mjd1001

I don't think any of the moves they made lately make them much better or much worse than they were last year. I think in Toronto, they think the team is good enough to 'compete' for a cup if they can past the first round....but their moves so far are not much more than replacing non-core pieces from last year with different non-core pieces.

Low cost training camp competition.

Trochek, 7 years is way too much I agree. BUT, if they think the team is a cup contender for the next couple years and he will be a piece to help them stay in that contender status, I guess you do the move now and deal with the back half of that contract later.

I see a reason for them not doing that....who is the goalie upgrade that is available now?

Good deal for Toronto. SOME NHL experience, young, still some potential. Hes not going to carry them this year, but a good guy for a backup.

6.5 per year? WAY too much for what he will bring at this point in his career.

I think people expect a bit too much from Samsonov, but that deal and how it fits under Toronto's cap...it is a good deal for them.

I think he is done. Not DONE done, but he certainly is done being an impact player. 34 years old, 1000+ games played. Lots of wear and tear and several injuries. He had that one 100 point season, but for his career he is a 20-25 goal, 65-70 point guy. He's had a great career, but I'm interested in the terms because I just don't think he has much left.

Also, I like him as a player, I am not looking to unload him in any way, but this is a lower cost deal. If Peterka AND Quinn make the team and emerge as good scorers, that Olofsson deal might be easy to trade at the deadline (this year or next) for something else of good value.

I would have rather seen 3 years, but that is nitpicking. Glad its done. The deal is fair to him and will not impact the Sabres long term spending at all.

You always want more options than the Sabres have now, but honestly I'd much rather have UPL with the Sabres than Martin Jones. OK, if stuff like this is true, this is where the fun starts. Signing Free agents? mild interest from me because they will almost always be overpaid for what you get, but if we get some big trades..that is another story.

Samsonov hasn't been great in net, but he had some NHL experience with most thinking he still has potential. Not broken up by it but it would have been nice to have someone like him in the mix for this year. Will be interested in the terms he agreed to.

Some people are patient. Some are not. Some people are so tired of seeing losing that they want to see winning now, even if that means you are taking something away from the long term to make things better now. Others, like myself, are more than willing to sit back and take time to 'get things right' no matter how long that takes. We all have preferences, that is what makes the fanbase diverse. Related to that there are some fans that only care about the product on the ice now. Win every game. Do what you need to do to win every game. There is nothing wrong with that, those are the majority of the fans in the building rooting on the team each night. I'm not like that though. As a fan of the Sabres and the NHL, I get as much enjoyment following the 'team building', the 'roster development' and 'player development'...anticipating what players might be like in the future....as I do about watching the the actual game on a nightly basis.

Agree. Going forward, he has the potential to be one of the better 3rd/4th liners in the league. And of course I don't simply mean he'd be one of the better 'bottom 8 forwards' but rather his role. He as the chance (not for sure but hes part of the way there) to be an elite Defender from the forward ranks while also contributing some offense AND making his linemates better.

I agree. Philly I just don't see as a threat for anything significant for years and years. Its like that franchise is Run by a group of fans with a random one picked each day to make that days decision. If Philly did sign Gaudreau it would make them better now, but virtually assure they will not be a legit cup threat for the future.

I think we are finding out on this forum again that there are no move(s) that are going to please everyone, and honestly no matter the move some people will be very upset: -Sign Vinny, no good because he's not good enough and is taking a spot from someone else. Don't sign him when you can, and you are letting a good bottom 6 guy go and it doesn't matter because you don't want Quinn/JJ playing the role he would. -Sign guys like Vinny, Subban, and other marginal guys and you are wasting money on 'the same team as last year'. To others, you HAVE to sign guys like that as competition for the young guys, to keep them pushing. -Don't go after Debrincat, Giroux, Kane, etc...and what is Adams doing?! Other teams are getting better and the Sabres aren't. Yet if you DO go after those guys, we have people upset because they want to make sure you have all the money in the world available to resign the current guys when their next deal is good and they (hopefully) are a lot better. The Sabres/Adams have a plan and they are sticking to it. Currently I like some of the moves and the 'stated' direction Adams has, so I'm going to trust the moves they make and the pace they have because they have access to a lot more info on these players than any of us do.

3rd on the team last year in ES goals per 60, behind only Tage and Skinner. He makes the most with of the ice time he gets.

For Toronto to repeat as good of a year next year as they had this year, you would think they will need similar goaltending. Campbell last year gave the Leafs a 2.64 GAA and a .914 GAA. His career numbers (including time with Tor, Kings and 1 game with DAL) are 2.53 and 9.16 Murray the last 2 years has a 3.05 and a 3.38 GAA and .906 and .893 Save %. Career he is at 2.77 and .911 (with time behind a VERY discipline Pitt team) Murray is essentially replacing Campbell, the question is, can he step up his career numbers and his recent numbers behind the Leafs D and replicate what Campbell gave them last year? To me, Murray's ceiling, the most you can expect out of him would be to maybe, MAYBE match what campbell did last year. I don't think they are getting an improvement and they are likely going to get a lesser performance.

