PerreaultForever

I think Pronger was much dirtier for big D men. Scott Stevens ended people, period. Just ask Eric Lindros. Nurse is really dirty. He doesn't get the scrutiny of Bennett because he plays with McJesus, but he is incredibly dirty and the dirtiest D man in this final series.

Is that what happened with Reinhart and Eichel? I guarantee you if we do not get substantially better this year Dahlin will demand out.

Where? I'm on a Bruins board and it's really not a thing. The general attitude there is very different for obvious reasons. Swayman took most of the heat/blame this year and half of them always hate management regardless of what happens. As an aside, I've seen a lot of posts lately saying "get Peterka" now that they hired Sturm as head coach. The other Sabres they like at various times have been Tuch and Thompson. Dahlin isn't mentioned but that's probably because they have McAvoy. Nobody else. And yes, Sabres are sometimes mentioned as a lesson in how NOT to do things.

I couldn't care less about winning trades and he shouldn't either. Just get what your team needs by whatever means you can. Overpay a bit for Malenstyn? Ya, I'll say. Equivalent players have moved through the waiver wire. The Savoie trade was a good one because it shifted maybe later to known commodity now. He needed to make 3 more similar ones. The Ottawa trade remains to be seen. Both teams were ready to move on from those main pieces for different reasons.

Don't you think Chara's height accounted for that difference between the two of them? They both hit to hurt. Peca wasn't big enough to end any careers but he KO'd Selanne pretty darn good before coming here. May is definitely in the running on the dirty side. I will also confess to him being a favorite player at the time. Much like Dudley earlier.

I've been suggesting this for years. He wants to "win" trades and that's his focus rather than solely on making the on ice roster better. He most definitely has more faith in his own picks and players he traded for than players who were here when he got here. This is not unusual for GMs but it's not a good strategy. A good GM recognizes a mistake and tries to fix it asap.

Pretty much how I feel on the bold. I was goalie, D man for Power, 2 way checker and a tough guy before free agency started and he didn't get it done. Also, he did nothing to try to right the ship mid season or in the losing streak. They just let it keep going with their "we believe in the players in this room" bs. The Dahlin injury is an excuse. It's funny but I don't see any Boston fans saying if we'd only had McAvoy and Lindholm we'd have made the playoffs. Injuries are going to happen every single season and if you sign the injury prone (Norris, Zucker, Greenway) you increase that possibility further. I can see this excuse already built in to next year. Depth is part of a GMs job as well.

This is where we will disagree (forever). I've heard him speak and seen what type of person he is and I do not believe he went out to intentionally injure anyone. Sure, he hit hard, and sometimes crossed the line in the heat of the moment but he was not an intentional dirty guy. I think Bennett and Tkachuk intentionally do things to try to hurt people. Marchand used to but not much in the last part of his career. Mike Peca laid people out and I bet you don't feel the same way about him as you do Chara. Which brings to mind a question though. Dirtiest Sabre of all time? Who would that be? Off the top of my head maybe Barnaby, although if you go way back there are other candidates. For example as much as I loved Dudley, he was dirty af.

I accept that, but I'd also say a version of Chara is exactly what this team currently needs.

Oh please, stop. He did not make the team any better than it was. He did not address the major weaknesses and he bet solely on Ruff elevating them and his signings stepping up. Ruff didn't, Cozens didn't, Byram underwhelmed. Nothing wrong with the McLeod trade but ultimately with Cozens sucking that did not fill the hole he created trading away Mittlestadt. Malentstyn isn't anything and thus no better than Girgensens, probably worse. Lafferty and Aube Kubul were money wasted and didn't upgrade Okposo. The roster was basically the same.

Was that ever proven or just talk? Stylistically Bylsma didn't open it up in the preferred way. That urge for wide open offense might have come from Eichel as well as Pegula.

Well, see I hate Pacioretty so I'm like whatever, he'd have done the same hit if he could. Chara, Stevens, Pronger, guys like that were always hated by other teams and that's the nature of who they were and what they were paid to do. Playfair and Korab were similar.

Oh I totally get that. I know a lot of Bruins fans are having trouble cheering for Florida for similar reasons. Marchand, understandable, Lucic, for sure, but Chara? Big beast on the ice but he's a really good guy. I never saw him in that same "rat" boat. I have respect for him.

That's how I felt last year. This year I'm waiting for a new dealer. 🙂

As do all the Tkachuks, Bennett, Perry, Kane, Nurse and a host of others. But oh look, they're playing in the finals. I mean look at these playoff stats. https://www.statmuse.com/nhl/ask/brad-marchand-career-postseason-stats that's hall of fame stuff.

I am not believing anything in advance. Been burned too many times. It's all bs until it changes.

Well ya, so putting that in the worst way, a tired old man with a chance to pad his retirement account working from home. So he took the job.

I keep seeing things like this and I have a hard time believing it. Active? With Kevyn Adams? With no coaching changes? I will believe these things when they happen.

They hired Bylsma because they didn't get Babcock and he was last notable coach remaining. Had won with Crosby so the thinking was win with Eichel. They fired him because there was no progress at a point when there was greater expectation after drafting Eichel (and we already had Reinhart, O'Reilly etc.) After more than a decade of failure the bar for success has been drastically lowered, that's obvious. DeBoer will never happen here.

These things happen and who knows. I know nothing about him so can't say if we screwed up or not. I'm really interested to see if this Shabanov guy (supposedly linked to the Flyers) will come over and can he play. Supposed to be incredibly skilled, was just passed over for size. I only put it here cause it's not worth it's own thread on a Sabres site.

This is never going to happen. TP is never going to hire a defense first guy like DeBoer and he is most definitely not spending big coin on a high profile coaching hire.

I hate to say it but this narrative makes it even worse than if they didn't let him pick his own assistants. This tells me his day was truly done and he was no longer connected the way he used to be. A has been and people didn't want to come to the Sabres or work with him and he knew it.

lol, please, don't do that internet tough guy garbage. We all know you're in your mom's basement. Let's be real about hockey. Marchand will be in the hall of fame one day. If he was a Sabre he'd an all time fan favorite. All we can hope for is 20 years from now we will look at Benson or somebody else on this roster in a similar way. Right now? We got nothing comparable.

He isn't. He just said he was open to teams bidding and the speculation was it would be 8x3. Bennett hasn't asked for 10 either but that speculation is out there too. Rest easy, neither will be a Sabre.