PerreaultForever

You went a little too far back for the first two but I guess. Moulson didn't exactly work out though did he? Who was the 1st? Nylander for Jokiharju is a wash, Neither is here. So it's Nylander for Boston's 4th round pick. Which is really a high first round pick ending up as a 4th round pick. Big fail. O'Reilly didn't work out here and just adds to the issues. For all his flaws I think Zadorov would have filled a big need here over the years. Man is a mistake machine but he's also a beast. He wouldn't have stood by when Tage got hit. The high picks can't count because anybody and everybody would have done that. It's a reward for failure. Even in that you have the Reinhart Draisaitl debate. Ullmark sure, but we lost him, and yes JJP was a good pick but he's also gone in his prime years. Kane should never have been brought here and Zucker is meh. Mid level free agent player who got overpaid. It's fine but it's not an accomplishment. McLeod yes, even if Savoie is good, because we needed help now not later. The net loss gain on every season is a loss in terms of moves. If it wasn't we'd be decent and we are not.

I'm trying to think of a list of 10 good moves they made and all I can come up with is the Risto trade and maybe trading for McLeod.

Don't be so sure about Philly. I mean probably, but Ersson can be better than UPL and Vladar can be as good if not better than Lyon. Problem they've had is the 2 Russians were awful and Ersson got burned out. Ersson with a lighter workload could be better than UPL. The possibles are all possibles except for Silovs. I really like him and think he might be pretty good. Other teams would say the same thing you say about Gibson about UPL. I think the bottom line is IF goaltending is the key factor to making the playoffs we won't.

Oh no I'm sure he will score some. Might even have a high scoring stretch, but I don't think anything will be radically different from what we've already seen from him in Ottawa. Oh I know. I like Kulich. Always have if you've noticed, and as usual I do think we are rushing him.

No offense, but these sort of stats comparing a D man to a forward are totally meaningless. The meaningful stat next season will be does Power get more points playing with Kesselring and do the two of them prevent more goals as well. You seriously have Doan in a top 6 role? I must be missing something on him. He's not his dad you know. How is he anything more than a bottom 6 guy?

Well yes, and I've certainly never relied on "numbers". I've always argued about line chemistry and roster make up and imo it's still inherently flawed. I like Kesselring and am hopeful for him. Timmins idk. I'm not so sure he's better than Clifton was. We shall see. There is hope for a Power/Kesselring pairing however. The top 6 is problematic to me though. It's fully reliant on Quinn bouncing back and more and on 2 kids emerging and I think it's too soon for them to do that. Kulich and Benson should be third line players right now not top line, but that's what the Sabres keep doing. Thompson can and likely will score a bunch of goals anytime anywhere, but aside from the relative consistency of Tuch, the rest of the top 6 is a big question mark.

Well that's certainly what Ottawa was thinking. I stand by my prediction that this year's excuse is going to be injuries and a lot of "if only..........hadn't missed those games" and then they stay the course yet again. A self fulfilling prophecy.

I don't think Norris will play more than half the season but maybe I'm just too pessimistic. Peterka on the other hand I think will have a great year as that Mammoth top 6 looks like a really solid group that should fit together nicely. You never know though. He could sit back and just enjoy his new contract.

Really? This is what you choose to put in a tribute thread the day after he dies? Wow. just wow. A favorite song of mine by 2 (now gone) legends of old school hard living rock and roll.

Well there's nothing and no one that makes you say they are perfect as is. Not the management, not the coaches, not the players. We have no character, no identity, no future. It is the most inept sports franchise in North America.

You sound like Adams. So much belief in Quinn. He hasn't shown that at all. He might do that, but he also might do next to nothing. Yes I would trade Dahlin if I could make the team better. I have no interest in trading Dahlin for the sake of trading but if I can get better I trade anybody. Nothing and no one on this team has shown themselves to be so brilliant they are a cornerstone. There's nothing to be a cornerstone of. Honestly, if I could, I'd trade the entire roster and start over like an expansion team. Teams are still looking to make moves. Many teams around the league are actually trying to win. I know, it's an odd concept Sabres fans aren't used to.

Why Quinn? NOBODY on a losing roster is no move for me.

Right now, but earlier there were more. You need to be more proactive and anticipate teams that want cap relief. Dallas and Vegas were both options for sure among others. You get on the phone to those teams BEFORE free agency starts.

