcom two dates at the same restaurant move. During intermission he says he has to go "to the bathroom". Heads to the locker room, switches uniforms, and skates for the opposition in the second period. Then switches again during the mid-second ice scrape. Back and forth. It'll work. It'll work.

Definitely. He's going to go 4-7 and make a team really happy. Not the same position or style player, but I'm guessing he could surprise immediately in the Elias Pettersson manner.

Bounty hunter. Eklund flies a modified passenger shuttle with a savvy astromech droid and a whole lot of firepower. He sports a cape and a sneaky stun blaster in a wrist-mounted holster.

I'll provide a summary list as we get closer to the draft; especially since it's possible, however unlikely, that we move around in the draft order. In the meantime, in @LGR4GM's Option threads appear to be the best place to measure the true value of a player: their ability to be woven into Game Day Threads in Star Wars references. Are there good quotes, is the person's name a Rebel pilot or Imperial officer, etc.? Really, there are no comparisons for Owen Power. This is a generational player name. You've got "Unlimited Power!", "You underestimate my Power!" and "If you only knew the Power of The Concept of Owen." When he needs to be traded: "I think we'd better replace the negative Power coupling." And that's just the beginning! This name also opens the doors on Uncle Owen. "But I was going to Tosche Station to pick up some Owen Power play converters!" "You can waste time on SabreSpace when your chores are done." And if he ever gets blasted and tucks and ducks in a fight we can all sing "T-U-R-T-L-E Power!" All too easy. This is the pick. Or... do we need more of a challenge?

He's not named GM Sheevyn, slowing executing Orders all the way up to 66, for nothing.

Yub nub! We can all celebrate a stunning victory over the oppressive lottery benoits today!

If we do go this route, the possibilities are endless. Unlimmmmmmited Powerrrrrrrr! and all its permutations. And also an underappreciated "The Concept of Uncle Owen"

If I'm looking to trade for a 10M face-of-the-franchise player for the next 6 seasons and give up a bunch of assets to do so, I'm going to know everything about him. I'm also going to know he does a ton for local hospitals. I'm going to know his favorite foods and his favorite style tandem bike. Etc. Unlike the Sabres, my hypothetical glass-half-Dark-Side GM has a pro scouting department and they're not just watching game film and crunching stats. They're investigating injury history, public relations, teammate relations, etc. To be fair, they say that about every Sabre who isn't on an ELC and also isn't named Jeff Skinner. Him they simply applaud as having gamed the system and won. Be near home, low expectations, even lower usage minutes, and one of the top salaries in the league. This is also the worrying part. "Rescuing" a top player from Buffalo is a really cheap enterprise these days. So if I'm outbid, no biggie, but I'm not doing a GMTM and heaping on a bunch more pieces just to land Kane, or ROR, or Fasching.

Some of these wants are little high. I mean, yes, ask for the world for a 1C. But here is a player who has never played every game in a season and is often playing injured (at the end of the COVID season he was playing hurt and finished with 1 point in his last 8 games). He currently has a neck injury. He has been criticized for possibly getting Bylsma fired, being referred to as GM Eichel a couple years ago, and is now has a "disconnect" with management regarding said neck injury. On ice, he's never led his team to the playoffs, is regarded as a PP specialist and while improving defensively never going to be considered a stalwart in his end, and has often been criticized for poor body language. He's being paid like a superstar in a flat cap world for the next couple seasons, and his NMC will kick in by the time the cap rises. We have to hope that a meddling owner (ala Knicks-style Dorian) is ga-ga over Eichel and is telling their GM to get him no matter the cost. Because any self-preserving GM shouldn't be giving up a huge package solely of futures and NHL-ready but young studs for a player with this many flags. They'd also better be clearing their cap for the next few years.

His career really fell to pieces -- traded a few times, bounced between Sweden's leagues. Wasn't a reach, we picked him right about where he was expected to go, speedy two-way bottom six type guy. A Tobias Rieder with more upside. But that's the game with the draft, many more misses than hits.