I like Subban for some reason, but I kinda agree. He was drafted pretty high, and early in his career he looked on pace to be a good NHL goaltender, but over the last few years, he just got worse and worse for whatever reason. His career Save percentage is below .900 and his worst years were the most recent years. If you wanted to give him a tryout deal with thinking he may end up in Rochester OK, but I wouldn't expect much more than that right now. I'm not saying that Houser is an NHL goalie at all, but he has played 6 games for the Sabres in the past 2 year and in that very, VERY small sample size he played actually really well. He also has a history of being decent in the ECHL and AHL. I'd just as soon sign Houser as a guy for the ECHL or Roch, and you know you can use him in an emergency in the NHL and hes not going to let in 8 goals. Same thing with Tokarski. Honestly, you can flip a coin and choose weather you want Tokarski or Subban in that role also, but I don't see anything that would tell me that at this point, Subban would be better.

I'm not a huge fan of this pick, but I'll openly admit I know very little about these guys. Physical tools are something I can get too focused on, I like it when I hear speed, speed, speed. Hopefully he'll work out well, he might. Now on to the rest of the draft and offseason.

The person you know (in my case a few relatives and friends) who live in Arizona, or Texas, or Florida, that absolutely cannot comprehend that we choose to live in a place where the temperature gets cold in the winter, and no matter what you say they like to talk down to you about where you live, feeling 'sorry' for you and talking about how much of a paradise they live in. New flash for you, some of us actually prefer it here. I personally love light jacket weather, those 45-55 degree days in the spring and fall are my favorite days to take a walk outside or do anything outside. And outside of that, I would PREFER to spend 3 months of very cold weather where you have to run from a heated house to a heated car and dread being outside in the wind-chill...rather than 5-6 months of unbearable heat where you have to run from air conditioned house to an air conditioned car and dread being outside in the oppressive heat (I did that, I lived in Florida 2 times for a total of 4+ years). We were visiting relatives in FL a couple months ago, and a member of my wife's family who lives there non stop talks about how much he loves it, how much better it is than when he lived in NY city, and he dropped this gem on us (without being asked of course): "The only thing that is bothering me is too many people from NY are moving down here to my neighborhood and they are starting to spoil my paradise" I told my wife it sounds like someone regrets his decision to move there and is doing whatever he can to convince himself its not as bad as it seems to him.

I'm not saying that If you don't think you are winning the cup, then to not try to win a few extra games. Unless you are in a total 'tank' mode then you should always try to win games. What I was trying to say is that if you think you are in that 'not winning the cup this year' mode (meaning not reasonably in the top 10-15 teams at least), then to not make moves with the only goal of winning a couple extra games with not much of a long term benefit. If the Sabres turn into a 95+ point team on a consistent basis, then talk to me about short term deals to try to win 'this year'. But right now, I'm not interested in that at all.

Ok, I was a really little kid at the time in the 1980s, so small I didn't really know much of what I was watching but I DID watch the Sabres before any other sport, and who I remember from the time was Mikael Andersson. I'm not sure I'd say I was wrong about him because I didn't know much about hockey, but of all those mid-80s draft picks he was the one I thought/wanted to be a great player. Also as far as their overall drafting, it has been Bad for the Sabres, but if you are every board. go to wikipedia or hockey reference and look at the draft history of Arizona. its like they were TRYING to draft poorly. I cannot imagine a team would ever have a stretch as bad as Arizona has, for their entire history. For anyone who thinks the Sabres draft poorly (and yes, the have) take a look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arizona_Coyotes_draft_picks In the entire history of their draft, over 25 years now..they have 1 guy who scored 300 career goals (Danielle Briere, 26 years ago) and one guy who scored over 200 goals (Blake Wheeler, drafted almost 20 years ago) No one else with even 200 career goals.

I was on both sides of the Risto debate. The first few years I bought into what I saw with the eye test. Hes a good skater. He hits. He has so much talent he is GOING to be good. The first 2-3 years of his career I was sure he was going to be an all-star caliber D-man most of his career. But then the last few years I flipped 100% on him. Even while others were defending him and the team was giving him a lot of ice time, I came to the realization that bad things happened when he was on the ice. He LOOKS like a good hockey player but he was always so far out of position, he made so many bad decisions, that his skating/skill/size could not even come close to making up for those other things, and in his case the awful +/- was truly deserved.

Not sure if anyone wants to comment on this, but I was talking with my cousin and this topic was brought up. Is there any recent (last 20 years) draft pick by the Sabres you were totally wrong about? Someone who you thought would be great and they were a total Bust? Or a draft pick you hated that turned out a lot better? For me it is Nick Baptiste. Yes, he was an early 3rd round pick but for some reason I was sure he was going to be a very good NHL player, maybe even a 30 goal scorer. Someone with the talent of a first round pick. Up until the year he left the Sabres organization, I was sure he just needed to be given more of a chance and then once he was given that 'half season' with the big club he would be one of their top players. After he left the Sabres/Amerks he had a decent year in the AHL with Milwaukee, followed by 4 more seasons in the AHL where he totaled 18 goals in those 4 (albeit shortened) seasons. Needless to say I was 100% wrong on that one.