You're absolutely right, but that's a common thing with GMs in general. They stand by their guys over the guys from the previous GM. I guess it's partly stubbornness and partly feeling a need to justify their actions but most GMs believe in the guys they believed in at first often regardless of what's actually happening. So I'm not surprised. He overpaid him too, but thankfully not long term. Maybe Quinn will become what he wants but so far I see no reason to believe that's true.

I read somewhere on twitter that this D of Dahlin Byram Power Kesselring Samuelsson Timmons is the youngest D in the league. Don't know if that's true or not. I think if Zucker, Greenway and Norris all go on IR at some point the roster would be one of the youngest if not the youngest again. We definitely still lack veteran experience and leadership. Their plan is stupid.

You see an edited version? The Quinn comment I laughed about is at 25:45

Amusing how little of that was on free agency. I admit I did laugh however when Adams got the phone call from Quinn and asked him if he was in the weight room.

But they are not here. You can't say we have the guys we got from picks we traded for if we are unloading the guys we picked to get those picks. There's no progress there. What we got for Eichel and Reinhart does not equate to what they are. Dahlin as I said was one of the two first overalls. I'm not going to say "we drafted well" when we pick the top ranked overall #1 pick cause we were first pick. Nobody is going to say Islanders GM was a genius this year for picking Shaefer. You could also argue we should have taken Draisaitl not Reinhart but what would be the point of that? The point is IF we were truly great at drafting we'd have a roster filled with our draft picks and we would have hit on several lower picks as our bottom six and depth at least so we wouldn't have to trade for that and keep getting that wrong as well. Considering how high we consistently get to pick and how many extra picks we have, our drafting has been mediocre at best.

Not entirely true. A lot of very high picks so a lot of players but how many Sabres picks do we have on the roster aside from the 2 number one overalls? Quinn, UPL, Samuelsson as guys who should be good by now. Benson and Kulich (and maybe Kozak) as young prospects on the roster. Is that really a great draft haul for a team this bad this long? How have the later rounds worked out for us? Now they rarely work for anybody, but you really can't say we have "drafted very well".

prepare yourself. It's coming.

Murray made many mistakes but you can boil it down to a few huge ones. 1) drafting. Our Nylander vs. their Nylander pretty much sums up the difference between Buffalo and Toronto 2) trying to build a forward group and thinking D wasn't necessary. I mean who can even remember who he had on D and JBot basically inherited a D with who? Bogo as our best D? It was laughable how bad that D was. and 3) putting all his faith in a psycho goaltender. Otherwise, Leafs had Marner, Nylander, Matthews and brought in Tavares. We had Reinhart, (our Nylander), Eichel and brought in O'Reilly. If you swap Nylanders I actually like our group better and those 3 have all shown they can win. The rest of the roster however, pretty much garbage.

Maybe Terry has been complaining to the league about NTCs (without taking any responsibility for creating the situation that put Buffalo on all the NTCs).

I know, but that's been an ongoing thing with me forever. Don't build a regular season roster that you know will fail in the playoffs. Start with the idea of building a playoff type roster and keep upgrading talent until you get there and stay there and compete there. We need players who open up space for the other skill players and players who are on the ice when somebody rocks Thompson or maybe this year it'll be Dahlin. We need grit on every line not just the bottom 3. Joshua isn't Tom Wilson (the ideal version of top 6 grit) or Sam Bennett etc. but he has shown enough skill at times that he could succeed in an elevated role. Again, I just think they construct the roster in a bad and always failing way. Insanity. Just doing the same thing over and over again.

No I see that but I think you also miss my point. The composition of the team isn't going to work. Those lines won't work. I want some grit in the top 6, not just the bottom 3. In the playoffs, Edmonton had Hyman with McJesus. When Hyman got hurt who did they put there? Jeff Skinner? No. Corey Perry. and it worked until they ran up against Florida who are even better at that. This is the kind of thing I'm thinking about. Balanced roster. This is easy. I'm trading Quinn. I hate that lazy soft piece of crap.

Just like Wookie you guys seem to think one guy is all you need. Just absurd. I'm reserving any judgement on Doan until I see him actually play for us. I didn't see much Utah hockey so I have no idea what his if anything. Don't get caught up into thinking he's his dad.