Curt

Preach. My heart says to swap them because I love The Concept of Beniers, but I haven’t watched enough to feel confident splitting the hair between the two. Would be very happy with either.

My first thought upon hearing this is that for a team pursuing Eichel, leaking to Friedman that the asking price is crazy high and if this doesn’t happen soon then they are out is a logical thing to do if you are trying to get the Sabres to drop the asking price.

This reads as though it’s common knowledge that Eichel has requested a trade because of the medical difference of opinion. Eichel doesn’t need to come up with any excuse for why he wants to be traded, because he hasn’t said he wants to be traded. At least not where any of us can hear it. My opinion: Its not going to get interesting. Neither Eichel or the team are going to say anything. There won’t be any back peddling or real excuses/reasons stated. We’ll just get vague cliches about how it was in the best interest of both parties to move on. He’ll be traded and that will be that.

Listening to this now. Expected Buffalo podcast.

I don’t know if he would be best at C or W, but he played C at lower levels. It’s only this season in the SHL that he has been at W. So placing him back at C would be more like returning him to his “natural” position.

Agree. And as we’ve seen, getting a couple highly talented players doesn’t help a lot if you can’t draft/acquire other good players to put around them. So don’t worry about getting the #1 pick, worry about fixing your drafting.

I would be interested to see how much these opinions differ from those of the scouts that McKenzie talks to.

1st overall.

I agree. I don’t care about getting #1 picks. The luster of that scenario has dulled significantly. I would rather the team be good. I think I’ve said this before, but I would rather that the Sabres don’t win the lottery going forward, even if the team is bad, because of the willingness of the fan base and media to latch onto a singular player (#1 OA!, Generational!) as the answer, solution, or problem. No such singular players exist on an NHL team. Once upon a time, the fan base was sold on the idea that sacrificing everything (team success, cheering for wins) to get one or two players was the right thing to do. I would encourage everyone to shake off that notion.

In the big picture, I agree. In the zoomed in, there have definitely been more than a few moments where he dogged it to the bench for a change or on the back check. I think that’s true for half the league though.

Kim Pegula is President of everything. I think that’s the right answer. The titles are a little wonky from an organizational chart perspective because they stick a GM and sometimes Assistant GMs between the President and VPs. Basically it seems like Ventura is going to be head of all data analysis operations. That should be for analyzing prospects, NHL players, the tendencies/strengths/weaknesses of other teams as well as for the Sabres.

That’s all I’ve got too. Karmanos and Ventura have worked together before, so he knows exactly what he is getting. With a VP title, it looks like Ventura is going to be a very central part of this management group (basically pushing Nightengale aside in the process).

The Pens do not, but they also keep trading away draft picks and prospects for NHL players. He’ll be taking coffee and lunch orders soon.

Karmanos worked with Ventura previously on championship teams. No surprise that he wanted to bring him in to work together again.

Wow. This is crazy and shocking and tragic and weird. This is why people tell each other to stay safe around holidays like this.

It would need to be a deal with some salary coming back. If Tampa can assemble a roster with Kucherov, Point, Stamkos, Cirelli, Hedman, Sergachev, Vasilevsky....... then I don’t see why it’s impossible for Colorado to keep MacKinnon, Eichel, Rantanen, Landeskog, Makar, Girard, Grubauer.

I really don’t think that will happen. Eichel might be pissed at the Sabres, but he still wants to play. If he is healthy, I believe he will play. I think that’s his #1 priority.

Your quote was about basketball, no? I know I was late to the discussion, so I don’t blame you.

I’m kind of in the same boat as you. After the Sabres season was done, I turned my attention to the NBA playoffs. It’s been fun, except for all the injuries. Greatest player ever is up for debate.

Why would they? The Sabres don’t own or run the radio station. I say this, but there could be loose affiliation between the station and Sabres.

Disagree. The success/failure of Adams tenure will be associated with the teams performance. If his return for Eichel is generally considered to be surprisingly good, but the team still sucks in 2025, it’s not going to matter much what the return was.

WGR is a daytime radio talk show. They are not the reason that the Buffalo Sabres are bad.

I really don’t think Dahlin is slow, but he isn’t super fast either. I disagree with the characterization that we are in an era of speed skating defensemen and Dahlin is the odd guy out.

I don’t think this is true. Who are all of these incredibly fast and dynamic defensemen? Makar is fast. Fox isn’t really that fast, is he?

The game vs sport classification is not based on the level of professionalism or seriousness with which it’s done. Also, game vs sport isn’t the right distinction, because most sports are also games. An activity is not strictly one or the other.