Thorny

Build it, and they will come

I swear to god if the “why make a change? we aren’t going to win the cup this year, anyways” talk starts I’ll poke my eyes out lol I don’t have any faith it won’t, but luckily I actually still have faith we turn this around in season. But who knows, I’m generally very hopeful at this time of year after worrying all offseason we’ll see how the first 20 or so go. US thanksgiving is usually a good barometer they need to do something about the 3 headed “monster” in net, Levi will probably need a break if he doesn’t already

Probably. 4 goals allowed from Levi on 4 “expected”, if you care about that stuff. So, an average performance. That’s all well and good, but clearly the team is constructed in such a way that we are counting on “good” output from our elected starting goalie, and not just “break even”. That was what Levi was supposed to represent, and that was baked into roster construction we have to assume, given lack of activity at position

Ya

It’s not relevant regarding the expectation of making the playoffs, so it’s just interesting fodder

Eh, Botterill had an expansive body of work to the tune of suggesting we need not dig deeply for a “why” beyond “he was a poor GM who made a lot of poor moves”. Moves that were bad for roster construction need not have a defensible “why” attached. Wasn’t even consciously aware that after all this time we were still looking for a “why”. We do know Botterill was interested in bringing it “down to the studs” and Dahlin would help with that. There were those rumours: those would still fall under aims of roster construction I can vaguely sense where this is headed, not in your estimation I don’t think but for the thread at large, I’d hazard a guess. Perhaps this will save time: Eichel made the chemistry bad, Eichel demanded ROR be traded, Eichel demanded MOJO be the 2C behind him to make himself look better

We didn’t get worse his second year, we were only a few points short and Jack missed the first quarter of the season with an injury. Remember that awful, deflating start? Still gives me the shivers And I absolutely believe it was unreasonable to think we couldn’t improve - just yesterday there was a thread abuzz with people taking the rounds on their “see, young players continue to get better, what do you know?” statements and that’s exactly what was happening with a young developing JE at the time. Yet people seem shocked when I point out his 200 foot game developments began in sincerity in 2018-19, wanting to act like development wasn’t possible without the trade, when in reality, much of that was correlation ill always wonder what would have happened if we hadn’t torpedoed that team by trading our second best player right at the time our number 1 became a true number 1

Judging by how they deployed Dahlin last year when they weren’t thrilled with their depth D, they likely run Levi into the ice if they can

Would have preferred veteran guidance by way of an actual capable back up vet goalie, as it would be a significantly larger factor re: on ice results (the games Levi doesn’t play), but this can only be a good thing

I’ve spoken about this ad nauseam, so while I respect this take I don’t have much interest in re-hashing it all. The ROR trade will never be good because it torpedoed a roster that was ready to compete / capable of being moulded into a contender *at the time*. We dealt ROR at the exact time Eichel became an actual mvp level player and rostered Marcus Johansson as the 2C behind him. Botterill ended up losing his job and we undertook another endless rebuild where we still haven’t made the playoffs since. The trade failed. Adams just picked up the pieces and salvaged it. In the end, I don’t believe in the logic. If we dealt Tage right now for a draft pick that in 5 years becomes prime Malkin, does that make it a good trade? Of course not. Context and timing matters “The Sabres weren’t gong anywhere with ROR” is just massively revisionist. And takes like this just, consciously, put zero value on the results on the 5 completed season since. It doesn’t value the 5 lost years.

The universe still owes us for the second RoR trade, I’m still collecting on his good plays without an ounce of shame lol

Josh Gorges once shut down Connor McDavid

Agree, the depth isn’t quite there yet. But it’s coming along nicely It’s mentioned sometimes that we’ll “need to find a spot” for some of the young players coming and I wouldn’t be shocked if Krebs isn’t a long term component of this team. He’s a leading candidate at this point for me, Thompson/Tuch/Skinner/Cozens/Peterka/Quinn/Casey/Benson/Greenway(?) I see likely/locks to be around LT…maybe 3 of the 12 spots overall are still under construction. Looking at a ~5 year period in my mind’s eye, unless something drastic changes If we end up only needing to cycle in ~ 3 prospects / outside additions it should be reasonably achievable given the pool we’ll be selecting from

One bad / one good re: Clifton and Johnson wouldn’t be the worst thing Krebs to me is pretty underwhelming just in general His D has been good but there’s nothing wrong with wanting more than a one dimensional player

Back up goalie tomorrow. Should still get a fair bit of those

When the stats meet the eye test (Krebs) when they don’t… Clifton?

I thought you were probably right and it was another thing I miss saw that’s why I went back. But it was definitely Dahlin and they said his name too

Any idea what this was? hopefully not a concussion

I JUST posted the edited version and this came up on refresh you win I’m an awful speller

Mule isn’t durable enough to be called Mule Category: Tough Truths

I don’t think it’s inappropriate in principle; it just doesn’t seem at all apt

Was too busy removing my television from the wall

I thought he was good I must be blind

No I remarked on that earlier I tagged you because it was another good shot at that’s what she said

What? Lol