PerreaultForever

I mean the Sabres. You know that.

Absolutely, but in the summertime, one wrong word................... 🙂

Absolutely true. I believe the theory is that fringe and journeymen players get kicked around from team to team so they see more coaches and learn from them and they work harder and try to learn so they know a lot, they just don't have the skills to do it themselves at the time. The question is experience though. We don't have a great track record hiring new guys.

Hope he's a better coach than he was a player.

Good luck convincing the majority of people around here. I've been stressing this concept for years. (excitedly awaiting my eye roll(s))

There better be. There wasn't much fun in what it took to get them.

Ya but a "competent" defender is all Dahlin needs. That guy does in fact allow Dahlin to be better. That's all I said and I'm not sure why it's hard to get.

Wow, you have a very negative view of Samuelsson don't you? So you must hate that Adams signed him long term like he did right? I'm truly amazed at how different people can see the same games so differently. I guess for you the losing streak at the same time as the Samuelsson injury was just a coincidence? Can't wait until next year when you tell me how bad Clifton is and how much Power lifts him up.

Montreal's plan/rebuild is interesting to me. A lot of moving parts and a lot of rearranging. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out over the next few years.

Clifton changes things, but these guys do not have a lot of experience playing on winners in the league and almost no playoff experience among them. Your leadership has to know how to get people to that next level. Skinner has the longest streak among active NHL players for never having played in the playoffs does he not? imo we could use a few more guys with Clifton and Johnson type playoff experience.

"Dahlin is Barbie" is so tempting to go into a question of softness on but that's another topic. They don't have to be "equal" to have a complementary relationship in terms of D pairings. Very few pairings are "equal".

I don't think anyone would disagree with the young core being there and them being the core going forward but depth is still a problem at this stage and I think making a few more "mercenary" moves in key spots would have been a good strategy. The fear of course is that if it comes up short too many times some of that core might think they are better off elsewhere. We've gone through that before, so when we start ascending it is important to do everything you can to make that a success. Every mountain climbing expedition out there knows you do better if you hire a few seasoned sherpas to guide you to the summit.

Well yes and no. Some people may have said that about Samuelsson but not me and not others. The thing there was the pairing. You saw how badly we did when Samuelsson was out of the line up right? Samuelsson doing what he does allows Dahlin to do what he does and it's the pairing that makes BOTH players better. This is why I really wanted Pesce to play with Power but hopefully Clifton will be good enough. We've had a long history of bad and temporary pairings where the better D men were trying too hard to compensate for their partner's mistakes and that has made their play worse. It might be partially Granato but I feel Power has a different mindset to what Dahlin had at the same age. Dahlin was all in on his offensive strengths, especially under Housley. His development was stunted imo and Kruger, although he recognized Dahlin had to be better defensively, he had absolutely no way to teach these guys anything so Dahlin struggled. He's overcome a lot of that now and is maturing into the complete package but I think Power also has a lot of offensive upside that he has held back on. Maybe told not to take chances, maybe he's just a smart kid, but I think with a solid partner we will see him jump into the play more than we have and an offensive side will show. In some ways they kind of have opposite development paths but in time having both of them back there will be huge. Maybe even dominant.

It's just that they are very different players so their contribution down the line will be different. Power imo will eventually be better at being a defenseman, but Dahlin will have higher scoring stats. Don't see Power being Pronger. I'd say more Pietrangelo.

Or I just read the title of one thread without reading the other. You're bored this summer aren't you?

This. and this again.

I'm still iffy on Adams. I thought a tear down was necessary and he did that, so he gets kudos on that, but otherwise he's only done 2 things (or 3 depending on how you look at it) that I really like and a few that I hate so I'm 50/50. I don't give him great kudos for the tear down cause those players were likely to get back assets no matter who the GM was. Vegas wanted Eichel bad so getting Tuch back as part of the deal was a no brainer to any GM who pays any attention at all. They were good trades, but no way to know if they were Adams wins or just what was possible at the time. The 2 (or 3) things are signing Tage and Cozens long term for what turns out to be good value by NHL standards. Solid decisions it seems. The other thing is getting Clifton, a guy I had targeted as best value out there and a perfect fit. But, he's botched goaltending so far (Levi pending)and imo he really hasn't done enough in terms of free agency. As for drafting, like most GMs for pathetically bad teams it's hard to get them all wrong and you should get good players back. How many lower picks stick one day will determine how good or bad he is at that. Still remains to be seen.

Define "better".

I think this is a fair and accurate assessment. I look around at bottom role signings and by and large we pay more for less. There are exceptions and over pays on various teams but I was disappointed with the way they have just stayed the course with these guys and to some extent paid them generously. I have to assume that part of that might be related to players not wanting to come to Buffalo. Maybe they will one day but for now I think it's still hard to attract players without over paying them like we did with Johnson. Olofsson is massively overpaid and that's probably why we didn't find a trade partner. Retention doesn't seem to be part of our game plan. Sprong at 2 million is basically the same guy as an example. Players like Geekie imo are much better value for less than what we have. Garnet Hathaway would have given us better role value than Zemgus if you want to spend 2.5 on a 4th liner. Last year you could argue paying the bottom players was necessary as a cap floor team, but imo the money could have been better spent now. We aren't like Chicago right now with their massive bottom overpays (Foligno, Perry) since they are likely still a full rebuild for a few more years. Building from within is great, but it's a slow process and eventually they all mature around the same time and then Adams will have a problem. We will see how he handles that.

Wow. That's a crazy price even if he doesn't totally fall off a cliff as it ages.

too many.

That's one way to negotiate I guess.

Are we FINALLY going to get names?

Not a big surprise here.

and as it turns out an offer sheet of anything 4 million (plus) would have put them over cap and given them a major headache.