JohnRobertEichel

I dont necessarily think talent is the issue. Dahlin, Ristolainen, McCabe, and Pilut is a solid top-4 of the future. Guhle, Laaksonen, Borgen, and Samuelsson are good prospects to help fill out the third line of the future. Bogosian and Nelson are capable stopgaps. I think Phil's coaching is the biggest problem, followed closely by the NHL inexperience of Dahlin and Pilut and the general suckiness of Scandella this season.

Cool philosophy, brah. You're kind of like the Vontae Davis of hockey fans, eh? Here's what I see: Tampa Bay miles away from the rest of the conference, then 7 teams collectively separated by a miniscule 2 points, and then the Sabres 4 points behind those 7 teams with another 68 points to fight for....so let's keep fighting. The long break from hockey will give everyone on that roster time to do some soul searching. Do they want to continue as perennial losers, making it 8 straight years without the playoffs at an organizational level, while watching other franchises around them rise, fall, and rise again? Or are they willing to put the time, effort, and focus needed to make the postseason for what will be the first ever for almost all of these players? Notes for JB: call up Olofsson, Nylander, and Smith again. Get ready to make some trades, preferably for a center or two. And get rid of Scandella, Bay-low, and Sobotka in the process. ***** the draft. Let's win now. Way past tired of watching bad and inconsequential hockey.

Tim Schaller! Now there's a tank era name I had long forgotten.

I can't keep up with all these crazy Scandinavian names in the NHL.

Wouldn't that be something if we find out the Buffalo Bills have been cheating all along this century...

They also cheat a ***** ton. Cheating helps. They've also been collecting 5-6 easy wins every year against two of the most historically incompetent franchises in pro football (Bills and Jets) plus another that has been a joke since Shula and Marino left.

Get a room , you two.

Dave DeGuglielmo? Maybe they already knew he wouldn't take the job in Buffalo. Maybe Bobby Johnson did play a big role in improving the Colts' OL. Maybe he learned a lot there that he can use to help build the OL in Buffalo. Anyway, I'm done with this conversation. I'm not getting worked up over an offensive line coach hire.

Expect? No, we shouldn't expect anything. But Nylander could be one of those players who elevates his game for the pro level. Call him up for a few games and see what happens. What's the worst that occurs? He doesn't score at all and plays terrible defense? Not any different than half of the forwards on this roster.

Huh? The Colts' OL was excellent this year. And I thought he did a good job with Chan Gailey, given the complete lack of talent he had to work with in 2010 and 2011.

The chance of winning any of the 2019 top 3 lottery picks is 3.3% for the 15th worst regular season team. Professional Vegas gamblers would say that the Sabres have significantly better odds of winning a first round playoff series versus any of the Caps, Lightning, Leaves, or Bruins.

Careful there, pal... "My way" isn't the Tim Murray way either. I don't advocate reckless trading and incoherent roster construction. In fact, I don't advocate touching any of our first round draft picks unless the return includes a long-term top-6 forward. We don't have to sell the farm to get what this roster needs to make the playoffs this season: at minimum, 1-2 forward/center rentals who can help slot the rest of our forwards into their more appropriate lineup positions. I think it's very important that our young team gets playoff experience and establishes a winning culture ASAP, and I also find it deeply disturbing how so many of you don't think this is important.

Patience, young man. Patience. Everyone knows that you can't ever expect to finish among the top 50% of hockey teams in a season until half your active roster is filled with lottery picks and the rest with late first rounders. Everything is going according to plan. Get ready for some playoff hockey as early as April 2022! And if the puck bounces our way, we may even run into the new Seattle franchise in the 2022 Stanley Cup finals!

I didn't understand that one either. At least on paper, we have more talent RIGHT NOW than either of those two teams. This is why I'm starting to climb on the "fire Housley" bandwagon.

We'll be out of the final playoff spot in a few minutes.

