mjd1001

I don't remember the comment so I have a legit question, were there any other 'young' players he played with here that could fit the description? Ristolained, Eichel, Reinhart, Girgensons, and Evander Kane all were on the Sabres when Gionta was here, they all are former 1st round picks and all were under 25 years old at the time. Any chance it wasn't Eichel but maybe Sam or Evander he was talking about? Or was the context of the conversation pointing at Eichel for sure?

I think it has been said in this thread earlier that a lot of us aren't hoping he has a substandard career, and a lot of us don't think they 'kicked him to the curb'. He wanted out...justified or not..you aren't 'kicking someone to the curb' when they aren't buying into the way you are building your club. And as I and at least a handful of people have said in this thread, we don't hope he has a substandard career...many of us don't really care at all. If he wins the cup, fine. If he wins and MVP, fine. If he never gets 80 points in a single season again, fine. There is something that for a lot of people, they just didn't 'connect' with Eichel the way a fan should connect with a franchise player, and because of that it is easier when it comes time to see him leave.

It is way too early in both players development to make a final conclusion now. I'm not saying Mitts is going to be a star, but we saw nothing out of him until the flashes we saw last year on the 2nd half of his 4th year after his draft. On the other side you have a player like Dylan Larkin who was drafter only 15th in the first round and was productive from day one in the NHL. It is hard to judge a 1st rounder based on his production until 'usually' year 3-4 at least. Too many times young guys who were 1st round picks scored 10-15 goals a year at best, then when they hit that 22 or 23 year old mark their production shoots up to 25+ goals.

Don't 'use' your cap space just to 'use it', don't use it until you need to. Plan how you are going to sign long term deals to what you identify as your core. If that means you are under the cap for the next few years then fine. Don't force anything. The only thing I'd like to see this year and next year is if...some team that is tight against the cap at the deadline or offseason needs to utilize 'your' cap space. A team needs to dump high, expiring contract someplace....then take that player for a year...as long as that other team is going to give a quality young asset with it...or maybe flip their 2nd rounder to you for a 5th or 6th rounder for you doing so.

Agreed. Free agency should be used only in 2 cases: -You have a MAJOR hole in you can get a 2nd or 3rd tier free agent to fill that MAJOR hole that you know will be an improvement, but only if that 2nd/3rd tier guy comes at an affordable price. -You are a cup contender, not a playoff contender but a CUP CONTENDER, and you can over pay for that #1 free agent guy that you think has a chance of turning you from a cup contender to a cup winner.

I grew up with the classic blue and gold. I probably watched my first Sabres game as a little kid in the late 1970's, but I got really into them as a kid in the 1980s. So I was exposed to the blue and gold for years and years. However, I like the red and black better. Still do.

To me, those last 3 are more and more critical in today's NHL, and you can add to that having the speed/quickness/vision to get to the loose puck first. If you get to the puck in the corners quicker than the other guy, and move it out of the zone with good passing or stickhandling, then it means it is less often that you need the 'old fashioned' physical skills.

I'm not 100% sure why, but the whole coin flip/overtime rule didn't bother me much last night. I think it was because of just how upset I was about the '13 seconds' and cant hold it. To me the OT rules might be a matter of random chance, but YOU failed yourself by not holding that lead for 13 seconds. If I'm going to be upset more about a rule or officiating, its the lack of stuff against KC. I know, I know, you can call or not call stuff on every play, but if you go back and look at all those Mahomes Scrambles in the 1st half where they Bills got close to him but let him get away, there was holding that I saw on just about every single one of them. Of course it is going to be near impossible to bring down someone like Mahomes when as you chase him and try to tackle him you are getting pulled/tugged/held. Even that though.....everything else combined doesn't get me past not holding that lead for 13 seconds.

With the bills season over, will there be ANY increase in the attendance at the home games and any increase on traffic/threads to this site?

I agree with you on Tuch on the PK. That is why you have 4th line guys (and maybe 3rd liners). PK is sometimes less about talent and more about effort and discipline. You should be able to get 3-4 or 5 guys that can be your 3rd or 4th liners that will be just as good of penalty killers as someone like Tuch (maybe BETTER because they will have less ice time the rest of the game and always be a little fresher for the PK) The opposite of that ice time thing is true also...if Tuch is going to be a key even strength guy and a Power play guy, then give him a full 2 minutes of rest during the PK, so he is fresh once the PK is over.

