Thorny

The tending will almost certainly be improved year over year merely by Levi’s presence. I’m just not sure “better” constitutes the position being “appropriately managed”. I’d rather the GT and team succeed outright to whatever levels are reasonably possible than potentially succeed *in spite* of goalie B being sub-par, simply because we can

Right, I guess I just meant “nothing further than what we ended the season with”. But I get you And oh I just saw your thread lol

Brilliant: 3C, Top 4 D, Vet G Very good: Top 4 D, Vet G Pretty good: Vet G Fine but Dicey: Top 4 D Those are mine. I’d rather have the vet G if I could only have 1 thing. I said “fine but dicey” for the last option but in reality based on what I THINK they need, i don’t really think a run back in net is fine I don’t expect a F but I wouldn’t rule it out, nor would I say there’s no room for someone who is defensively responsible. Fixing the D doesn’t have to just be defensemen. Example: Skinner - Thompson - Tuch Peterka - Cozens - Quinn Mittelstadt - Laughton - Greenway Girgensons - Krebs - Okposo I’m kinda surprised you have an offseason where we don’t address GT as “pretty good”, tbh

The reality is that Levi and some guy is likely to be good enough in net one day to win a Cup provided everything else is looking good. It might even be good enough to be a strength along with the other aspects of the roster. The more interesting divergence point for me is specifically the looming season. I’m just a lot more interested in the value being really good next season specifically would provide, that is to say I think I have a higher priority placed on that than KA. There’s a recent quote from him where he says it’s about building sustained success, whereas I’m very ready to just start with some success, period, in getting this show on the road, and worry about sustaining it once we actually achieve it. I can’t really explain it beyond that, I’m just ready

Maybe Power. He’s got the highest ceiling

Still the best thread lol just read it “Florida is in trouble now... like Vegas.”

This is how it’s done

No. I just really like @PASabreFan

The idea that Hellebuyck is a “bad” fit needs to die a slow death. It’s just a misunderstanding of what the numbers are saying. I’m not saying one has to feel he’s worth a first, not at all, but he’s not a “bad fit”. You drastically undervalue goalies. “Don’t mind” Saros. Good grief

Ya

Whether his offseason was a success or not can only be determined based on the results of the season. That’s not a cop out, that’s the actual answer

Ie one person could feel paying a 1st for Hellebuyck in a scenario where the WAR of that trade is say, like, 6 standings points, isn’t a good value turn around on a first round pick, and I understand that. But another could say I’m happier with the 6 points and making the playoffs, than I would be with the first round pick, and missing. Even though one would say a first SHOULD get you more value than that. There’s no guarantee either way of course, but in the hypothetical scenario, paying that first is looking for an ends justify the means type outcome in my estimation we have such a significant asset pool that I’d be moving on to prioritizing results over meeting my desired value in every deal

I don’t see how it’s a straw man at all regardless, I think we may be saying the same thing. I’m not saying he wants to win deals just to win deals, I’m saying he may believe in a philosophy where the net result of a trade isn’t the aim so much as exactly what you said, the deal meeting the individual value evaluation of the assets in question

Look at this schedule. 12 of their first 21 games were against teams who averaged 102 points over an 82 game frame.

Don’t really agree. Eichel played all of 21 games, hurt while doing so. When you remember this is 14 point Tage Thompson, and 20 year old Rasmus Dahlin (AND that it’s a rookie, 41 game Cozens) it’s really not a roster to write home about Skinner - Mittelstadt - Reinhart Hall - Lazar - Cozens Olofsson - Tage - Staal Sheahan - Girgensons - Rieder Dahlin - Montour McCabe- Miller Joki - Risto Ullmark ...this was the roster for the majority of that season. It’s not good

I have a hard time discerning anything from that Covid year from hell. There was just so much that was unusual about it. Remember, they couldn’t even practice? Weird divisions and scheduling? Sabres in a strong division? At then the Jack injury right at the start. I don’t think it represents a sample size worthy of much of anything. Coincidentally, that’s also why i feel it doesn’t represent an honest to goodness college try at “going for it” from KA Additionally, with a non “arrived” Tage that’s a putrid bottom 6, and once you factor in Eichel’s injury, the F unit is kinda just poor

