PerreaultForever

They are rebuilding a different way than us. The contrast will be interesting.

Be Here Now right? Very Zen. But I can't HEAR you. There were a few free agent options but I can accept your argument that there wasn't any real significant body out there we could add to change things. It's also VERY POSSIBLE that they almost all have no interest in coming to Buffalo. It might also be possible that almost every possible trade involves a guy with a 10 team no trade clause the has Buffalo at the top circled in red and underlined. The one thing you fail to acknowledge in your own repetition is that teams are looking to move bodies for salary reasons. Spending a little could improve this team in the short term while we wait for future prospects to develop properly. It doesn't have to be and shouldn't be an all rookie team. We had a D crisis and Mike Reilly was free for the taking. Is he great? No. Is he better than Pilut, Clague, Fitzgerald or even Bryson, definitely. One more year of salary after this one so what? Veteran presence who can play in that puck moving style we want even if he trails off totally so what? We don't have to add a done goalie to meet the floor. I was watching Tampa and Boston and Tampa snapped up Rudolf Balcers for free, Why didn't Adams? Guy would look great playing beside Zemgus on that 4th line. Find a third and make it an all Latvian line. Before you say he's crap, he's feisty and he grinds and he'd help give that 4th line the character it needs. No, we went Jost. Sure why not. Let's be soft forever. A guy can play on Tampa, but he's not good enough for the Sabres. Ya, that makes sense. Give it up defending Adams, it's a losing argument. This team is a cost cutting joke and he's Bozo leading the clown show.

I like the idea of acquiring people like those players but I don't see getting them for those prices being possible, especially the Greenway one.

I agree, but he might evaluate it and think no, they are too far away, even I can't save it, and then take a pay cut to go to some contender. Avoid pressure he doesn't want at this stage of his career. Hard to say.

Exactly. Much ado about nothing. Tuch a little banged up. No big deal.

I don't think that's true. First, he doesn't have to say he wants to play for the Sabres. Why would he? The idea might interest him, but he's going to entertain all options presented to him. Depends what he thinks he has left and if he wants another cup or not too. Second, that's exactly the type you want. The one who can visit mommy after every home game cause she did "squirt him out" . He'd give us instant legitimacy, and if he publicly stated repeatedly how much he likes it here other players might start dropping Buffalo from their 10 team no trade clause lists. BUT, if we show no signs of turning it around this year, he might not want to join a sinking ship.

There's a presumption there however that it's viewed as an investment or a business and not as a big toy for a rich guy to play with. Maybe it is, or maybe it's become that, but I don't think that was why he bought it. Seems to me cost cutting in a sports franchise as a modus operandi is a losing feedback loop that just makes things worse and worse. Any owner who doesn't want to spend on a team likely should sell that team.

Hopefully, but unproven at this point. Certainly cannot be considered "core" YET.

You're absolutely right, but there is still one more question. Is it a good young core? So far only Dahlin and Thompson fit that description. Maybe Samuelsson, see how it goes when he gets back. The rest, big question marks.

Well that'll be unlikely as Thompson signed long term but if we don't win next year I could see Dahlin playing extreme hardball in his negotiations. No reason for him to want to stay in Buffalo at that point.

dig another well. idk, the question of "afford" is a hard one to answer with a rich owner. He can afford to do anything. He might not want to.

I'm pretty confident in speculating that Ullmark played hardball with the Sabres and Adams felt he had made him the best offer he'd get so he'd take it. Bruins offer raised quite a few eyebrows at the time as an overpayment. Adams didn't want to be Skinner'd but as we've discussed, he didn't have a back up plan and should have. He really should have been going after 2 goalies all the time not just one. and, let me add this. I'm sure nobody here would have been excited if his signing this year was Martin Jones, but he was available, and Seattle either got really lucky or did their homework much better than Adams did.