It's that age-old going from the guaranteed 100 GP threshold to a total crapshoot. That said, if there ever was a year where some GM might covet someone who is projected in the top 10, but doesn't pick until later (or like Arizona, lacks their 1st)... because of the lack of games played from COVID, maybe something silly happens this draft. There will be all sorts of reaches based on who teams liked from the previous 2019-2020 season, etc., but it could also be that a team drafts perfectly fine by just picking the next available player on the Central Scouting list.

Fun illustration of how bad we've been (while I was looking at some draft charts)... With the exception of Brett Murray (+1 in 2 GP, so a really, really small sample size), the last skater the Sabres drafted who has a career positive +/- is Joel Armia who is at +9 for his career. He was drafted ten years ago. Yes, but this is the NHL and conservative GMs. Unless there's a couple Sedins to try to get together, no one's really moving 1st round picks around. Now -- you move Eichel and you can get a 1st rounder. And of course the usual "this isn't the NFL draft" line so trading down to accumulate picks isn't really a thing.

If we do end up with additional 1st round picks because of a trade(s), I'd be looking at Wallstedt and Cossa for sure. Draft a goalie every other year to keep that pipeline stocked (we're due to pick one this year).

Just ran Tankathon 10 times... I seem to do this annually. Two 1s, two 2s, six 3s. The math mostly checks out, as we have a 70% chance of picking third.

I was really hoping Kazakhstan would win yesterday, or that Arttu could've finished off Canada in regulation to really put down Canada (and give some underdogs a chance for a medal). So -- Germany, Latvia... all you have to do is skate around for 60 minutes. Get to OT 0-0. Both teams get points. Voila. Yeah, then, play to win in OT/SO, whatever.

Which is why the inclusion of Lazar, a perfect Bruin, (I know I know, cap-balancing reasons) was so awful in the Hall trade. Getting those first-round potential guys who reinvent themselves and embrace bottom 6 roles on the cheap? That's the lifeblood of a good roster. Paille, Girgensons (until the current contract), Lazar, Angry Larry (high 2nd). Heck, even the Concept of Kassian. It takes them a few years to accept it, and then they're cheap, reliable, and can bounce up and down the lineup. Replaceable? Absolutely. But we have a capricious flavor-of-the-month owner. So when it comes time to replace a Girgensons... it's an overpay as a reward of service or worse, it's the reward for a guy who played above himself while bouncing around the roster (Kassian after playing with McDavid) or after a great playoffs (Beagle -- undrafted, not a 1st -- with Vancouver on a heinous contract after his big playoff with the Caps). When you have these ideal grinders, it's OK to keep them. It really comes down to Hasek though, doesn't it? Until the final 1999 roster was in order (Barnaby out for Barnes; Juneau added; Wilson out for Warrener; Ray riding the pine) that team didn't have the depth to survive the playoffs without Hasek stealing 2 games per series. Shields and Roloson were both good enough to win playoff games for the Sabres while Hasek was out, but over the course of an entire season that's a borderline playoff bubble roster, and probably cannon fodder without Hasek in the opposition's heads.

Yes, bu RaKru wanted veterans and was going to play the veterans. (And I recall Eichel wanting veteran leadership in an interview, maybe the 2020 exit interview?) So the youth movement wasn't happening this year with RaKru in power. I'd have loved to see Girgs - Lazar - Okposo as the GLO replacement. That's a solid 3rd line if Hall and Staal and Skinner truly solidify the top 6, and with a healthy Eichel. That could've worked. But lots of factors went into ripping that apart. Alas, now we've got to look to the future. But with this franchise (and any franchise) small mistakes pile up. Trading for Frolik, acquiring Kahun and his bonus overage, along with Dahlin's and Joker's bonuses, then overpaying Eakin and Girgensons. None of those are big. But all together and we can't do things like creatively move Hutton or be a 3rd party to carry cap in a trade. Big issues like Skinner's contract and paying Leino to be a C, and giving Ehrhoff 10M for his first season when the league is trying to eliminate Kovalchuk deals (and wouldn't Regier have known that from GM meetings?) -- you can work around one or two of those if you minimize the little mistakes.

