DarthEbriate

54 and 45 on the same D-pairing... and neither an established player. And a 55 and a 44... We could mix it up just a touch for easier identification.

More pinching Dahlin, please.

Thompson's reach --- then the dangle, then the assist to R2. Nifty.

The RSS feed is something we should get a fair share of goal notifications on this year.

Staal with a good look from Reino.I couldn't tell from the feed chop on whether it was saved or missed wide/high, but those two will look good together. And now: Hutton with a good save on Staal on another Reinhart feed.

Haven't heard "atoll" in a long time. (a long time) It's good to have Sabres hockey back.

I'd gladly have Grier on the Sabres coaching staff (particularly if it helped with the PK prowess in any way) or also out here as part of Seattle's expansion.

@Zamboni, once again thanks for doing the research and making this list. I know it’s about to get exponentially more time-consuming as for rounds 3, 2, and 1, but I hope you continue with the series. It's super-rare to get a top skater (Gaudreau) and it's possible to get a good NHL goalie (Holtby, Grubauer, Shesterkin). But it would appear once per decade a team should be nailing a bottom-6 forward or bottom-4 defenseman who carves out a really solid NHL career (who can also bounce up the lineup for a few seasons). We got ours with Foligno, and hopefully again soon with Borgen or Bryson or Pekar. There's a good list of players here at forward and defense who've made significant contributions to their team (including some playoff heroics) or project to continue to do so. Forward: Weise, Nyquist, Cizikas, C. Smith, Foligno, Gaudreau, Donskoi, Pageau, Rieder, Anderson, Paquette, Athanasiou, Wood, Copp, Arvidsson Defense: Brodie, Ekholm, Vatanen, Slavin, Toews Of note, the Sabres trend with this pick is how often the 4th has been traded away. And look no further than this year where we packaged our 4th to move up to get JJ Peterka. And... as the WJCs are ongoing right now and Peterka looks great --- yes, make that trade everyday of the week.

Very strange; I hadn't seen/heard that yet. What a bummer. You never want to have an innocuous song get associated with a tragedy or an act of violence like this. I suppose we could hope that it gave the guy a last happy memory of childhood or some such, except that it wasn't sufficient to prevent the act. Of course, I've used the German version as Casey's goal song because he's good old Casey "City Center" aka downtown.

Alright -- a guy who can continue on the taxi squad after (if) the AHL opens and you need the prospects playing meaningful minutes. This is fine. Edit: Also, execute Order Twenty-Seven.

Good for him (in terms of skill and desire to play)! Although I can see the skipping homework as an annoyance from the parent's side of it. If he insists on crushing your non-chess soul, then you need to set up a handicap. Your bishops or rooks are also queens, for example.

More playing time in... whatever the AHL ends up being... for the kids. I was counting on Nelson to be a steady vet this (half) season.

Huh. I swear Dark and Light switched Home and Away designations since I last looked. I wonder if I switch?... Nope. All appears to be in order now. Home/Dark; Away/Light, just like jerseys should be. Must have been me misreading it initially. I'll take full responsibility for losing the colors and apologize to Lord @SDS.

I should love Dark Mode. It's my side of the Moulson. But @SwampD is right, SS Home One mode is the way to go.

Every word of what you just said is correct.

League-wide, yes. The owners should want players making tons because that means the league revenue is higher and the owners make their equal amount. But you know on the individual team level each owner is happy to pay less and get someone on a cheaper contract, even if just because of a possible LTIR or buyout. As you noted on the previous page, the Sens got Stepan and $2M remaining, and not Point's $18M remaining. It's the perception of it.

What if we don't make the playoffs? But it's a whole 'nother year! It's only one shortened-season more. This training camp, we'll make enough on the rookie crop that I'll be able to trade for some more picks, and then you can go to the playoffs next year.

