Curt

No

I agree. I think more than anything he wants to be healthy and wants to play. I don’t think he will think twice about suiting up as soon as he is able. As for buying in, I don’t know. I don’t see him really buying in completely because I think he is pissed and wants a trade.

This is obviously very good, but I’ll never understand the fascination some have with acapella. Music is better with instruments. Boiling hot take.

It depends on what else is out there in trade offers for Sam, but the cost of moving Skinner would be significant. Sounds crazy, but Reinhart probably isn’t enough unless he agrees to immediately sign long term with his new team. Not happening anyway, but it sure would provide the team a fresh start.

While I agree that it’s probably not worth it to give up much of anything to move Okposo if they aren’t going to approaching the cap ceiling, I don’t think the Sabres will struggle to barely reach the cap floor either.

I would be surprised if the Sabres were not periodically exploring various ways they might be able to move a $6M 4th liner. Im not sure this demands much attention.

Definitely, but Jack knows that things are tense right now between himself and the Sabres. If he cared to, I think he could be extra continuous about what he said right now. It’s a local news puff piece, I doubt they were grilling him with gotcha questions. I mean, he is the Captain of another team (for now, maybe not later). By itself, on a normal team in a normal offseason, it’s probably nothing. In this case it’s just another piece of evidence that he is done with the Sabres.

I don’t know why you think it’s hard to get to the cap floor. Seattle is not going to spend extra to acquire someone because they are worried about not being able to find players to spend $50M on.

The giraffe thing was always a joke, some think it’s funny, some don’t. Its not the same as constantly bringing up that Quinn was a questionable draft pick every time someone talks about him. At least it annoys me waaay more than a silly giraffes gif.

Anything is possible, but all the signs are pointing in the opposite direction. I’m just surprised that many think he won’t be traded despite the evidence that both sides want a trade.

No? That’s exactly what someone in denial would say! Seriously, I think he is traded before the end of the month. All the insiders are reporting that he is currently being shopped and it’s a matter of when and where the trade happens, not if. When do you think they are going to make up?

Why so confident?

Yeah, I’m honestly very surprised. I didn’t realize so many feel that Jack won’t be traded. I feel like all evidence points to a trade. This seems like people don’t want him traded and are kind of in willful denial.

This to me is even more surprising. He is so clearly going to be traded. Is it denial?

He doesn’t get to put Seattle on a list for the expansion draft. If he is an expansion draft pick, the NTC does not give him any protection from that.

Only if you keep holding it over his head. Seriously, we get it. He was probably over drafted. It doesn’t change the player Quinn is and will be. You really need to say it every single time someone mentions Jack Quinn? You really don’t get tired of repeating it for no apparent reason?

I could see a team that doesn’t get Eichel, going harder after Reinhart, but I’m not sure about the reverse. I think teams are probably into Eichel, or they aren’t. Missing out on Reinhart isn’t going to make them into Eichel.

I’m very surprised that the vote is 50/50 early on.

I don’t use Twitter and have no plans to ever start. I think the % of the population over age, I’ll say 25, who uses Twitter is a lot smaller than you would think. Looked it up: only about 20-25% of people in the US use Twitter.

No. Why would he?

That’s nice and all, but the uncertainty doesn’t stem from his skating. It’s regarding his Covid induced cardiovascular inflammation that caused him to miss a whole season. That would primarily affect his endurance I would think. Without knowing more it’s impossible to say if there really is medical uncertainty regarding this though.

We’ll try not to get into the analytics weeds. Honestly, a majority of the players on the Pitt cup winning teams were acquired by the Shero regime. When Rutherford/Karmanos/and a little later Ventura came on they just tweaked the roster a little. Main moves were: Out: Jussi Jokinen, James Neal, Brandon Sutter, Pascal Dupuis, Matt Niskanen In: Hornqvist, Perron, Kessel, Cullen, Bonino, Haglin, Trevor Daley It’s not really all speed/skill acquisitions. Also, just because the team in Pittsburgh looked a certain way, doesn’t mean that the team in Buffalo will be the same, even with some of the same people in charge. To me, what’s not clear is if Adams is going to go after a bigger, rougher team or a smaller, faster team. He has generally seemed to say that he wants a gritty, skilled, and tenacious/hard working team. I’m not convinced that the team he ends up building will be notably big or small, or offense or defense focused. I don’t think it’s his primary focus. I think he wants good players who have the mindset he is looking for. I don’t really know what to make of Granato yet. Is he always going to lean towards offense, or is that just what he thinks the team needed right away. He is kind of a wild card for me. As long as he is able to keep the young guys developing, I’m not concerned by much else right now. We’ll see. Analytics, For me, I don’t even want to talk about it as a stand alone entity, or have any employees with “Analytics” in their job title. For me it’s just part of scouting. Identify things that you want from your players, then using statistics beyond the basic box score stuff to help identify players who can do what you are looking for. I don’t think you should associate analytics so heavily with a soft, offense first (only?) team. You may be right about Toronto specifically, but they are hardly the only team investing heavily in using “analytics”. Carolina, LA, NJ, Islanders, and now Seattle, all are deep into it, and I’m probably missing several more. It doesn’t inherently lead to one particular style of team. It all depends on what characteristics you are targeting and prioritizing in players. I can understand what you mean now with disconnect between Adams words on character/mentality and the player acquisitions so far. Probably also in large part due to how easily the team seemed to whither and give up last season? Personally, I’m willing to buy that Krueger drove a lot of the player acquisitions last offseason and this offseason is the first time that Adams has actually gotten the green light from ownership to carry out his own in depth plans. From my point of view, the Karmanos and Ventura hires very much align with the type of front office that Adams has said he wants. Now we will have to see if his team follows through and acquires the types of players that Adams has seemed to say he wants. I think over the next 14 months we will get a good read on this. If I can make an admission, at one point I felt that most of your views were very outdated, annoying and sometimes crazy. I’ve come around some. Now I think only a few of your views are outdated, annoying and crazy! 😉

All part of Adams genius plan, obviously.

I don’t even know what that means. Lol Yeah, I was just saying. You’ll pry no Jarvis slander out of me!

Fair I guess, but it’s not just the numbers for me. I see evidence of the numbers reflected in his play. Just to be clear, I think Johnson is very skilled, and I don’t think people who say he is the most skilled guy in the draft are way off base. I just think he’ll need to go through quite a bit of development before those skills play in the NHL.