GASabresIUFAN

They have him as Inta Russia as his birthplace. He played Internationally for Belarus once the USSR died. He later coached for Belarus. I’m happy to call him a Belorussian. Sadly he died in December at age 50. Can we call Gates Orlando Italian?

The austerity plan here and across the league lead to my doing two difference cap related plans. I do believe Covid and the general uncertainty will lead to smaller ($) and shorter term this off-season, which could actually be very beneficial to the Sabres if managed properly.

The NHL has him being born in Moscow.

If he can’t he becomes the 13th forward for my calculations.

I checked my list, I don’t see anyone I missed. DR acquired Timo Heibling of Switzerland but he never played for the Sabres, only Rochester.

Ndur is the Nigerian. USSR/Russia same thing. We have had both people born as both Czechoslovakian and the separate republics. I listed the guys based on where their town in now. The Ukrainian and Austrian should be obvious; Zhitnik and Vanek respectively. The hardest and most obscure country is England. Brian Perry played one game for the Sabres is the 1970-71 season. He was born in Aldershot England of all places. I wonder if he got an invite to the 50th Anniversary BS? No Norwegians, Slovenians, Belorussians, Danes, French, or Swiss players so far.

Assuming the new CBA will be approved by the players, we are going to have a $81.5 cap for the next two years. The biggest issue regarding this cap for the Sabres is our we now a budget team or will KA be allowed to spend to the cap? Where are we? Fowards under contract - 4 - Eichel, Skinner, Okposo and Johansson. Cost 29.5 mill. Defense under contract - 5- Dahlin, Jokiharju, McCabe, Miller and Ristolainen. Cost 13.975 Goalies under contract - 1 - Hutton. Cost 2.75 (GRAND TOTALS 10 players for 47 mill with CoHo's buyout - Leaving 34.5 for 12 players KEY F RFAs - Reinhart, Olofsson, Kahun, Lazar, Mittelstadt and Thompson KEY D & G RFAs - Montour & Ullmark KEY (plus others) UFAs - Larsson, Girgensons, Vesey, Simmonds, & Nelson AHL/Prospects under contract who could make the team - Cozens (c) - 925,000; Asplund (lw/c) - 845,000; Routsalainen (C/W) - 925,000 & Borgen (RD) - 864,000 Players 11-22 (Budget 34.5) 1) 2C - Budget $5 mill. My guess is Montour is likely to be part of the deal to get this done directly or in-directly. Trade Montour to Colorado with other assets to get Kadri? 2) 1RW - Reinhart - 5 year 32.5 mill (6.5 per season) 3) 2 LW - Olofosson - 2 year 7 mill (3.5 per season) 4) 2 RW - Kahun - 2 years 6 mill (3 mill per season) 5) 3 C - Cozens - 925K 6) 3 RW - Unknown - Thompson (1 year 875K Q Offer), Mitts (1 year 875K Q Offer) or Other - It really depends on cap space and how the kids perform in camp and who else is available out side the organization. 7) 4 C - Larsson - Re-signed 3 year 8.4 mil (2.8 per season) 8.) 4 LW - Unknown - likely a cheap internal candidate to save cap space. Lazar (1 yr 735 Q Offer) or Asplund (.845) come to mind 9) Starting Goalie - Ullmark 3 years 9 mill ( 3 per season) 10) 3 LD - Budget 2 mill - Ben Hutton comes to mind - 2 years @ 2 per season? Also I like Jon Merrill in a depth role. 11) 13th forward - Budget 1 mill or less (Lazar if Asplund wins 4 LW?) 12) 7th D - Borgen - .864 Total cost with only 2 players from outside the organization around 30 mill. This is the simple approach. BOLDER PLAN 1) Demote, trade or buyout Hutton and sign someone like Cam Talbot for 2 years at 2 mill per season. Net Cap hit if demoted 1.65 + 2, thus a .9 additional cost. Added benefit of exposing Talbot to the expansion draft. 2) Trade Miller to free cap to go after someone like Toffoli to play 2 RW and demote Kahun to 3 RW and both Mitts and Thompson to the AHL to start the year. Toffoli is an UFA - would he come here for 4 years @ 5.25 per season? In this scenario Borgen becomes the 3 RD. Net cap hit; an additional 1.375 plus the cost of a 7th D. 3) Acquire Nazum Kadri to be the 2C 4) Sign Ben Hutton or Jon Merrill for the 3 LD job, but there are others that would fit as well (Gustafsson?") 5) Sign a depth D - 800K This uses up about an additional 3 mill bringing us in at 80 million total.

The African player is really hard to remember. The country answer is hard, but interesting. The answer is 16 different countries. I'll give the obvious - Canada, US, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Russia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. I'll people guess on the other 8.

Yep - Even if we consider Russia a European country, although at least 4 former Russian players hail from cities in Asia. How many countries?

How many Buffalo metro area born players have played for the Sabres? Who was the first USA born player to play for the Sabres? Who was the first English born player to play for the Sabres and how many games did he play? The Sabres have had players from how many countries play for them? How many continents?

Isn't DR's terrible drafting late in his Buffalo career the reason we tanked and DR ultimately got fired? Not much of a challenge for even this awful model. Got to love the fruit of the video scouting era. Awful.

They don't miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

As I've been saying since the blood letting, KP/TP have zero idea what they are doing. Is Dudley the right mentor for their new approach, I have no idea. However to not even consider him is mind boggling. They fired Jbot because they felt he had a bloated organization and wasn't getting the job done. That is perfectly reasonable. However, stripping the organization to the bone and letting complete unknowns run the asylum without some kind of experienced consultant or mentor is beyond foolish. All hope is pretty much lost. Can't wait until he gets raked over the coals in his first trade.

I take issue with these as well. Skinner, was an elite LW when playing with Jack and regressed when playing without a center for most of last season. It's very unfair to Skinner to focus only on last year when he has been a proven top 6 LW for his career. As to Kahun, I agree with @Curt below that his ES production over the last 2 season puts him squarely as a top 6 RW. Would it be awesome if we went out and got a 2nd top flight RW to "demote" Kahun to the 3RW? Certainly, but I don't think that is in the cards. Me too and I actually think @dudacek is as well, despite his statement seemingly to the contrary. Your point about VO is exactly why he shouldn't have been playing with Eichel. I have some serious concerns about RK's ability to coach and generate offense. Leaving VO with Eichel until late in the year. Never trying Reinhart on the 2nd line to try to get Skinner going and then only moving Skinner back to Jack's line when it was to late has me questioning his judgement.

Why do people keep saying this. We have two excellent scoring LW in VO and Skinner. A elite RW in Reinhart and a RW who has been in the top 30 in primary assists the last two years in Kahun. That's the 4 top 6 wingers we need. We also have Mojo who is a perfectly capable 3rd line LW and KO who is a overpaid but very effective 4 RW. All we are missing is a 3 RW and a 4 LW. That isn't a roster devoid of good wingers. Lazar and Asplund are perfectly capable of being effective in the 4 LW slot if Girgensons walks. Where we come up short is top 6/9 wing prospects and organizational depth at RW in the pros. Thompson is arguably our best under 23 winger and he is an unknown do to his injury. Like Reinhart the organization could easily move Mitts to wing to help add depth there. What will be interesting to watch is the development of Weissbach (lw), Routsalainen (c/Lw), Pekar (lw), Huglen (rw), Davidsson (c/lw) , Piro (lw) and even Murray (lw) to see if any of them can emerge and add depth over the next few years. of this group Weissbach, Routsalainen and Pekar are probably the most likely NHLers.