JoeSchmoe

As I stated before, sacrificing future draft picks to improve for only a few years is bad for a franchise. The key to winning is by being competitive year after year until you get lucky. It's statistically smarter to keep a competitive team year after year after year than to marginally improve your odds in a 2 or 3 year window by loading up, only to fall off afterwards. By giving up 4 first rounders, you will no doubt fall off a cliff as a franchise at the end of those 4 years (in a cap world).

That was the bottom end prognosis. On the other hand, there's Power, Quinn, Cozens, and Dahlin. I don't think anyone makes that trade. At the same time, an RFA is that much closer to UFA, so you only have the guy for a limited time before you either have to give him a potential Skinner level contract or watch him sail off into the sunset.

Precisely this. If it did make sense, you'd have to overpay. That said, GMs that are afraid of pissing off their fan bases usually match, even when it doesn't make sense to do so (as in Vanek's case). But the math highly favours keeping the picks, again with the extra FA money it leaves you, in addition to the high probability of getting more than one impact player.

4 late first round picks PLUS all that cap space. I agree with what you're saying in a non-cap world. Since you need as many good cheap guys as possible in a cap world, you'll need those 4 late first rounders or you'll run out of cap space and be stuck signing JAGs to fill out the bottom end of your lineup.

As per the equation, the price you pay for one player is too high. If a franchise wants to win a cup, you can't just "complete" your lineup for a year or two... You have to be competitive year after year. Even if you're a top team, you still only have at best a 1 in maybe 5 chance at winning a cup since there are so many other good teams. The secret is staying good year after year after year to maximize the number of times you have a 1 in 5 chance. By trading away your prospect base (not to mention giving up free agent money), you're sure to fall in your chance to win when your prospect pipeline (and cheap talent) dries up.

In almost every case the math works out to not make sense. Draft picks are potential future entry level contracts. Guys this cheap ALSO allow you to sign free agents. Keeping multiple draft picks (future entry level players) + money leftover for FA's >>> 1 RFA.

I'm in favour of letting people bet, but it's not my thing. It drives me nuts listening to people on the radio talking about it... I could really care less.

I understand it. There are posters on here averaging over 10 posts per day on here for many, many years... They feel like they're the top dawgs and usually try to control the dialogue and sentiment of many threads. They're like the regulars at a small town bar... Just don't take their stool! Then in walks a member of the media with real credibility. Just like that, he's instantly the big dawg in the room. All those years of posting credibility... Gone! That's like a handsome, muscled out of towner walking into said small town bar, who's talking to the local women... You know how that goes. Of course JW walked into this bar looking to stir the *****! But he's obviously still a Sabres fan, and I think it's kind of cool that he comes on here to see what the fans of the team are saying. I'll give him that over some members of the media who are only following the local sports teams for a pay cheque.

Just give me a good game to watch and I'm happy. It will always beat any tv and sound system money can buy. I'm also the guy though who will happily stay at any no-frills hotel and be happy as long as it's clean and the bed is comfortable. Just as long as I'm going someplace cool, the hotel is just a place where I sleep at the end of the day.

The team has lost a 💩-LOAD of money over the last few years with COVID and the half full rink this year. Regardless of the reasons why the rink was half full this year, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt until fans come back and they get a little closer to breaking even. Not that I made it to a game this year... It's just that nothing on that list would bother me in the least.

I know how much you love +/- but he was the 2nd worst on his team amongst D that played in the lineup regularly.

Mule only played two years of NCAA and he's massive. K'Andre also only played 2 NCAA seasons and is 6'4 210lb.

Maybe I'm wrong because I haven't watched the guy outside of the juniors, but other than his draft position, what accounts have him as a top 4? I know points aren't the be all - end all, but my thinking is a 3rd year NCAA kid with a NHL top 4 skillset should by default be able to skate amongst NCAA kids well enough to score at much better than .500ppg.

It beats "he was drafted 31st overall", as an evaluation point.

In their 3rd NCAA seasons, Johnson was under .500 ppg, while Bryson was .667 ppg. If he was a big shut down guy, .500 would be ok. For what little I've seen of him, his upside is his offence so I'd want to see better before putting him anywhere near a winning lineup.

Do you think he'd say anything else but that he's interested in him? When asked about a prospect, especially a first rounder, have you ever say a GM say we don't want him? I look at Johnson like a taller, less productive Bryson. We don't really need him.

I haven't followed this thread that closely, nor have I seen Johnson play outside the World Juniors. That said, I think it could be very possible the Sabres aren't all that interested in him and that's why he hasn't signed. He's not big enough to be a shutdown style D, and his numbers aren't good enough to be a point scoring D. Realistically, unless he makes a big jump next year in either size or production, he's on an AHL career trajectory.

He was a good player, but struck me as another primadonna and bad culture guy.

Getting the injured guys back was great and all, but what REALLY helped the most is that allowed us to disband the flaming puke line of Bjork-Eakin-Hayden.

Who the H#$! knows if the person they draft will be a star or not? It'll be a couple years at least before that's known. I really can't stand to hear these guys who do their draft rankings, that tell us they know the difference two players, at two different positions, on two different teams that have never played each other. Ridiculous. I do like watching the games, but my NFL consumption level during the offseason is precisely zero, because it's all just a bunch of recycled garbage they're talking about over and over.

Draft Schmaft. NFL draft is the most overrated event in sports.

Loved those sticker albums when I was a kid!

I think they meant that based on being smaller, geometry says he'd have more open holes for a shooter to target. They don't factor in the speed and technical nature of the position. It's a constant calculation and recalculation of being in the right position at all times to minimize the chance of a goal, and then having the physicality to execute it all. All things equal, the bigger goalie will be better, but things are never equal. Juuse Soros says it can be done at his size, and Levi's all-time level performance in NCAA suggests he can too.

100% my thought too. I feel that doesn't get as much play among the fanbase though. It's worse than no goal, because effectively Muckler put the puck in our own net.

His comments don't seem out of line. I think the tablets could be used for good in som3 circumstances, but I 100% agree the young players aren't always looking at them for the right reasons, and would easily get distracted by them. A grizzled pro like Crosby would definitely know when to use them and when not. A new kid coming in the league who'd otherwise be in his parents' basement playing video games could easily be using them negatively.