PerreaultForever

This is why we must get Montreal's first round pick as part of the ROR deal. If there was a way to get Ottawa's away from Colorado I'd do that too. Sam Pollock 101.

Possible temporary stop gaps, Bozak or (my preference) Riley Nash. Girgensens (or Reinhart) could also move back to center. We won't be strong at center, but you can't fix everything all at once.

Winnipeg wants Stastny badly but needs cap room for players they need to sign. Edmonton is already in cap hell. If we can move ROR to Montreal or St. Louis as rumored it'd be worth JBot looking at another Sheary/Hunwick type deal with either Winnipeg or Edmonton. Might be able to pull off a steal or two.

It's also a negotiation between friends. There could easily be an "I'll owe you one" in there between them. But the bottom line for me is 3rd, 4th I don't care. The deal makes us a better team and gives us time to develop kids JBot has drafted.

Unless it's the final step. Just don't think you can "change the culture" while keeping this scenario going. No way is ROR in the long term plan, so it's best to end it all now and then it's JBot's team to make or break.

according to TSN a first, a second and a top prospect is the asking price for ROR. Price goes up if we end up paying the July 1st bonus. I want a deal for ROR to happen so we can move on. The dismantling has to end this year one way or the other.

Mrazek can look really good at times but also be terrible. Very inconsistent. I'd say if we end up with him it's a roll of the dice at best. I'd rather try to get Khudobin. More consistent and very good at times last year.

I still think ROR won't be here.

If Dahlin somehow isn't a superstar and does become lazy or whatever then I will be firmly convinced that it is in fact in the Buffalo area water supply and no one will ever be any good here. But that will not happen. He will be the best we have ever had.

No, I just think you can't win in this league without a mobile defense that moves the puck up quickly and he is moving us from one of the worst D's in the league to a promising one filled with potential. D-men are hot commodities every year and so if we end up with too many good ones we'll be able to trade them easily to many suitors. Building the D first is a good idea.

Salary dump for Pens, we give up basically nothing for 2 players who are better than some players we had last year so what's not to like? Hunwick was obviously a guy we had to take for the deal to happen, but he is (while not great) better than Beaulieu, Gorges or even Antipin. Depth player until the kids are ready.

fyi Sportsnet not TSN. I truly believe this is the most significant draft moment since #11. This guy is going to be amazing!

Not sorry to see him go, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say he signs for less money with Philly and has a decent year in rotation with a good young D in front of him.

Clueless? Probably, I'm still a Sabres fan over all these years so mentally insane is even more likely than clueless but for the sake of rebuttal, name me some examples of situations where teams have actively shopped players, then NOT traded them and had that same player have success for them? There might be one or two, but as a whole it's a recipe for disaster and certainly not what you want for a start over new era kind of thing that you can have with Dahlin.

They want ROR, Sabres want 3rd overall so talking continues. So far JBot's trading skills are in question. Not much for Kane, likely nothing for Lehner (tough sell I know), and after shopping him around, if ROR is still a Sabre in October has to be viewed as a fail so far in that area. I just think that if fixing the locker room is the priority, and he has been singled out (right or wrong) as possibly one of the problems then a deal of some sort has to be made before camp. San Jose sure looks poised to sign Tavares.......

Everything I have heard has him being a combination of Hedman, Karlson and Lidstrom and better at this age than all 3. Coached well, I see him as league best in 3 years and for the next 10.

San Jose, and some guy named Kane will score 50 goals on his wing.

Trotz is an excellent coach, but a lot of things have to come together for anyone to win the cup, and some of that is luck. He was starting to look like the Marty Shottenheimer of hockey, always good in the regular season crap in the playoffs, until finally this year a little luck, a little timing, some breaks, some goaltending moments and he finally won one. If he hadn't won it all this year he'd have been fired. The timing for us to hire him is wrong, and imo he does not fit with what they want to do here. If Housley doesn't pan out we'll probably wish we had him, but if Tavares doesn't sign on the Island Trotz's bubble will likely burst and fans there will wonder why he got a 5 year deal.

I'm going to guess with that whole psycho ufc personality of his no one would say boo to him if he got in a mood (including coaches). It's clear that JBot is going to attempt to fix the locker room, whatever it takes. Sad he couldn't get something/anything for him, but it is addition by subtraction for sure.

Murray over-valued the players he had and the same thing is going on here at sabrespace. Murray was convinced everything was going to fall into place with Kane getting healthy and being what he was supposed to be, Jack was going to be league leading, Lehner was going to be a top notch goalie etc etc so he dumped cash at anybody who'd take it. Just dumb all over. Everything I see from JBot involves a slow and steady restructuring of this team, the end product should be young and fast with D depth rather than a bare cupboard. Nothing so far tells me it's the wrong way to go, BUT I do think this is a method that will take a long time to come together. It might happen sooner, but likely this is a good playoff team in 2, 3 maybe even 4 years, but not for a while.

was it? or are they just better at image control? I mean we tanked this year and nobody noticed.

When they exiled Moulson instead of sending him to Rochester it was a clear message that he was a bad influence and wasn't going to be anywhere near anybody on the team. To me, this is just a nail in that coffin. Just another small step in cleaning out the house while they rebuild the foundation. Don't care on the dollar values, it'll simply be good to have him gone.

Actually, I think you can and should. No more deadbeats at the end of their careers. If we are to win, the current crop must be the leaders (Jack and whoever else is still here). They said you couldn't build a team of cast offs and a good goalie and yet Vegas is in the cup. Speed and a good goalie is everything now. Speed and youth is what we should do while drafting goalies every year until we get the right one. Sure, I'd take a speedy veteran or two with a good work ethic, but not for big money and everybody wants those so it's not worth pursuing too hard.

First rounder for us, that's all that matters.

I still think this was a tank year but they kept it secret and were clever about hiding it. Housley was hired to be the right coach for Dahlin. Now the signings, the new players, even a first rounder coming for Kane, if we do not start to see an upwards trajectory for this team now, we never will. I truly believe this team will look vastly different from what we ended the season with. It'll be young and fast. What we are really missing is a goalie, unless Ullmark is ready but I have my reservations on that. Fingers crossed.