If that's from the Pitt article it's really odd. It seems like they would have listed Kahun among our key losses. I'd say Larsson, Kahun, Johansson, and Simmonds as they had defined roles or were acquired as a future for the team. That said: Hall > Kahun. Cozens > Simmonds. Staal > Johnasson, and Eakin > Larsson (offensively only). So all-in-all we're improved.

Even better would be if Hutton comes in lights-out and in February he's 8-0-1... and then he just plays average hockey the rest of the year and coasts to something like 13-5-2. (And Linus is similarly average and ... do some math, carry the one... 18-14-4.).

There is the owner perspective as well that an offer sheet (successful or unsuccessful) also drives up player costs overall for the league, which is bad. And it also reduces their low-cost draft assets. It's a lose-lose for the owners bottom line, unless it helps the team reach and win playoff games.

Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right. (Just a lightsaber is a potential suicide-lobotomy-device if you're some unsupervised Youngling holding it upside down and looking at it...) Yes, it is a risky tool when doing trades/interacting with the GM inner circle. But one shrewd move like this can make your team a lot better quickly. It also is something that agents and players should be looking to use to get maximum dollar during the flat cap. From the Sabres perspective, Dahlin's cost should be lower next season based on the flat cap and what Sergachev signed for (4 years x 3.6M). That's laughable. So a team like Los Angeles next season should be ready to pounce on that. They've got high picks the past few years including Byfield. They've got Koptiar and Doughty on pricey contracts, but that's all. If Buffalo offers Dahlin in the 5M-area for a bridge with promises to give a pay raise on the next contract when the cap jumps back up.... then LA should definitely go 6.5M on a bridge (1st and 3rd for Dahlin --- hell yes that's easy to give up for him). Or even 7M (1st, 2nd, 3rd) --- make Buffalo really sweat it. Then, just lock Byfield up before he becomes available, and have a set price on all your other player --- so if someone comes for revenge and overpays for a guy, you take the picks and let them self-cripple their cap further. Exactly. A GM either gets canned in just a few years with never another sniff, or they join the re-tread circuit and are employed in some capacity for a decade or more. It could be well worth it to take the shot.

Welcome to 'breSpace... the final frontier. 🍺

Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future. The condensed schedule this season could easily see us needing 5-10 games from a center callup or line shuffle. If Mitts were to play 7-10 games and manage to score in a couple shootouts that get us into the playoffs? He's not what we've wanted in an 8th overall. But neither is Nylander what Chicago wants yet. In 2023, we can write the book on Mittelstadt.

You never know unless you try. For super-cheap, yes the Sabres likely match. But it's also a Sabres team no one fears (yet). Push the money higher into a 3rd-round pick range and then it could make sense. You get the 2 years to see if he pans out as an offensively-minded 3C who can win shootouts and play higher up with injuries at still a bottom-end salary (Girgensons-level). Mitts is more dangerous than Girgs offensively. And just in general, these next 2-3 seasons you should be weaponizing your cap if you have it. If some GM had forced TB to sign Sergachev for 4.5M, and another had forced TB to sign Cernak for 4M, then Cirelli couldn't be signed even with Kucherov sitting the season on LTIR. In the good-case, you get a player before normal market value during the next couple seasons. In the best-case, you force Cirelli off the TBL and maybe you can get him. Or you force TBL to trade Point and a 1st just to clear cap space. Your fellow GMs are just as much your enemies as are their roster/assets.

This is why all the major sites need an additional distinction in their columns. UFA, RFA, RFA102c, etc. Let the uninformed like myself be informed. Knowing is half the battle as they say. I dunno.... If he had been QO eligible and the Sabres had just signed Hall, Staal, and Eakin... say you're Detroit. You wouldn't toss Mitts a $925K to give him a two-year look-see in Grand Rapids, knowing he's liable to get through waivers that first season? (Remember, anything under 1.4M isn't even a single draft pick). He still has upside and skill. If he ever "gets" it, he could be a solid alternate scoring threat.