The blame isn't for Ullmark leaving, it's for KA not having a plan B. When Ullmark didn't sign before the trade deadline he should have been dealt and we should have moved on to plan B then. Teams were willing to trade off goalies because of the expansion draft. If not that, plan C. But there was no real plan if Ullmark didn't sign. It was tank like. That's all on KA.

Sabres already hold the record (tied with Penguins) @ 18 games. If there's an NHL loser record for any category, we probably have it.

I'd go a different way. I'd offer to make Trotz the highest paid coach in the league, I'd offer him a long term deal 5 years or more and I'd agree to let him have a say in personnel. If he couldn't fix things, nobody can.

Well the good thing about Jost is he isn't another of those speedy 5'10" forwards. He's 5'11"

when do we play Chicago next? I watched our game and then watched the Bruins outshoot the hawks 49-18 on replay. Absolutely toyed with them all night. Chicago is actually worse than we are, but they do occasionally throw a body check.

idk where they got him from, but we could maybe use a coach like they have.

But there is also a line, and sometimes you can get pushed over it.

It isn't different. In fact, it may be worse.

Absolute rubbish. They are once again, painful to watch. I honestly don't know how much more of this I can take. Granato says your culture is defined by how you deal with adversity. I guess that's honest. Not what he meant maybe, but maybe the truth. Okposo "in no hurry" to negotiate an extension. LMFAO. The captain don't want to go down with the ship. We are so freakin' soft a suck like Matthews has the "courage" to take a run at us. I have no more words.

This guy is a classic draft disappointment under achiever who I'm not sure is any better than Caggiula was. I truly do not see what he adds.

This one will be either agony or ecstasy for me as I hate the leafs more than any other team and losing yet another game, and to them, will really suck. But, we beat them last year so why not end the losing streak right here at their expense. Their goaltending isn't great, they're almost as soft as we are, and when we play that offensive open speed game against them they easily get sucked in to playing along with us the same way so it comes down to power plays and who puts more of their shots in the net so most of the difference is on goaltending. Short way of putting that, this is the type of team we CAN beat. Might not, but we can.

Murray is an easy target. Attacking him is an easy way to make snide comments and pretend to look smart. What is much harder is to say what YOU (and I don't mean you personally, but rather whoever attacks Murray) would have done differently at the time (also not knowing you wouldn't win the lottery and so forth). You know, maybe Lehner wasn't worth a first, but would you NOT have traded for him? Would you have not snapped up the disgruntled Kane? Would you have NOT shipped out Stafford? Passed on ROR and saved that Tim Horton's from needing repairs? What was the better plan - again, NOT using hindsight which you didn't have at the time. I know I might have screwed it up too. I thought Eichel was going to be great and I thought Eichel-Kane had the potential to be a Hull and Oates level duo. I thought they overpaid for Lehner, but I thought he'd be okay too. I'm not sure I would have done any better really.

I agree, but that's also my reason for frustration. I think the KA plan is definitely build through the draft slowly and patiently. He believes in his analytics people and their recommendations and the focus is on drafting their own team. Whether they get those picks right or wrong remains to be seen. Yes, we have a great prospect pool (as we should with trading away top players for picks and finishing so poorly every year) but will they be great NHL players? No way to know for sure. In the meantime, he is fine to take pin steps forward and he's fine with steps back but we are not. At least I'm not. I'm tired of it. I want those trades. I want more balance on the roster. I want to win now. Don't trade them all away like Murray did, but a player here or there, a free agent that fits, strategic moves to fill holes and provide leadership. There simply is a middle ground for this "plan" which seems too extreme to me in it's long term focus. AND who knows if these analytics people even get it right? Right now, although I too would have drafted Power, Beniers is by far the more impactful player. He's electric and he has helped Seattle improve tremendously. Hard to compare a D man to a forward, I get that, and in a few years Power might still turn out to be the best pick but right now, if Beniers was a Sabre we'd have that 2C and he'd currently be the 3rd best player on our roster with only Thompson and Dahlin ahead of him. Building through the draft is always the right plan, but building JUST with the draft takes a really long time, and getting every draft right is even harder.