PerreaultForever

Earlier he got up to 3. Not final rankings but mid season roughly. He went up and down a fair bit.

Oh I think that's easy. Benson was ranked 4 or 5 and Savoie sometimes got as high as 3 (or thereabouts). They fell because of size and then Sabres had their BPA analytic lists and went oh my, we can't pass on these guys at 8 or 9 or whatever it was. In Rossi's case he was ranked roughly where we were but so was Quinn. Close enough in any event that you could choose either one and they went for the bigger. This year is weird and thin with a lot of guys ranked roughly the same so if teams do go size you never know what we get and we might be looking right at Hagens thinking here we go again, the higher ranked smaller guy. I think it likely he gets taken earlier by Philly or Boston but you never know. Cam Neely might think Martone is his long lost son and maybe somebody even thinks McQueen is fine. Drafts can go that way. I would have taken Rossi over Quinn myself, but I wasn't sure about either one of them. I would have taken Perfetti (although I also liked Holloway and Mercer but recognized they were going to be a little lower).

It's just size. It's still size. There are people still questioning whether he could hold up in a playoff series. How could he handle Florida type play. That sort of thing. A shorter guy is always going to have those questions. So you need to look deeply at his compete and his build/strength and all those things. More small guys fail than succeed in this league but the little guys who do succeed are usually special. Brad Marchand is slightly shorter than Rossi for some perspective on that.

Just to be clear the rumor is Foerster and the Colorado pick they have, not the Flyers first which is 6th overall. Flyers have a lot of picks. 3 first and 4 seconds. And the current rumor is Briere said no and offered a 2nd rounder with Foerster but that was a no from Minnesota. So maybe your sweet spot is between those offers.

Funny you should say that as I hear Philly is very interested in Rossi. There could be a bidding war .

Well that's true and we see on ice performance but you have to be inside to see attitude and work habits and desire to win, how coachable they are and how receptive they are to learning and adapting. Many personality quirks and nuances. The thing you'd have to ask yourself though is if it took Lindy 6 months wtf are these entrenched assistants doing? Shouldn't they have been able to tell him Day 1 who was who or what? and shouldn't they have already told Adams? My standing issue (and I know I am not alone on this) is when they decided to hire Lindy, if it truly meant a changing of anything and turning any sort of power over to Lindy why oh why did they not clear out all the assistants and let Lindy hire his own? That would have been real change. As is, hiring Lindy really just feels like a marketing move to sell tickets on hope of a return to the Lindy era of old.

I get that, but you also have to have a clear plan and direction going in so that you make moves for those players and you don't do this sort of rotational add and subtract getting nowhere. Young players also need clear direction and expectation.

I'd still like a clear identity to the Sabres that is stated clearly and then coaches etc. are hired to fit that identity and when they don't live up to playing like that stated identity we and they can call them out on it. What exactly are the Sabres aside from young?

I'm not going to be cynical about this. It's the first optimistic thing that has happened this off season. My hope is that, although he's technically answering to the GM, in reality Terry has given Adams etc. this season to get in the playoffs or he will clean house and that house cleaning will be everybody except JK who will be retained to either advise on the new GM hire, new coach hire etc. or will be the new GM himself. If it starts really bad KA can be fired mid season and JK can be interim GM'd to start. In any event I kind of see him as separate from the existing clown car and he's hopefully a dissenting voice of sense that gets listened to.

I'm not saying much other than FINALLY THEY DO SOMETHING SMART.

If you could get him out of Dallas imo it's a no brainer and you give them all the picks and prospects it takes to make that happen. Then you run with UPL as the back up and if Levi earns it you later trade UPL but only if.

Wild guess, they fire DeBoer and elevate Donskov.

Personally I would add a goalie. One of the free agents (not Georgiev) or trade for somebody like Korpisalo. I know people will say he's crap or the FAs are crap and it doesn't matter. We need a veteran to take half the load and Levi has to bump a goalie out of a spot by playing well enough, not just be handed a spot.

The Hells Angels do pick up some drugs at the ports and then run them inland crossing the border in a few places and into the prairies. That's a long standing fact. The amount, however, is miniscule compared to the Mexico border. It most definitely never warranted what is happening.

Well okay, we disagree on the value of the veterans they have.

If you haven't noticed, I've been saying there are too many prospects who are relatively the same for quite some time and have said repeatedly Adams needs to trade some for NHL roster players to create a balanced roster. There should be a veteran young player mix on both teams as well as some prospects in Europe and junior. They need leadership and have to be taught how to be pros. I've been consistent on this since day 1. My point in this discussion is that Karmanos is a name and hasn't actually done anything special in Buffalo. I do not see any evidence that he is a GM solution any more than Adams was.

I can only tell you that I am not crossing for any reason and I know many people that feel the same way. This article might give you a general sense of how people feel https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/bellingham-bc-travel-letter?utm_source=DH-Vancouver-Buzz&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=ZOOMER250528004_20250528&oly_enc_id=7232I5726301E8L

Well ya, that's the Pegula way but I don't see him actually doing anything remarkable. Rochester was competitive because of a wealth of top draft picks. That's not his doing, that's a result of the Sabres sucking. I don't see evidence of building a winning AHL roster which would have more toughness and AHL vets on it. Not to say that's his fault, because it's likely an organizational approach but I don't see any great success at any level for anybody in Sabres management.

1) they move so called centers to wing in those things all the time. 2) doesn't matter what his stats were. He experienced winning. That's the thing.

Philly really wants a center to play with Michkov. Just saying.

This is a big nothing burger because you could just as easily interpret this to mean nobody's talking to him or keeping him in the loop. I'm not sure why people here are so enamored by him anyway. What's he done here worth noting?

Absolutely, and has been mentioned here and there earlier, we already know Dahlin has spoken about wanting changes and yet there's no changes so unless there's some major roster improvements you're going to end up with another disgruntled captain. With Tage winning that gold the optimist says he can bring some of that winning attitude to Buffalo. The pessimist on the other hand could argue that he might have enjoyed the feeling and wants more but also sees he's not going to get it here and thus might want out as well. Regarding the 4Nations, when people question why he wasn't on it, it has been said they were looking for players who had won or knew how to win and they felt Tage hadn't experienced that at this level. These things do not go unnoticed by players. I felt optimistic when they hired Ruff. At this moment I have no optimism at all.

I don't really get it either and wondered about it from day 1 but the ideological mantra from his supporters was sort of Moneyball based. He was supposed to be the young genius and he was going to be smartest man in the room for the new way of doing things. The reality is he overspent on the big 4 and let key pieces like Kadri and Hyman go. Couldn't build a good enough D with the remaining money and goaltending has been iffy all the way along. It's an unsustainable model and many people predicted that would happen way back when they signed Tavares and caved on Nylander. Why Pittsburgh decided to hire him is beyond me.

Ultimately that might be the Pegula plan. If you think about when Adams got the job he shipped out Risto Reinhart and Eichel and started over with a bunch of picks. So now he gets this year to win or he's out (presumably). That means his guys like Norris and Levi, Quinn, etc. have to deliver. If not, the new guy, who is probably already in the organization, is instructed to move out the disgruntled which will be Thompson and Dahlin and start all over again the same way. I know this is horrible to think about but you can also easily see it can't you? Everybody can, cause we've been here before and this hell never ends.

No. Shanahan brought in Dubas and Dubas destroyed that team's build. Dubas may be the only GM in the last decade I can think of that might be worse than Adams. So many opportunities already passed over for this year. Stupid franchise with a stupid owner.