JB really shouldn't be waiting until the 2020 draft to round out the top 6 forwards. When would a 2020 1st round forward even be ready to play in the NHL?! I think JB needs to have all top 6 forwards on the big roster and ready by this fall. This isn't that big of a demand. The top 3 are already set with the Skinner-Eichel-Reinhart line, so it's really just a second line that needs to be constructed out of Mittelstadt, Nylander, possibly Olofsson, possibly Thompson, any free agents this summer, any of the 2-3 1st round draft picks we have this summer, and any type of creative trade JB can make a la the Skinner deal. Enough is ***** enough with this never-ending rebuild project. Patience isn't necessarily a virtue here anymore. It may be signs of a management, coaching, and ownership group that simply doesn't know how to build a highly competitive hockey team without having to tank for lottery picks every season.

Doubtful. I'm sure everyone will come up with new excuses for why 2019-2020 just quite wasn't the season to break the playoff drought. Youthful inexperience, injuries, the need for just one more lottery pick on the roster to make everything okay...

Agreed. I doubt that any of Scandella, Bogosian, Beaulieu, Nelson, or Hunwick will be on the Sabres roster 1.5 years from now. I also am unsure if one of McCabe or Pilut fits into the long-term plans because of the expansion draft. And it's too early to say anything about Guhle, Laaksonen, Borgen, or Samuelsson...none of which really project as top-pairing NHL material. Ristolainen will be a long-term Sabre, but he's not a good match with Dahlin. So the only long-term glaring hole on defense is this #1 right shot d-man to pair with Dahlin. But the Seattle draft looming in the future puts some near-term constraints on where and how we can find this guy.

It's shaping up to be a 3-man race for 2 wildcard spots between Buffalo, Montreal, and NYI.

I'm normally not the superstitious type, but...get back on the road! We still have over half of a period left!

This pretty much explains why the Buffalo Sabres are in their current predicament. From 2005-2011, the drafting was absolutely ATROCIOUS. And then since the drafting began during the playoff drought (2012-now), the quality and quantity has been better but still lacking: 2012: Girgensons, McCabe, Ullmark 2013: Ristolainen 2014: Reinhart, Olofsson? 2015: Eichel, Guhle?, Borgen? 2016: Nylander?, Asplund? 2017: Mittelstadt, Davidsson?, Luukkonen?, Laaksonen? 2018: Dahlin, Samuelsson?, Pekar? So in the past 7 drafts, we've only added 8 players currently on the roster and an additional 10 who have a reasonable shot of making it someday. That's insufficient in terms of quantity. In terms of quality, I'd say we're drafting okay for goaltending and defense but not at forward...which may partly explain our current predicament. So far we've only found two top-six forwards (Eichel and Reinhart), and it took back-to-back tank seasons to obtain them at #2 overall each. Skinner certainly helps, but it's very important that Mittelstadt and Nylander aren't busts. Otherwise, it puts a lot of extra pressure on JB to fill out the second scoring line via trades, free agency, and draft picks outside the top 10 picks.

I read it as more of a compliment to Reinhart than a shot at Eichel. Since Eichel joined the NHL, he has missed 10% of the games (40 total), including tonight. That seems pretty normal to me and not an indication of being injury-prone. It's on par with his "M" contemporaries - McDavid, Matthews, MacKinnon. Conversely, Reinhart has missed only 2% (6 total, assuming he plays tonight). That seems above average and perhaps indicative of having Wolverine-line healing powers?

I am. I'd much rather see Olofsson or Nylander than this Bailey clown. Although I agree that Bailey is preferable to Remi ZERO.

Why is Nylander a bust but Mittelstadt isn't? Nylander is only 8 months older, lost some development time due to injury, but is now performing very well in Rochester. Mitts has 5 goals, 6 assists, and probably 0 pull-ups in 42 NHL games. Are people even watching these games? Mitts looks terrible. Nylander deserves a call-up, and Mitts needs to do some remedial AHL work.

We are currently sitting in the 8th seed and will likely be in 9th by Tuesday night. Congratulations, team.