Curt

Oh course he is, it’s kind of his thing. Well, that and scoring goals.

I understand the sentiment, and agree to an extent, but Marchand is a unique. It’s true that he didn’t become a really high scorer until a little later in his career, but he was a top-6 Forward from his rookie season on. His career arch and the type of game he plays makes him quite the unicorn. It’s a tough comp for any player. Keeping that in mind, I totally see Pekar as someone who has a chance to be Marchand-lite.

This may be true. I personally feel very positive about him though. I don’t think he is the typical 4th round pick who score at a high rate as a junior overager. I feel that he has the personality and mentality to bust his butt to get to the NHL and bust his butt to get better every chance he gets. To me, he could be the kind of guy who keeps getting better and better and better. Maybe starting off as a 4th line guy, but working his way into being a good middle six wing, or even better.

So, problems in the locker room may have existed, but that doesn’t change that ROR was a great player for Buffalo. Saying that he wasn’t is just not true.

Bogosian will inspire this team to play well and will demand his teammates to play up to his level, just as he has with all the other good teams has been on......... Bogosian has literally never been a member of a good NHL team.

I don’t think they are getting cap relief from it.

Ok. I so your point is that they are both “soft”. I guess I can at least see where you are coming from with that. With regards to the above, Buffalo definitely is not stressing puck movement and modern metrics right now. The D is playing a conservative, safe game and playing the defensemen with worst “modern” (shot?) metrics the most minutes. They are stapling a “defensive” forward to every line even if it drags down the offense. They have an energy/checking line that can’t score playing plenty of mins (before injuries at least). The Sabres are just not playing a progressive style in any way. They have been pretty old school.

Possibly, but we can’t be certain about how young players will improve. They could be better or worse than that.

?

Probably not the solution. The team needs more quality up front. Even the near best case scenario of development from the young forwards is not going to be good enough for this year or next year. They need outside additions. Most agreed with this in the off-season though, so it’s not news.

What are you trying to do to us? Isn’t our collective mental state damaged enough?

Dark was talking about Vesey. Also, Reinhart is not going to get paid like a well rounded superstar player. He is probably going to get around $7.5-$8M.

I think it’s a little unfair to exclude Asplund and Thompson, guys who were only recalled due to injury. Yes, in addition to them I would say Cozens and Pekar. Its true that the D prospect depth is better right now. I’m just saying that’s ok, IF you can use that, or find some way, to adequately address the forward position on the NHL team.

From my point of view, that’s fine as long as you can make moves for what the NHL team needs, which is the real problem here. A forward drafted at 30-32 in 2018 or 19 wouldn’t be helping the NHL team yet anyway.

Mattias Samuelsson, is a lefty who generally plays LD

Buffalo and Toronto are very different teams right now with completely different team strengths. Toronto has many quality skilled forwards, and not enough good defensemen. They score lots of goals and are among the leagues worst at preventing goals against. Buffalo is the opposite. They have a lot of good defensemen, not enough good forwards, don’t allow too many goals but also can’t score enough.

Don’t remember if I pushed back on you specifically, but I’m sure surprised and disappointed with his TOI. It hasn’t really crept up though. It started high and stayed high, inexplicable considering the depth on D.

Ah, ok, fair enough. I don’t think Buffalo is going to sink to a bottom 3 finish or anything, and I’m not shocked by how they’ve performed this season. I’m not happy but I also don’t think it’s some revelation that this team will be lucky to make the playoffs. I predicted 82-85 points before the season and I think I’ll stick with that for now. Mostly I’m unhappy that in 3 straight games against bad teams, Buffalo scored only 6 goals, all of them the direct result of Eichel’s individual talent. Can this team get some scoring please!

I honestly am not sure what you are getting at? And what is has to do with Skinner? Coming into the season, many were concerned about the forward depth and those concerns are looking to be warranted. Coaching is still a bit of an open question I think.

“Will Okposo decide to retire due to concussions?” Who is Will Okposo? Is that Kyle’s brother or something? Where does he play? Can he score a couple goals maybe? Would he consider playing for Buffalo?

My point was that it’s silly of PA to cherry pick stats, like 2 goals in his last 11, which honestly isn’t even alarming. 8 in 21 is just as true. Players never perform at a nice steady, even point production. It fluctuates based on dozens of factors.quality of competition, linemates, injuries, coaching tactics........ Jack, Sam and Jeff (and their 29 combined goals, out of teams’ 59 total goals, that’s half folks!) are not the reason that the team isn’t winning! It’s because Mitts, Sheary, Larsson, Okposo, Girgensons, Sobotka, Rodrigues, Vesey have a combined 11 goals. 8 players, 137 total games played, 11 goals. Jack, Jeff and Sam are the only 3 guys on this team who are scoring and anyone who says the team is losing because they aren’t doing enough needs to take a long hard look at the rest of the forwards.

Skinner has 8 goals in 21 games

Agree, at some point Botterill is complicate with the coaching.

Botterill has REAL NHL front office experience. Where do you think he came from?

It’s a team. Just because Jack is good doesn’t mean that he has to make up the difference for the bad players, and if he can’t then he isn’t doing enough. That’s not how teams work. All the teams in the league have a few very good players. The good teams have good players farther down the lineup too.