PerreaultForever

Maybe if he becomes a heavy hitting pugilist he will find a role but as a power forward forget it. Way too slow.

Ottawa will be tougher. I really liked the way Cozens went to the net front in this game but if he does that against Ottawa I suspect he will get smacked. Hopefully the team will rally and support if that happens. That might mark a small shift in the right direction.

I understand your sentiment, and to some extent I feel the same way about athletes. Their personal lives are none of my business be they good or bad, BUT, at the same time, is there any real point in you telling people that you don't care about Tage's baby? I mean if you don't, that's fine, so why say anything at all in the thread? Do you really want us to care that you don't care?

Mystery solved. Glad he missed that game for a positive reason and not a bad one. As for lack of sleep, he got the cash, unlike us plebs he can get the nanny and the au pair and the personal assistant and whoever else he needs to get him and his wife through the baby jail years.

Well Appert didn't do anything to deviate from the Granato plan. Basically rolled the same lines. I suppose you could say he favoured the Cozens line over the Thompson line but otherwise everything was pretty much by the book so I wouldn't read anything into this at all. The "stress" comment made me chuckle though. Thought of Tony Soprano having a panic attack.

Small and slight. That was the knock and why he dropped. He plays very fast as his strength, but that also leaves him vulnerable. He has to get stronger AND learn when to turn it up full and when to keep his head up.

Well they played good enough to win but I think it's fair to say Columbus was gassed in the third and just hanging on with the back to back. The Cozens line came out with the energy you want from the outset. If all the lines played like that every night we'd have a much better record than we do. On the negative side Dahlin was garbage today. Seemed like his head was somewhere else but he made a lot of errors and some of them cost. He has to be better than that (and usually is). Too many bad passes and turnovers for the team as a whole. Fortunately Columbus didn't make them pay most of the time. Win's a win. On to the next. Hopefully they can keep up the energy level on their back to back.

imo this game might tell you everything you need to know about this team and it's character or lack of same. They got totally embarrassed by them last time so they SHOULD come at them with the best game we've seen all year. They SHOULD be mad and want to exact revenge in any and all ways possible. We SHOULD see them at their best. So if they come out flat or drop a turd effort then you will know for sure that the whole thing is broken - again. For sure. You look at Boston. We beat them, so next time they came in and schooled us with their near perfect defensive shut down game, which is who they are. So we have to do that with Columbus, with what we are. So what are we? idk. I guess we find out.

This is it. I've actually watched quite a few Philly games this year and they basically simplified his game and taught him to play more disciplined. I really think the critique that he was "dumb" was kind of true and he just gets confused and makes poor choices when you ask too much from him. He's a big dumb viking horse and when you get him playing a simple game he's a decent player. A good one even. I hate to say it, but playing the way he is right now, he's exactly what we could use. In our system/lack of system though, I'd also be sure his game would fall apart again if he was here. Torts is really good at figuring out what guys do well and placing them in roles (big or small) that maximize what they do well. If players buy in to that and accept their assigned roles it works.

I would guess Arizona is on all 206 of those lists. Probably at the top. I think Canadian teams, especially the cold ones like Winnipeg are on a lot of them as well. Some players probably don't want to be in Quebec for the French language issues. Some players might not want to go west if they don't like the long travel schedules. After that the smaller markets and perennial losers and that's where Buffalo falls in. I have no doubt Buffalo is on quite a few of those lists but it's still only a small percentage of the league. Another thing to consider is most of the guys with NTC contracts are the star forwards and bigger names and that's not what we really need. We might have trouble getting that top 4 D man but the character veterans we could also use should be easy to find. You also have to consider what @Brawndo said above. They have cap space and assets. They should be able to make a deal work that some teams won't be able to. For example, say a top contender needs a top 6 winger bad. Or a 2C like say Lindholm in Calgary. But they don't have the cap space to make that happen but they have several good D men with salary. There's your 3 way combo right there. We can also add an expiring contract along with a guy we want to make a deal happen. There are literally hundreds of possible ways you could make deals like that work, and sure, some of them might not be possible because of NTC aspects but KA can do better than just Robinson and/or Greenway. That's why he gets the big bucks and it's time he earned them.

You trade the guys who you, as an organization, don't think are developing the character/drive/work ethic you want and also the guys who are similar to guys you already have that you are happy with. I kind of get the feeling they drafted a lot of the same type of guy because they figured they'd only land a few of the ones they drafted at any position but felt it guaranteed they'd get enough. If you end up with too many left or right wingers for example, then you have one or two to move for a D man or a veteran. It's not that complicated to create a balanced prospect pool and you simply trade extra assets for deficiencies on your roster. When you draft you have to look at BAP first, and if a guy like Benson falls you look hard at it, but you also have to lean in the direction of need as well at this point and if a type you need is a few spots lower maybe you bump him up your list a little. Why we didn't draft Warren when we had the chance for example boggles my mind. 6'6" 220 pound D man. Nope, definitely don't need that. imo Granato would be a great coach for Rochester, but not in Buffalo.