This. And while it could work if, say, we'd been winning for the last decade and had had a strong captain throughout and now the reins were being handed over to Eichel and Reinhart and McCabe -- they might not be natural leaders themselves, but they would have hypothetically learned everything needed and built and been part of the culture. Instead, it's quite the opposite. They've been the figureheads of the worst team year-in and year-out, with an ever-revolving GM/coach group, mockery from the media and hockey peers, and a constantly-shifting veteran "leader" presence of at most a year or two (exempting Okposo, who is himself a great "A" and 2nd-in-command/support guy but not "the" guy). For whatever reason, they decided that Vancouver-Calgary regular season games had to finish up before the North playoffs began. It made no sense, those games easily could have been paired as late games after TOR/MTL (and if OT, deal with it) and alternating on days with WPG/EDM. But instead... we've got this. I'm managing my office's annual playoff pick 'em thread and I'm basically saying: "Yeah, pick the semis whenever you get the chance but hopefully by end-of-day Tuesday once you're back to reading company email again after the holiday." Good thing we just pick for bragging rights.

Not mutually exclusive, but if we were going to get a goalie then we needed a capital G goalie. Ullmark had yet to play 40 games in a season, was coming off an injury, and the other goalie couldn't see and had had one hot month but otherwise had been below average for us in two seasons. So if we weren't going to trust Hutton (rightfully so) then we needed a 1A and we needed to pony up 4M+ for that player or work a trade for him. Instead, we got Tokarski. And he was better than JoJo and Hutton, but he's also a career AHLer and he didn't change that with this season's performance. Of course, claiming Nedeljkovic off waivers was an option. Not that this team would've made him look great. But maybe he could play as well as Ullmark and voila... we have ourselves a competitive team (once RaKru was dismissed).

Impressive. Most impressive. It's too bad he let Eichel's injury let him check out instead of taking over and being force. And sure, he was leading the team in assists for awhile and was OK. But he was content to stay safe and injury free and steer clear of the net. And once RK was gone, instead of embracing Granato and again, being a veteran leader they needed with Okposo also hurt, he cchecked out until they were forced to scratch him for trade. All in all: agreed. He can sod off forever.

Larsson was a useful part of a team -- not great, but a solid role. And he agitated people, which was nice. But to lose a nearly-defense-only guy and to get a worse offensive player for more money? Hall and the goalie. If we could turn back time and spend Hall's contract on Toffoli and a goalie instead. Heck, MTL's signings could have as easily have been ours: Jake Allen and Tyler Toffoli. No Hall. And instead of Cody Fr-Eakin Eakin on day 2 or day 3 of free agency, and getting another guy for less later (Haula, or bring back Larry). RK's wishes destroyed this team to the point that now we're considering moving Eichel. What the hell? What the your taun-taun-will-freeze-before-the-first-marker-then-I'll-see-you-in Hell?

Unfortunately, neither coach this season put Okposo together with Lazar. Lazar got paired with Skinner and 4th line minutes early, and then injuries/trades prevented any opportunity later. Eakin should've been benched when the losing streak was at 10, if not earlier. Meanwhile, Asplund was on the bench and Mitts was still on the wing. Because veteran leadership I guess. Oh, and face offs. Alas... that was not our 4 line by ES minutes. When at our most healthy and that trio was together, they were our third line. Skinner-Lazar-Sheahen played fewer minutes. (Skinner got his average up by the end of the season, but also got top 6 minutes toward the end.)

I'm surprised it took this long for the ratings to plummet.