PerreaultForever

Remember what a depleted and non existent D core he inherited though? Sure, he went crazy and just tried to find as many bodies as he could hoping one or two would stick but Murray basically left us with no D at all. We have 2 first overall D picks now. In a few years D might actually be a strength. Go figure.

Banff, yes, absolutely. been there many times. The entire park area that runs along the border of the two provinces is spectacular. Calgary has grown but it's mostly all suburban sprawl. There's really very little to do there, especially in the winter. I think I know the pedestrian area you're talking about and it's pretty much the only one. maybe I'm too hard on it, but it's just nothing close to what Vancouver is. Thinking of his brother, Ottawa's a much nicer city too. If you had to rank Canadian cities with hockey teams for desirable living it would be 1. Vancouver, 2. Toronto, 3. Montreal, 4. Ottawa 5. Calgary 6. Edmonton 7. Winnipeg. Unless you were French, then you might want Montreal first and Ottawa second. Toronto arguably has more culture and activities/events than Vancouver, but the climate, scenery and proximity to the mountains and such puts Vancouver on top imo.

You are right about the first one. Every Canadian city has more media scrutiny than U.S. cities (outside of maybe the big old markets like NY and Boston) and definite fan pressure to deliver. The bar is generally set quite high in comparison to most U.S. cities. Well I live in BC so by your phrasing I guess that is "heaven on earth" . I worked in Alberta when I was young. Hated it. Still find Calgary a very boring city. Big sprawling suburbs but really nothing interesting there unless you enjoy a mediocre zoo. Cold as hell in the winter. Just dismal trapped in ice and snow with nothing to do (so they watch hockey). Cow town too. Sort of like Texas North which isn't for me, might be for some people. Yes, the Rockies are close, but a guy like MT can vacation in Banff any time he wants from anywhere so I doubt he'd be all in on the 1-2 hour busy highway pilgrimage average Calgarians have to trek on weekends. idk, it could be as simple as he sees the team falling without Johnny Hockey to play with him so he figures now's as good a time as any to exit and grab a payday.

They're Americans and likely want to play in U.S. cities. Calgary, imo, kinda sucks as a place to live. That might be all there is to it, nothing more. So they don't really hate Calgary, they would just rather be somewhere else and they have the power to do it so why not? It's how the CBA works now.

It would truly be great if it was in fact Comrie, but I doubt it. I'd like it to be Cozens, but it might take another year on top of this one for the real "breakout". Dahlin might be even better, but incrementally, not really a breakout. Tuch is already what Tuch is, and that's good enough. So let's be hopeful and say Mitts. It would certainly elevate us higher than I expect.

I think he definitely is worth it. He makes players around him better and makes the team better. Opens up space, draws attention, gets the dirty work done. Yes, he most definitely is at his best combined with a playmaker, and that's exactly what he and whatever team he goes to needs. #3. Is possible but I doubt it. No more certain than it was that Johnny Goudreau would end up in Philly. Actually, it's possible MT ends up in Columbus too.

The bolded parts are things I'm not in full agreement on. Everyone is JJ and Quinn, JJ and Quinn, they're just going to slot them in there and watch them compete for the Calder. Neither imo is proven NHL ready. As for Girgs and KO, I get the sentimentality, but imo neither is here a year from now. Or if they are they're basically irrelevant and we will still be crap. I'm not "giving up" on Mitts and Krebs but neither has shown me they are solid NHL players either. I think they all need to brought in slowly, working their way up, possibly up and down from Rochester, and not just thrown to the wolves in a sink or swim way. They all need time and development like Thompson did and so in the interim you need to balance the roster with solid veteran players. I can't go through every possible move, there were far too many options, either free agents like Burakovsky (just an example which someone can dump on and show some stat how he's not good at whatever and so on, so emphasis on just an example) or taking JVR for a year for that Philly 2024 pick rather than demanding their 2023 (another example) or trading for Talbot or another good goalie, or any other number of possibles as we have a ton of cap room. You know really, I just want to start winning NOW. I'm so sick and tired of waiting on this team and being disappointed. I am well aware Rick is retired, but I just want to feel the way I felt at these moments again and I want it now not years from now. Just watch and remember, I have nothing more to add to this thread.

