Thorny

I would manage the 3C position as if the prospects are a non-entity. If they break down the door, good problem

Best game I’ve seen live. First time I ever saw the Sabres win live. Sammy hat-trick, finished off with an EN goal off an unselfish play from Kane

9 shots so far total. Hope I didn’t go Nostradamus on this one

This is how you find out who’s blocked you

Don’t really like Dahlin and Power on the same pair personally

Same ownership situation

The fact things can look, sound, and be THAT depressing, a story filled with potholes along the way, yet result in a team that was a solitary point out is a positive thing imagine if we loved everything KA had done and we were still missing. That would be really stinky. There’s a ton of failure there, actually, which presents opportunity, which means potential for improvement. When the gap you need to bridge with that improvement is minor, things can be exceptionally frustrating yet not shrouded in darkness

I torpedo Kevyn Adams all the time (ask a board member! They’ll tells ya! I swears it!”) and while I wouldn’t call it faith or hope, I rely on something better: fact. Which, beyond “faith”, let’s me KNOW it’s possible Adams can do it: you don’t need to be very good to make the playoffs. You need to be average. Yes, Adams has the ability to field an average team. We were one point out a year ago for jeepers sakes. Human beings don’t have the ability to change or shift their stance even one iota? Of course they do. Adams can adjust his strategy in perhaps even an indistinguishable way so as to make up that gap. It would be absurd to think Adams can’t “fix” it when the fix is so minor. Can Adams field a cup team? Probably not. Most GMs can’t. But I just do not care you might even say I could care less. But that’s a little extreme. Extreme because it’s a butchered turn of phrase

Agree. Our best hope could legitimately be Levi Canada is also on the Levi timeline apparently All the rage

Maybe a FA or something but we have what, 3 first overall picks or something on D? Lol if these guys can’t buoy the D unit I’d assume team building is an impossible pursuit. Trading our best F for a 2nd pair D is enough for me now, I’d spend more significant assets elsewhere on the roster. At F, even a competent vet backup goalie Samuelsson - Dahlin Byram - Power Clifton - Jokiharju ..the handedness situation is brutal but clearly their aim was stacking talent and there’s a ton of talent there The strength of the roster is Dahlin / Power. If we become good, dollars to donuts it flows through them and Levi. If these 2 first overall picks aren’t creating two lockdown, possession dominant pairs we are up the creek anyways. Having a 3rd overall pick there on pair two failsafes even further unless the Byram we’ve seen is Bowen in perpetuity

Under the assumption we continue to employ personnel who refuse to build a winning hockey team, sure, I just don’t think that ever HAD to be the case

I can’t believe I watched that whole game without falling asleep

Well, he also hadn’t failed to make the playoffs 4 consecutive years before this season so maybe that willingness changes

Rangers have always been like watching paint dry and Paul Maurice coached teams are unfailingly insufferable. I’m biased against Dallas and Edmonton admittedly but Dallas is always boring with their defensive style So that leaves Edmonton and Canadian teams stink so..🤷‍♂️

No respect needed

Ya, of the 4 remaining teams there’s no one to root for Uninspiring final 4 for sure, not even sure the hockey will be exciting Good teams definitely though, maybe the 4 best

Who? Could admittedly easily just be put down to a textbook example my waning interest in the league at large but I’ve never even heard of this guy. Looking at his stats a guy with this sort of late emergence would be a reasonable addition but reek of desperation if he’s the “big” add

Interesting, so you think we retain Granato had Ruff not been?

So well put. Field the best team you can next year. I’d HAPPILY take the ensuing “problem” of locking up the players that produced good results, finally. That’s a step up in relevancy If anything, winning will *aid* our attempts and discussions to lock up players, inside and out. We talk so much about how “no one wants to be here”. Win. Too many players wanting to be here would be a good thing. Stop worrying about Online GM Simulator mode for PC: 20 year Dynasty mode

And 70% of the team will be Botterill guys. Goes both ways

Thinking here is too cart before horse. Worry about fielding next year’s team before stressing about “needing” to lock up players from a core that hasn’t yet made the playoffs - - - Also, the message of seeing some of our players have success elsewhere isn’t “don’t trade your players”, it’s what we draw from the contrast between failure here and success elsewhere: the message is that you need to assemble a team with balance and depth. Not a team of kids, not a team of scrubs expecting a star player to carry them. It’s not at all about being patient: it’s about being proactive in assembling a team of depth if you aren’t going to do that, might as well be impatient and deal your guys away to teams where they’ll have success. Just sitting around won’t yield results either

Completely different level of competition helps too The kind that leads to Byram - Keith comparable tbh

They certainly weren’t in a “take the best you can get” situation for Mitts at all, no reason to necessarily sell if not getting exactly or close to exactly what you want so while I said Adams didn’t like Mitts I just meant relative to his other top centres- he had adjudged Mitts to be in the “tradeable to achieve or help facilitate the improvements we want” category but likely not a “players to be moved” category. I don’t know about the deal but I can comfortably say Adams either doesn’t see or care about a “redundancy” issue on the backend nor likely a handedness issue and has a conscious idea of how he figures he wants to build the team from Levi out through the puck movers and into the now likely speedier forward group with the departure of Mittelstadt. unless Krebs is the 3C then I dunno what the forwards are supposed to be

He really likes Byram and didn’t particularly like Mitts, it’s almost certainly that simple. Team building can’t just be collecting talent, mix is a big consideration. We’ll see if he’s right. The only thing that would be wrong on it’s face is not replacing Mitts at all

Disagree. of course it supports my point - it’s not fair to look at a 50 game output and claim it’s fairly reflective - a look at the 3 previous seasons in combination would present a far more accurate sample size PARTICULARLY because of Covid related anomalies. Jack Eichel was apart of our talent base - trading him or not he was still an asset that wasn’t reflected due to injury in the 21 season to the extend we knew he had value to the team and we could have a) kept him and B) the trade accounts for Tuch who we didn’t have in 2021 and is a much better output than hurt for 21 games Jack