Well, that Bills game,and season, were stressful. At a certain level it will be nice to watch the Sabres with little to no expectations, and just have fun with the good things we do see.

I was all for the tank and I believe in building through the draft, and if they don't sign another big name free agent ever I'm happy. With that said, its time to stop the losing after this year and go 100% for wins. You already have a bunch of young, 1st round talent that you are hoping keeps better and have flashed signs of potential stardom: Thompson, Cozens, Krebs, Quinn, Dahlin, Mittelstadt, Jokijarju, and Samuelson (one pick away from a 1st rounder) You have vets with 1st round pedigree/talent: Tuch, Skinner, Girgensons, Okposo You have a LOT of guys that haven't made the NHL yet with close to 1st round talent or pedigree: Owen Power, Rosen, JJ Peterka, Ryan Johnson. You will have another top 6-8 pick this year (if not better with a little luck) and a few other 1st rounders you got in a trade. Even your goalie situation is looking hopefully a couple years out. Time to stop the semi-intentional losing after this year. Let the young guys step up to bigger roles, and STRATEGICALLY plug holes with mid-level free agents.

Krebs scoring those goals was nice. When watching him play he just doesn't stand out to me at all. I have long hoped it is for 2 reasons: 1. He is young. 2. I have no idea what to look for in determining who is or will be a good player. Hopes he keeps up the production. Tuch is someone that I don't think many realized his talent/potential when he was traded to the Sabres. As far as production, lets look at his 82 game pace for his career: This year (only through 9 games with Buf): 27 goals, 64 assists Last year: 27 goals, 22 assists 2019-20: 16 goals, 18 assists 2018-19: 22 goals, 35 assists 2017-18: 16 goals, 23 assists Career over 82 games (taking out his rookie 6 game trial with Minnesota): 20goals, 27 assists To me, that looks like a guy that, at this point in his career, you HOPE for production of about 25 goals and 35 assists per year based on past production (weighing recent seasons more than past seasons) Now if you look at his usage, he is getting slightly more even strength time on ice here than in Vegas (14:12 per game vs 13:31). Slightly more PP time (2:52 vs 2:13) and a lot more PK time here (2:03 per game vs 0:12) per game. So can his numbers get better because of more ice time/more opportunities. Maybe, but not by that much. Add a goal or two extra to his expected production and a handful of assists. The thing we don't know and is very hard to quantify is...how will who he is teamed with impact his expected production? Will being on the top PP unit and playing with the best line mates possibly increase his production even more? Or will being in that position and now facing the best opponents focusing on shutting his line down reduce his production? That is something very hard to predict. Just looking at his numbers, doing some very basic extrapolation, I think we see a guy that you hope for 25 goals and 35 assist per year from. On a very good year MAYBE 30 goals and 35-40 assists. On a down year, 15-20 goals and 25-30 assists.

That Nurse deal I think is the Killer. He is their version of Risto, but just at a much higher rate. When I watch the Oilers (I don't do it a lot but a few games a year) he seems to be a very talented guy that makes a few major mistakes a game, and a lot of those mistakes end up in his own net. I searched a little of their forums a few weeks go and some articles about him, and it seems like 20% of the articles say how great he is, 80% say he is terrible in his own zone, over-rated, and one even suggested he should be traded/cut/released BEFORE he signed his big deal.

Skinner has to put up 25 goals a year just for that contract to not be an anchor around the Sabres neck. It would still be a bad contract, but if he produces at that level it is somewhat tolerable. With him not having much of a value in terms of overtime or penalty kill, he has to justify his entire contract by putting the puck in the net. To totally justify it, he'd have to put up close to 40 every year (which he isn't doing) but you want to make sure he just gives you something.

Maybe it's hard to turn it on in the middle of the season or game to game.. but you can do it over an off season and through training camp

Granado has admitted earlier this year the very thing we're seeing.... He wants the players to not be afraid of making mistakes. He wants them to learn from their mistakes. In 3 years from now if the sabers are battling a team in the playoffs then the coaching style will change. It will be more about winning this game unless about development. I don't understand why people think he's a bad GameDay coach, when he has openly admitted that that's the way he's coaching this team right now?