Tage breaks out at the age of 23. Dylan is 21. Just saying. I still believe Cozens would make a better winger rather than center so maybe Granato needs to reverse the Thompson move here and put Dylan on the wing. But we shall see. I still think he will be better, just a question of is it this year or next.

lol, I'm not going to get worked up over it but I also have nothing more to add. We shall see. I will be quite happy to be wrong.

You know the funny thing about that is most people say "the majority of people are idiots" and so if they are idiots saying everyone's an idiot does that mean actually everybody's smart? 🙂 Sports are escapism and entertainment, bouncyball included. None of it is important, hockey's just not as popular (outside of Canada where it rules).

Yes, the daughters in Ottawa (I think they are the owners if I heard right) are definitely willing to spend money again and they want to win now. They feel many of the kids (like Sanderson) are ready and their additions were timed for that. To the end of the season or last 1/3 I don't disagree that we were better, but it was a low bar. I called it the Tuch factor last year and I still truly believe he helped change the locker room and the on ice performance. That top line certainly came together from an offensive point of view. What makes me skeptical about it though was the 5-0 losses to Boston and Tampa where both teams schooled us and made us look like children. Those teams wanted points at that time and had their way with us easily. Made me see some gaping holes in our game, holes that haven't been filled. We shall see. Boston's a bit of a mess and will have a depleted roster for the first half of the season at least. Toronto's goaltending is suspect. Pittsburgh and Washington are even older and nearing too old. Moving up is possible, and I think that's part of why those teams made big moves. I wish we'd done the same. Everything is on the kids improving a lot. I'm just not sure that's a realistic hope.

You might think I get "irritated" with those ideas but what I find even more annoying is Sabres apologists who make me think they might even be organizational plants. or maybe you are new to the team as a fan? Any fan who has been here for decades is simply tired of waiting for "next year" or at least they should be. There is something to be said for an overall draft and build slowly philosophy, but that doesn't mean it has to be the only thing you do and moments can be seized and you can plug holes and balance your cap spending (veteran contracts that expire when young player contracts potentially need to be given out). You can move forward faster. You should keep in mind, if you have been around here for a few years that I was one of the first people here to say trade the big 3, tear it down and start over. I received scorn, derision and ridicule for saying the very things KA is being applauded for having done, I was just a man ahead of my time. I feel good now knowing I was right, even if I got the negativity and not the praise. KA can have the praise, I just want a winning team. To your point about drafting, we simply don't know that yet. It MIGHT be better, but we won't know until a few years from now. If Tage is our leading scorer, Cozens is our team captain and UPL is our starting goalie suddenly JBot doesn't look like a moron after all does he? KA's drafting can't be assessed yet. get back to me in 2 years for a real evaluation. I simply feel opportunities to move incrementally forward are being passed up. We can use the cap space. We could have signed key pieces. Brought in a proven goalie. Things could and still can be done so that we do not have to wait as long. I'm just fed up with wait for "next year"

Biggest change, if I remember correctly, was they started to use the stretch pass in the same way Toronto does. Not to perfection yet, but improved. The D moves the puck well and they did make good passes through center ice, the biggest missing aspect imo was a failure to use the drop pass after entering the offensive zone. Too many times tried to take it behind the net or force the play forward rather than carrying it in and dropping it back to a D man moving up behind. maybe a confidence thing for young players as you screw up that play and you're giving it to them for a quick counter. Considering we now have several offensively capable D men it's play that needs to be developed and used more.

What you say about Lalonde is possible, but by all accounts he's a pretty good coach so Yzerman probably knew what he was doing there. Point taken though, it's an uncertainty. I'm still not convinced Granato can get this team to play defense. They can definitely score more, but can they learn to stop the other teams from scoring? It's not ALL on the goalies so that's an uncertainty too imo. Ottawa will likely play DeBrincat with Giroux so two vets, I'm sure they will figure each other out pretty quickly. With goalies it's always hard to say. The bolded sentence may in fact be true.

I pretty much went into it with the 3 teams being equal. I mean we finished 2 points apart. So that's the season ending rosters. The argument hinges on how much you believe in our kids being ready right now and in whether or not you think the end of season wins were a real representation of where we are. So the Sabres are better IF the kids leap forward, Ottawa is better if the players they picked up play like they've played in the past. The latter seems the safer bet.