Come on, you're making me agree with @LGR4GM again. Stop it. We can't cross the streams. No trade/move clauses definitely exist and there will be players who don't want to come to Buffalo but there's still a ton of players who don't have that. Not everybody gets one. RFAs definitely don't have them among others. You may have to over pay. You may have some reluctance. But I cannot believe the idea that nobody wants to come. If that's the case, they should just announce that publicly and move the damn thing cause that would be a death bell.

Because they aren't drafting big/heavy guys or an abundance of goaltenders. They have 3 goalies up along with their only good D prospect. Savoie and Östlund are small as well. It's what they do.

I'd have to take the time to comb through rosters for that but I'm sure there'd be deals out there if you worked at it. You could have several possible targets: 1. A team looking to reboot/rebuild. Dumping their vets for youth 2. A team looking to get younger/faster or a team that wants to go more run and gun offense. 3. A team looking to trade defensive prospects for offensive ones. 4. A team in the hunt that wants to move salary from their cap to add a different type of player if maybe they have an abundance of the type you want. So maybe they have a young stud D man waiting in the wings and can afford to move a veteran D man so they do it for a prospect and they also have cap room to deadline add or even turn around and flip your prospect for that add. There are many many possibilities for a creative GM. The thing is if you want to flip a prospect you have to do it either when he is truly really good (at which point you might want to keep him) or before other teams start to have doubts. Rosen, for example, might have had more value last year and his value might drop if he fails to make the roster out of camp next year. In other words you need to flip your Nylander before other teams realize he's not that Nylander and while teams think he might still be.

Ville Leino has a ghost?

Yes, I know, but every year they disappoint so where do you expect the conversation to go? If the team/Pegula is making an error, and it's the same error, over and over and over again then Sabrespace has the same conversation over and over and over again and, we get it, why doesn't Pegula??????????????????

You have to hope Wahlberg can turn into Hornquist. If he can develop that net front skill maybe his skating can be good enough. He's a different type of player so I think that is good. I wouldn't say Östlund was "better" than Savoie but he did look fine at this level and they are both fast. Östlund just looks SO SMALL to me. I just don't know. They are both less developed versions of guys we already have so trade them both while their stock is high imo.

Not picking him really bugged me at the time and still does. idk about the Russians. It's possible. It's a hope. Canada line juggling now. The current combos not working. Cellebrini not looking great today. Swedes match his speed and are playing a better team game.

I wish they would do what I've wished they would do for many years. Hire an experienced hockey guy as a Director Of Hockey Operations or whatever you want to title it but above the current GM and coach and Pegula just stay in Florida and stay out of it. That guy would then analyze the team and evaluate the players and their character, work with a coach like Briere did with Torts and point out all the slackers that had to go and they would restructure this thing into a proper hockey team in a few years. It won't happen. But yes, I'd be a happy man if they named Gallant head coach.

I will try my best. Okay, how about this. Remember when I wanted us to draft Warren? I was looking at that shot of him pushing the one Swede and thought holy crap he's big. We could use that. Now go ahead and tell me why you're glad he's not in our prospect pool.

Östlund's goal was a nice bang in. I liked that despite his size he still went to the net. Savoie made one move too many which is something I see him doing often. He needs to simplify and SHOOT. He over used his speed on that breakaway. He could have slowed a little and made the shot. True about Poitras. He was good on the PK but he cost them the first goal for sure.

Watched Philly shut down and dominate league leading Vancouver tonight. Weird what happens when you actually teach a team to play defense.

Again, those sort of stats are misleading. Who is he on the ice against? Who else is on the ice? It all matters. As a quick example, you're playing Boston, Dahlin is sent out against Pasternak's line. Clifton gets sent out against Jacob Lauko's. End of the game Clifton ends up with better stats because Lauko's line didn't score and Pasternak's did so that makes Clifton the better D man statistically speaking. Like that.

Thanks for the details which confirm what I said. He and Pegula did not see eye to eye. Patty didn't want to work for an owner who meddled. To the original point though, it IS the moment the franchise goes south and stays there. Patty put a voodoo hex on it maybe.

Officially. But did he? Exit packages along with letters of resignation and NDAs are not exactly a new thing. Him and Pegula did not see eye to eye that is obvious. The rest is just details.