PerreaultForever

Hopefully that is correct, but I don't think so.

I admit when I'm wrong. Pity you never do. Last year I said Detroit and Ottawa might be better than us because of their moves. We did better than expected (mostly because of Cozens), Detroit did worse, and Ottawa had goalie problems that sunk them. In the end Ottawa was close to us and Detroit did a pivot for the future and after dismantling they went on a losing streak. Both teams are still competition for next season and I doubt there's more than a 10 pt. difference between the 3 of us come season's end. Ottawa next year worries me more than Detroit.

Tampa's going to miss Killorn. They fall for sure but how far idk. Could still be a playoff team. Islanders who knows? They are basically the same and never look great on paper but they plug along in that throwback style and they win those close games so who knows, they could be there again. Boston is Boston. Krecji will not be back that's almost certain. If Bergeron doesn't come back things are iffy at center but as for the rest, they'll only miss Hall.. Remember they were winning a lot of games before they added Bertuzzi and Orlov. Clifton was a bottom end guy when they were healthy. They have enough D depth to handle that departure. If the goalies are good and Bergeron comes back their fall won't be as far as you might think. Definitely not a first place in the league team again but right out of the playoffs might be wishful thinking. Toronto? Probably big regular season numbers as usual but that D isn't good and goaltending isn't very much to worry about. Wouldn't be surprised if they win the division and exit first round as usual. Ottawa and Florida are the question marks for me. Will Florida be a one and done and will Ottawa get it together? If one or both of them is good I don't see a way to get in unless some team has a horrific injury filled season and totally falls apart. and we do of course have to consistently beat Detroit, Pittsburgh and any other bubble team we will be competing with. Keep them from picking up loser points too. Biggest thing for us is to start winning regularly at home!

Regarding Korpisalo we just disagree on his worth. He battled a hip problem but after that was fixed he got a lot better and he's a solid competitor. I think that was one of the key FA signings this year. I stand by that and am fine to admit I am wrong if he turns out to be crap in Ottawa. Hart's not a one year guy because he's an RFA not a UFA after this contract. Even if it's an overpay in terms of true value I just don't care if we traded two future first round picks for him. He'd fill a need and at the same time not block Levi. Open competition and may the better goalie get more starts. There's upside to Hart BUT if he's not that great you can move on after or he can become the back up to Levi. It's got you covered either way. As for 2 future picks, again, I just don't care. We have a big prospect pool. If Adams is drafting well at some point we will be trading multiple prospects for one roster player. We will have to. Much like L.A. is already doing. There just won't be enough room for all the prospects anyway so you'll either have to move them or you'll just lose them to waivers eventually anyway. So you think I'm throwing assets away, while I think it's sound strategic moves. I mean let's just say Rosen, Savoie, Kulich, Benson, Rousek, (add a few more if you want) are ALL NHL players. Where are they gonna play? You've only got 4 lines and you've got a salary cap if they're good. There's simply no room for all of them unless you're also thinking of moving out the current roster. Assets are assets, and keeping them or moving them is determined by what you have in each position and what you need. You keep or move accordingly.We have enough of them to make a FEW moves.

Okay that's fair enough. IF you believe we are there now and will make the playoffs with this line up I can see how you wouldn't want to make any bigger moves. That makes sense. We differ in that I don't believe we are there and so I wanted a big move to take us over the top and get us there. Frustrates me that we didn't do that since I think it'll be deja vu all over again next April. No point in us still debating that as it's an endless argument until next season unfolds. The one thing we both do agree on is we want playoffs next year.

Sustainable success is built by good drafting. Nobody argue that so you don't need to keep saying it. So you wait on Kulich, one more year, and then an NHL development year and then.......... You wait on Savoie, 2 more years? Three? Benson? 2 years as well if he's better? Maybe 3? You didn't answer my question. How many more years are you willing to wait?

Too many hypotheticals so idk. I see top teams manage the cap so I think we can find a way too. I'm not paying Mitts 5 million + Krebs hasn't earned anything over 2 yet either. Helleybuck is maybe too big of an ask I agree, but Pesce was certainly affordable .

I wouldn't trade Kulich. Benson idk yet. Savoie, for the right deal sure. The Pesce moment is gone. They signed lesser D men so yes, they'd have to move one or two if that happened (or not have signed Johnson etc) Hellebuyck is more complicated. I wouldn't like 8 years either. 2 years absolutely. 6 probably. How much goes back in the deal depends on how much I'd like or hate it. I would trade the 2 firsts (next year and the year after so no prospects gone) Philly apparently wants for Carter Hart. (kind of hoping we get good enough that 1st rounders have less value to us going forward as well) I would have signed Korpisalo as Ottawa did. If they jump ahead of us now because of it remember this post. If they stay behind us or do worse feel free to throw it back in my face at the end of the year, but I think that was the move we should have made.

