kas23

I think the only Russians worth taking at this point are the ones already out of the country and who say they aren’t going back. Complete ***** show going on there.

I agree there won’t be a full scale collapse of the Russian government, but the effects of this situation are going to reverberate. There’s 10x more questions now. Will Russia declare martial law? Will they block all those leaving the country? If Wagner becomes defunct, who will take their place? Will Russia turn to widespread conscription to fight Putin’s war? If all this happens, is a KHL season in jeopardy? Will all this nonsense make prospects more likely to jump ship now?

This is fine. It’s not like a drive from Cinci to Rochester was a simple way to shuttle players. It’s a plane ride either way.

I agree with you. Mitts played most of the year with a guy who would end up being benched and a waiver wire pick up. Tage would’ve had issues with them as well. We’ve seen what Mitts can do with better line mates. I’m not sure JJP and Quinn will be glued to Cozens again and maybe one of them will be paired with Mitts and Greenway. I’m also not convinced placing AHL call-ups (Rousek or Kulich) with Mitts will prove to be better than what he had last year. They need more time, but maybe Rousek is ready (albeit having a lower ceiling than Kulich).

Correct. He was caught off guard by being traded. Said him and his family were settled in and had to think about it.

While Quinn or JJP would be nice, they are still young. I’m going with Mitts. He needs to do what his did in his last 30 games for an entire season. He’s yet to do this, but I think he’s ready. It would be a big jump for him.

Outside of his HOF worthy play on the ice, while he wasn’t the first Russian to play in the NHL, Mogilny had the nuts to open the floodgates of Russian’s playing in the NHL. The NHL would’ve been a very different league without Alex. Plus, a 76 goal season!?

Glad Peca got promoted, but would be glad anyone from the organization getting promoted. I loved him as a player. Everyone did and this is probably where the sourness is coming from. I know next to nothing on his coaching abilities and I don’t recall there being anything out in the public domain on his coaching prowess. Being a player and a coach is different. Still, the Sabres couldn’t just keep adding assistant coaches. There was no open position for him.

I don’t know what we would promote him to. We already have a HC for the Amerks. An assistant coach for the Sabres? As much as our defensive woes, I think Muel, Dahlin, and Power are developing well. Coaching previously stunted Dahlin considerably.

Huberdeau too.

And that’s the biggest problem. There are many great players in this draft and the teams with the most holes are picking first. Does a GM of one of these train wrecks have the luxury of selecting a question mark, especially one that is wearing 3 year handcuffs? These GMs not only need to do best for their team, but also themselves. The median tenure of a NHL GM is 4 years. This player didn’t sound that enthused about playing in the NHL (my focus is on my current team…) and isn’t currently meeting with teams. Is the risk really worth it?

He could, but it depends on his risk tolerance. And his agent’s. We would all like to think Power will be a better player in a few years. That’s not guaranteed, but the contract he would sign today would be. I think most agents would frame it this way as well. A bird in the hand…

Totally agree. This is probably more a fear of the system than him being apathetic towards the draft. Still, this is undoubtedly going to make him fall off some team’s draft boards (unless there are some under the radar communications occurring).

He’ll pay less taxes and gain a Forex benefit.

But the cap hit for those two would be 7.25M. Might as well give that an extra $1M to keep Pesce.

I agree, he loves the Canes. But, I think changing agents is a bit much for a scare tactic. And he’s likely going to be way more likely to give the Canes the hometown discount rather than the Sabres. He’s going to be costly.

So, what would this take? Savoie, Kulich, or Mitts? I would lean towards Savoie. Not that I’ve given up, but he’s gonna take awhile to fully develop. Kulich is much further along.

Anyone have a good handle on the Canes cap situation? What can they afford to sign him for or are they going to be able to take an salary away from us?

Here’s a good article on the situation: https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/carolina-hurricanes/analysis/would-the-carolina-hurricanes-actually-consider-trading-brett-pesce

I wonder if we have any other players repped by Moldaver. Guy sounds like a hard ass and wouldn’t exactly fit into KA’s model of signing team friendly contracts. Pesce has no connection to the Sabres, so don’t see why he would sign a fair contract with them. The Canes don’t overpay for players and neither do we. Don’t know why this would change. This is probably little more than KA inquiring what the cost of his next contract would be.

This is easy, but hindsight is 20/20. Should’ve protected Toker/Houser/Hutton over Ullmark. KA should’ve had a better gauge he was going to sign elsewhere. Judging by their goalie shopping spree that offseason, Seattle wouldn’t have been able to resist and would’ve taken Ullmark and we would’ve retained Borgen.

To say that it was the Sabres and not Eichel that drove his dysfunction is laughable. The Sabres have proved this to be wrong - there has been no dysfunction since he left. Eichel had an attitude problem and he decided early on to dig in his heels. He had been on teams with Donnie as a coach and could’ve played under him as a HC. He chose not to, not the Sabres. His trade demands predated any hint of injury. He gave up on the team and decided he wasn’t going to part of any solution. He’s playing better because he’s a decent talent and he really has no other choice (is he gonna be passed around like a hot potato?). Plus, he’s been stripped of any leadership responsibilities and is free of any adversity. He just has to play. No face or heart of the franchise. He doesn’t even have to be the best player on the roster (and he isn’t).

Wonder who is going to buy him out of that. I don’t think he can hold financial interests in 2 teams.

I actually agree with your hesitancy. People point out he was injured in 21-22, which is why he was forgettable. However, he replicated this same forgettable performance in the first half of 22-23. So, was it really the injury that derailed his 21-22 season? It’s probably part of it, but it’s certainly not the only reason. That said, I think if we subtracted Mitts from last season and replaced him with a top 4 D, I still don’t think we would’ve made the playoffs. While a top 4 D would’ve been nice, Mitts single-handedly won us a bunch of games down the stretch. We would’ve been toast without him during the final 30 games, especially when Tage was injured.

Maybe there would be some tax savings somehow, but if the owners of the Coyotes was will to sell for $400M to the NHL, he would probably be more interested in selling them for a $1B to someone else. Would be very hard for the NHL to block that if existing owners agreed with the sale (ie moving franchises to a better market).