Curt

It’s not apathy. They are doing this mindfully. It would appear that they want it to be not just a development year, but also a year in which they lose a lot, and perhaps do so on a budget.

Issue is that these things get publicity in areas were lots of players live in the offseason, like Boston or Toronto area. How many players live in Buffalo during the offseason?

So it looks like a Jack trade would need to be close to money in/money out. Those RFA’s are going to cost $10-15M. So it looks like the Sabres would be just a few million over the floor without any big additions. They need to at least weaponize some of that to pick up free assets.

They weren’t trying to sign actual good goalies.

Not if he is in the AHL. Then it’s more like 500k less.

He’s a goalie! Has a couple good years as backup is SJ, followed by a couple not so good years. Should be a backup, might be our starter. Ehhh

Ok. Back up hopefully. At least he is a good veteran leadery guy. Afraid he might be too old for young guys to really relate to and form a relationship with though.

Can Vegas even make cap room for Eichel? They would need to dump both Smith and Dadonov, no?

I’m sure there will be a couple more signings, and they might acquire an NHL player in a John Eichel trade, but they haven’t acquired anyone to insulate the younger players at all. I was really hoping that Ullmark would resign and they would acquire another decent goalie. I can understand letting the kids learn, but being out of 75% games before the 3rd period because trash goalies allowed 3 bad goals is not going to help the kids learn how to compete in the NHL. They need to be in most games.

I honestly didn’t think it would be this ugly. They are definitely gunning for a top-3 pick.

This seems like a decent reliable vet signing

Yeah, I agree. I was hoping for decent goalkeeping to help keep the kids in most games.

Well, that’s a let down. This going to be an issue.

I’m having a sneaking feeling that there are not good offers out there. Call it Sabres inflicted PTSD, but if a deal isn’t done tomorrow morning, what’s the hold up for teams? It’s only going to get harder from both sides’ perspective as cap space gets used up.

If it helped Buffalo, I don’t care. I’m seeing too many people who are just afraid to see a player leave Buffalo and succeed.

I think people can reasonably disagree with your player evaluations on Krebs and Hague.

This is fine. I hope all of the FA signings are not like this.

I’d do that, but who would even be the cap dump?

That’s not how the system is going to work. The NHL has done a really bad job of clearly explaining to everyone what the new rules are going to be. I believe you are correct about how the new system will work.

I would say that “That’s all he controls” line is definitely a reference to the uncertainty about when players would be reporting and when a season would start, due to Covid.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what Routsalainen can do too. I’m not sure much of it was luck. He started the season by leading Liiga with 16 goals through 19 games, then 13 points in 13 AHL games, then scored 5 goals in his first 17 NHL games. Doesn’t seem fluky.

He’s fine for an NHL spot.

Some team with real true love for him, for sure.

Someone didn’t want them. In the past 6 seasons they had 1 Russian guy play 1 season for the NHL team, and drafted 1 Russian guy in the previous 7 drafts. That is too highly unusual to be a coincidence.