Or...it'll take him 5-10 games to round into form which will be just long enough for him to get injured yet again.

The Sabres are 5th from the bottom in terms of total goals scored, while their PP is ranked in the middle third of the league (I think they are 19th or 20th as of today). So, compared to their even strength scoring, the PP is more than carrying it's weight.

Agree. Making up "pet" names for players or management is a bit 3rd grade-ish. Plus it actually makes the post a little harder to read. This and calling Jack eichel "john".. When the rest of the world calls him jack.. just seems a little childish to me.

Ottawa isn't that bad. In terms of point percentage, they are just ahead of the Sabres. Since Dec 2 game, they are 7-3-1, including wins vs the Avs, Panthers, and Lightning. They have had a lot of Covid issues like Buffalo (and many other teams) but early in the year a lot of their key players missed games. They are a better team than their record shows, and they have been playing really good as of late.

But that didn't work for the Sabres, and with the talent on the team at that time, and what was in the minor league system, it wasn't going to happen for years. Look at those teams, look at what the players they got rid of did, and look what was in the minors back then. That team was going no-where. It doesn't matter what 'should' have happened, it mattered the position they were in. And with the position they were in (their own fault or not) the status quo of a 'non tank' wasn't going to get them anywhere.

I wanted the tank and i'd want it again the same situation. The problem was not the tank, it is just the Sabres did a crappy job of executing it (poor drafting, speeding it up to much, poor development). Other teams have used the same strategy and it worked well for them. Don't blame the tank, blame the execution. you know what would be worse than the tank? The status quo of what we had before it....when the Sabres management/ownership team got their hands on that, things could have been just as bad or worse than the tank. If they screwed up a 2nd overall pick and other high picks, just how well do you think they would have done with only having middle first rounders to work with? I don't think well at all.

And remember what came of that deal? That first was flipped to Calgary along with Buffalo's 2nd..and that was turned into...Zemgus Calgary then used Nashville's first that they got from Buffalo and selected current Sabre...Mark Jankowski The 2nd that the Sabres sent to Calgary, the Flames took...Patrick Sieloff (who was later traded by the Flames to Ottawa for Alex Chiasson, and Sieloff since then has pretty much been a career minor leaguer) So Buffalo basically traded Gaustad and a 2nd (that became Sieloff) for Zemgus I guess Buffalo won that trade?

I can't see a 1st for Miller. If they do, great. I was thinking if he was moved, I'd thought they would be hoping for a 3rd but maybe getting a 4th or 5th...of course they know that market 1000 times (or more) better than I do. There is a value to 3rd, 4th, and 5th round picks at times. They rarely make the NHL, but there is that 'lottery pick' aspect to them. You can get a Klingberg or a Mark Stone, Brayden Point or a Johnny Gaudreau...but those guys in the middle round are rare, once again it is a lottery ticket. The thing is, there are only so many contracts you are allowed to have as a team, you can't just keep stockpiling and stockpiling these 'lottery tickets' waiting for one to hit. I think the Sabres are at that point. To some teams (Pittsburgh is a good example), their minor league system is so bare they can use a lot of those extra 3rd or 4th or 5th rounders to restock. The Sabres, if they do draft, have to focus on quality. What does that mean? I think the Sabres are at a point where if you can trade Miller for a 2nd....you are close to getting a 1st but can't quite do it...then you trade him and thrown in one of your 3rds or even a second to upgrade to that first. You have another pending FA someone wants but only wants to give you a 5th? See if you can trade that player and your 5th rounder to get the other teams 3rd or even 4th rounder back. If a guy isn't going to be with you next year, the thought was 'get SOMETHING for him', even if its a late round pick. Right now, I don't want something back for them...I'd trade them instead to upgrade my current draft position. If that means giving someone away and going from your early 4th round pick and upgrading that to a middle-to-late 3rd rounder...so be it. If they are even CLOSE to getting a 1st for Miller but no one bites....I'd take my 3rd rounder (even though it will be a high 3rd) and throw it in with Miller if that gets it done.