That's true. I just don't see them as important pieces moving forward if you make different additions. I really don't like what we did with the bottom 6 this year myself. I personally wouldn't have signed Kyle or Zemgus or Jost. There were better options to go forward with (but of course if those players didn't want Buffalo different story but that's unknown)

Oh no, I got it, and experience will help some players. I agree. Cozens leap forward was a big reason we did as well as we did and the younger guys still have potential upside, but it won't come from Quinn this year and we're still looking at a gamble in goal. It can work, but it's just a maybe (maybe not). Korab was traded for and his pairing with Schoeny made them a force. Luce and Ramsey had chemistry but adding Gare made us have 2, not 1, solid lines and gave the checking unit a dangerous counter strike capability. Those were "holes" that needed filling. I look at the whole roster and, although I think we are a little better, I see the same holes and weaknesses as this past season. The bottom end might even be worse as they are older/slower. I also have confidence in Levi being a good (maybe great) goalie in 3 years. I do not have confidence in him being a great goalie right away. It's another maybe. Maybe not.

That was just a way of wording it and you know that. The headline move can also be a smart move. As an example, pairing Pesce with Power for close to the next decade would have been incredibly smart, would have made headlines AND we'd ALL be excited about it.

I think the moment likely has passed. The target could have been Chicago or maybe Philly. Somebody looking to get to the cap floor. They likely would have taken him off our hands but KA likely wanted something back that they weren't willing to offer. I doubt anyone's interested right now unless you've got some unexpected deal involving some salaried player on another roster. You look at how the Bruins had to basically give Hall away for nothing, there's no way anybody was going to pay for VO. I would have given him away and used the money in free agency.

No, they don't have that history. They are both establishing a history of winning and being a winner. Both are different. I was only talking about Seattle though as their experience is different to Vegas. Seattle's initial roster wasn't very good. Most people said they'd suck and they were not very good first year, but they were not afraid to turn over that roster, make big moves in free agency and they turned into a winner fast. You also can't say they had any great advantage. They didn't get to flip an Eichel for 4 assets or a Reinhart or even a Risto. That's a lot of assets added to a team that also has a D with 2 first overall picks on it. imo they started way below us but they want to win now and have. We have a far less aggressive and far more patient approach now, and thus it takes longer. In the end we might be better, but it's a big maybe.

Incorrect. Hugely incorrect in fact. You pick and choose from my comments to go to that extreme level and try to make me sound like Murray trading away all my picks and prospects for bad veterans and rentals. Utter nonsense. First, I already said when I was saying a trade like that (and they were just examples) would excite me, I was assuming it would include a signing/extension. Obviously (and I thought it would be obvious) I'm not trading a ton for a rental, that's silly. Sometimes people choose to dissect any little thing missing in a sentence and run with it even if it misses the idea entirely but that's the nature of the internet. I hope that's cleared up for you now. Now, as for back in the ditch, how? Explain. I'm advocating filling the holes and giving it a push forward as the moment is right and the time is now. You want to wait 3 more years for a prospect or pick to maybe be a star go for it. I think we already have a huge prospect pool, lots of draft capital and a decent young core already on the roster. When is the right time for you to move forward if not now? How many flashy young wingers you think we can add to the roster? Point is, as I've said before, there's middle ground. Clifton's a nice add, but he's a little guy and on a good team really a bottom end fill in guy. A decent one, and I'm happy to add him (I advocated for it all year so clearly KA reads my posts 🙂 ) but let's just look at Pesce (as an example). He's an absolute rock as a higher end defensive partner. You get him, lock him up for 7-8 years and you have Power's perfect partner. Your top D is now Samuelsson-Dahlin, Power-Pesce. Wow! That competes with anybody and the D is in place as your cornerstone for a long time. Not bad right? But anyway, doesn't matter, they have a longer time line than me. I hope they don't blow it this time by being too slow and waiting too long.