Okay fair enough, but then that's exactly my point. DeBrincat, Giroux, Talbot and so forth are known entities. You can argue that DeBrincat might not have Kane, but since he has Giroux, I'm not sure there's a valid case. We are reliant on AHL players stepping in and Krebs type players stepping up. To be "right now" you have to talk Hinostroza not Quinn. If we get new young players so do they. They have several coming up too. But in terms of proven known players, they are better.

I do think Husso is better. Why? That's a tough question. I guess it's mostly because I've seen him play and his development seems to put him at what he is, a starting goalie, and Comrie was just a journeyman backup. Husso outplayed Binnington for most of the year. It's not a sure thing, Husso isn't Hasek by any stretch but Comrie is really just a low priced roll of the dice. He's a placeholder if UPL doesn't work out or Anderson gets injured again (which is likely). let me rephrase it this way. If you were not a fan and looked in on it how would you rank the goaltending? I'd go 1. Ottawa 2. Detroit 3. Buffalo.

See the bold is one of the key things where I disagree with people. There is a HUGE ASSUMPTION that Quinn and Peterka will just slot in and leave everyone in awe. There is simply no guarantee that either will impact in any meaningful way (yet) and who knows if ever. Look at Mitts and Cozens. This may be their year (maybe) but to this point after several seasons neither is a top impact player (yet). Quinn and Peterka are going to take time as well. By not signing a few veteran players to fill the gaps now, it's all on the kids and while they may be alright, they also might not be ready and so I suspect we will be waiting yet another year. We will see if Ottawa is as good as I think they might be now. All we can do right now is speculate. and disagree 🙂 For the record, while I have no problem with Lyubishkin as an addition and Pysyk upgrade, I'm not sure he's all that, and while he might gel with our style, he's really just an average player. Comrie doesn't impress me at all, but it's possible he plays better than he has in the past. Goaltending is a clear negative for us in comparison to the competition unless UPL amazes. Big if.

I don't really understand what you mean by the first sentence. The main players they picked up in free agency all will be in their opening night rosters. I personally don't put much stock in late season win streaks by losing teams. I've seen this many times over the years (as I'm sure you have) and it rarely means anything for the next season. I have never felt we played as good in that stretch as some people think we did. The goalie thing is the biggest IF. They picked up goalies who SHOULD be up to the task. We have goalies who MIGHT be up to the task. It's a huge IF.

I wouldn't doubt if Adams held fast to wanting Philly's 1st next year to take him and Philly wasn't willing to go that high. It's pretty obvious Johnny wanted Philly and they tried to clear space, they just failed. I think you're right, but there are definitely deals to be made this time. Adams might feel he's in the drivers seat though and is making demands too high to be met. Might see a lowered compromise closer to the season. He might also make up his mind after seeing what he has ready in development camp.

Will be interesting to see if he ruins Carolina then. People were saying the same thing about DeAngelo and he had a big season for them. Brind'Amour vs. Max, we shall see who comes out on top. I'd bet on Brind'Amour.

There is no point to this because your criteria isn't consistent. Buffalo actually added Lyubushkin and Comrie and that's it. The comparison is really Copp/Perron/Husso vs. Debrincat/Giroux/Talbot vs. Lyubushkin/Comrie which ranks Ottawa - Detroit-Buffalo in that order. Tuch is already a Sabre and there was a subtraction. At this point we traded Tuch for Eichel. Until Krebs (if) delivers and the picks play in the NHL it's a one for one trade. The main point however that makes it pointless to argue is you simply can't list off our top prospects as additions and then not list off the top prospects for the other teams. I'm not as familiar with Detroit, but Ottawa has numerous prospects ready just like us. Sanderson, Greig and Pinto for example. You can argue ours might be better, and maybe they are, but those 3 are all likely in the NHL this year and although Power should be a great player in time, Sanderson is probably ahead of him in terms of development at this time. Argue that if you want to, but even if Power is better, it doesn't change the imbalance.

People who bet seriously are only interested in money so they have more objectivity than fans who over value their team and it's possibilities.

I wouldn't really want Pacioretty (never liked him as a player) but Carolina did get him for basically free, illustrating the point that these things are out there to be seized upon by smart GMs. We have the cap space, Seattle has the cap space. Teams want Kadri as their 2C they need cap space. Go get a Compher or somebody like that and let them sign him. If it's a garbage player obviously make them add in high pick(s) preferrably for next year.

Not a fan of Max Pacioretty? 🙂