I don’t really think the message of Hill winning a Cup is “don’t pay to acquire a more sure-thing cause these guys can come out of nowhere” as much as it’s “don’t pay big $ to your Adin Hills because that sort of performance brilliance rarely remains for the long term when it arrives so randomly”

One difference would be: it worked for Vegas and didn’t for Buffalo Vegas rostered the guy who did what Hill did. If you can’t identify the guy who becomes Hill, you need to go with a more proven option to make a wider landing ground for your attempt Just because our 3 goalie unit from the perspective of the beginning of last season arguably looked similar to theirs doesn’t hold near as much weight as what *actually happened* and the performance they got. So they can try to replicate an anomaly (Hill) again by doubling down on your first guess in Comrie and assuming it was the rest of the team, upgrade with 1 D and call it a day with a rookie added for support in net, or you can appreciate the fact that counting on a Hill to emerge from a random collection of 3 is chasing a very unlikely result when you can’t afford to miss there isn’t really a scenario I see where there isn’t value in at least improving to an average goalie to 1B for us instead of Comrie / UPL, I don’t buy the idea that your options are pay for a vezina guy or put together a team of crapshoots. Just because Vegas succeeded in that way doesn’t mean that’s the standard going forward. The running back comparison doesn’t jive for me, it’s flawed.

Huh?

The bang for buck thing is exactly it. That’s exactly his calculation. Value. “Am I winning this trade”. There’s this way of thinking, there’s also thinking about the ends justifying the means. At some point *it does not matter* what the Buck is, it doesn’t even matter if the Bang is only one more win, if that win is the difference in getting you to the playoffs. That’s the point. Even real GMs are subject to video game mode, if not This is what I mean about winning being prioritized. Are we trying to win, get that one more win that gets us in, or are we interested in “bang for your buck”. “Economic, efficient, bang for your buck”

The Hill to Comrie comp really highlights it for me, honestly. We were counting on Comrie, Hill for Vegas was a fallback. A fallback who had played 74 nhl games in the 5 seasons leading up to this one. Comrie had only played 27! Even *THE* most random, favourable comparable we could pull, Hill, had 3x the amount of experience Comrie had coming in. And Hill was an anomaly. Even Hill had a more bankable track record. I do NOT agree there was no difference in the likelihood of success between them I can keep going with this, because Adams makes this one really easy. Comrie was bad. Not below average, you’d literally have to put in a concerted effort to roster someone worse, and I PREDICTED he’d struggle, lots did. It’s not even a hindsight thing (which doesn’t apply to GMs anyways). Adams scraped the absolute bottom of the barrel. Other words: F*cked around, found out

Who here would trade Etienne Morin for a season of Hellebuyck?

BS

There’s basically a decade where the “competent roster” variable is so thoroughly absent that no judgment can be adequately made on anyone (well, except the Heads) It’s kinda funny and kinda infuriating

It’s not an everyone is created equal who’s not a star situation, though. There’s a ton of ground between Hellebuyck and acquiring a couple Comries and hoping for the best. Goalies can be unpredictable, but they aren’t voodoo. There are certainly some more likely to be average or slightly above, or good, than others, and a goalie who has a proven track record is a better bet than someone who has never seized a starting role at all. It’s important to at least attempt to identify a medium guy rather than an awful guy if you can because of the reason the RB comp fall short: you don’t need good running back play to win. You DO need good goalie play to win, it’s just difficult to predict where you’ll get it. But it’s way way too important not to try, or to act like, if you can’t get a vezina guy, all the other options are equally likely to succeed or not so there’s no use trying The differentiating factor is “who doesn’t cost too much”. The more reliable guys are there. Whether they “cost too much” depends on how important it is for the position to be addressed Perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of good, and the difficulty in finding perfect CERTAINLY shouldn’t convince you smaller amounts of improvement aren’t a worthy pursuit. Game of inches