75 is Danny Gare's arrival? 90 is Mogilny? Then Vanek I think. I mean you're not wrong that most star Sabres were drafted or homegrown and that is the way you build a successful franchise but the league's also changed quite a bit. There's far more player movement these days with caps and free agency rules and all that other complicated money math. Rosters turn over faster than ever before. Look how the Bruins keep hanging on and they don't draft anybody. You may not have been paying attention to what I was saying when Seattle came into the league (and I wouldn't blame you because I'm often just babbling nonsense) but I've been paying close attention to the differences in approach for team building and they jumped ahead of us by signing some big name FAs. Now I know the circumstances are not identical and there's lots of room for argument over that but they filled holes on their roster and turned over players in a very different way and it's working. Maybe 3 years from now we will have leaped ahead of them and maybe we stay there longer but that remains to be seen. Did we really need a "development year" or could we already have been a winner if we'd just added a proper goalie and a few skilled veterans. I think we could have been, and I also think if we keep patiently waiting rather than winning now we might miss our window entirely and thus never win. idk, I just hope Levi is brilliant and then all of this is moot.

Any of you who are old enough will remember the old world tournaments (back when Canada didn't send any pros) and the Russians were by far the most talented team every year. Euro teams were all very non physical compared to North America and yet, if you watched the Czech Russian games suddenly there were massive hits, mostly Czechs on Russians. The animosity was off the charts and yes, it was a deep long standing hate from when the Russian tanks rolled in to the republic in 1968. Hasek was 3 years old then, but I'm sure it affected his family. It's not forgotten.

I hate the loser point too. Maybe it's just because I am old and grew up with that but I never had a problem with regular season ties. The idea was always if you could get a tie on the road it was a good night and not winning at home was going to cost you in the standings and so road teams tended to play for the tie and home teams tried harder to go for the win but a point was a point and we went on to the next game. I never understood the problem. I mean in baseball teams split double headers all the time which is a win each but really no different than ties in terms of the standings.

I guess I should have added traded for and signed to extensions. That was what I was thinking. There is one thing here I feel a need to comment on and that's how much are you thinking we have to pay Quinn/Peterka? They haven't done much of anything yet. I see no cap problem. We currently have over 6 million left. We trade VO we have more than enough to cover both salaries. Next year we no longer have Johnson's money. The cap is projected to go up roughly 5 million. Kyle and Zemgus are gone. Worst case we ditch Casey and replace him with Kulich's rookie contract. I see no problem at all.

We did improve by 16 points. A lot of that was because of Samuelsson becoming a regular higher end D man, Power added, Cozens leap forward. Trajectories however are not linear and the upward curves are not automatic. They can flatten or drop. Key injuries, lack of depth for those injuries, an off season for somebody, a regression, a young player who got better doesn't keep getting any better than that, opposition teams improving more than you, lots of possibilities. Going with the same team as the year before guarantees you nothing. The D should be a bit better (and deeper) but will that be enough. Especially as teams take notice and don't just think it'll be an easy night (and get caught napping). You're right about guarantees, but relying on a rookie is not what sports is all about. There are teams that make moves that give fans hope and confidence. They don't always pan out, they are not "guaranteed", but they get made and they often do work out. Right now we have hope that the trajectory continues, the rookie plays well, the small changes help, and prospects continue to develop and then maybe we are good enough to sniff at the playoffs and maybe if all goes well make the playoffs finally. It's a slim hope that separates the optimists from the pessimists and so forth. That debate will continue into the season and get bigger if we have a slump or falter in any way. Now imagine if this team tomorrow traded picks and/or prospects (no roster players aside from the who cares like VO or Jokiharju) and landed Helleybuck in one deal and Pesce in another. If that happened, we wouldn't just be talking playoff possibilities, we'd be discussing how we're now better than the Leafs and are we good enough to win the division. Wouldn't you rather be having that discussion?

My guess is nobody comes up this year and they just have VO take Quinn's spot and then when Quinn comes back maybe they try to flip VO at the deadline. Like some of you I'd still like to see a headline grabbing move that would give me confidence about next year but I think this is likely it.

I suppose that's because, aside from Levi, it's turnover around the edges and not the core. I think we are improved, I just don't think we've improved enough. It still all hinges on Levi.

I can't imagine how mental their fanbase will go if this is the plan.

Maybe, but who are they going to play in net?

"stabilize" is a strong word. We definitely need better team structure and better defensive play all around but the simple fact is we have better players on the roster than last year and more depth. Is it enough? I don't think so either, but it is an improvement.

With him firing his agent and with top teams being cap squeezed now is the right time imo to offer Tarasenko a good one year deal. Replaces Quinn, makes the second line more dangerous, and if the season goes badly we retain and flip at the deadline. No idea if he'd want to be here but at this point his options are limited and a one year deal is probably all he gets.