JohnRobertEichel

I think a lot of Buffalo Sabres people (fans, owners, management, coaches, players) may be underestimating the importance of making the playoffs THIS season. We are rapidly approaching 8 straight seasons without the playoffs, 4 of which have come after the back-to-back tank jobs. The losing culture is ossifying. Our GM is twiddling his thumbs while the season is burning. Make a reasonable trade for a vet center. Send Mittelstadt down to Rochester. Call up Nylander and Olofsson. Do something because I'm getting mighty ***** tired of wasting my time and money on this garbage. Only in the realm of Buffalo pro sports are decade-long rebuilds tolerable.

Hey, I believe you found a silver lining! Skinner and Reinhart won't take up as much future cap space.

That would certainly be the ideal scenario for the Sabres organization.

Are you new to Buffalo sports?

That's probably our most viable option. The biggest problem is the length of this contract, which is 4 years beyond this one. Maybe we can take on someone else's contract turd but with a year or two less than Okposo's?

Sorry, but I'm just not seeing it. I didn't see it in the preseason, and I haven't seen it all season except for a very few random games here and there. Him and Tage don't belong in the NHL at this point in their development. Possibly ever...but it's way too soon to give up on them, of course. Send Mittelstadt and Thompson down to Rochester immediately. Let them earn their way back to the NHL. Call up Nylander and Olofsson and see what they can do.

I just finished talking with a long-time Caps fan. He more or less said the same thing. He came away very impressed with the speed of the Sabres.

You just penciled in Mitts as if he's not a problem.... JB needs to find a veteran #2C as soon as ***** possible because not making the playoffs this year is totally unacceptable.

Sort of....the Caps are 2-9 vs. the Penguins in the playoffs, while the Sabres are 1-0 vs. the Leaves. Since I judge the strength of a rivalry mostly on the playoff matchups, a better comparison at the moment for me would be Buffalo vs. the Bruins, against whom we're 2-6 in the playoffs.

That's true. We're still seeing Risto and McCabe improve major aspects of their game at the ripe old ages of 24 and 25. At least we can afford to be patient with all of our defensemen prospects. Next year, the top 6 will likely be Scandella, Bogo, McCabe, Risto, Pilut, and Dahlin. Nelson can be 7th. So guys like Guhle and Borgen don't need to be rushed into the pros if they're not ready. And so far, clearly neither one of them is ready. By the way, here's something I found on Samuelsson, where the opinion is that he already has an "NHL skating stride"... https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/prospect-interest-411-mattias-samuelsson/

This message board doesn't seem to be as optimistic as I am about Samuelsson. I consider him the 4th best under-24 D prospect in the franchise (behind Dahlin, Pilut, and Guhle).

Notice that I said "potentially," as in if they get called up this season to the pros and stink up the joint because they have no quality center to support them.

The Sabres need to make the playoffs THIS season. It is not good for player development and team culture to miss the playoffs yet again. No one is saying we need to touch any of our first round picks or elite prospects. But a MAJOR priority should be increasing center depth to the point that the Sabres can generate some semblance of an offense beyond the Eichel line. I would argue that not having a decent #2 center right now is hurting the development of Mitts, Tage, and potentially Nylander and Olofsson this season.

I'd like to see Nylander and Olofsson get an opportunity. Are they going to be any worse than Mitts and Tage?! Those 2 need to play down in Rochester for a while. Note to Kyle Okposo: don't show up to practice tomorrow. Find Berglund and go hang out with him for a bit.

THIS COMMENT RIGHT HERE.

If I ever interview someone for a job and he shows up in that suit, I'm hiring him on the spot.

Love it! Bandits are 1-0 this year and have their home opener Fri night vs Toronto. On paper, they look as competitive as anyone in the league.

Great posts, LGR4GM! And great point here that I bolded. I think that Toronto will end up finding a way to keep their top 4 forwards (Tavares, Matthews, Marner, Nylander), but it will come at the expense of everything else on their roster to the point that they may not be able to effectively play defense in the playoffs. The Sabres, meanwhile, should have a much more balanced roster long-term. Even though our projected top 4 forwards (Eichel, Skinner, Reinhart, Mittelstadt) aren't as talented as theirs, they also won't take up as much cap space.

But that's not necessarily cap hell. That's simply paying guys what they're worth. JB comes across as very shrewd and responsible with respect to the salary cap. He's also coming from a Penguins organization well known for managing the cap and retaining its stars. So I have little doubt that he's already thought about having to pay our core 6 or so guys (Dahlin, Eichel, Skinner, Reinhart, Mitts, Risto) down the line while remaining competitive with the other 14 or so players. Also, I see only 2 long-term "bad" contracts at the moment: Okposo and Berglund. If both can be cleared by the summer of 2020, the franchise should be sitting pretty in terms of keeping all of the aforementioned core. I did some haphazard cap number crunching a while back, and it came out very promising for us long-term. Getting back to the Leaves... this could very quickly become the best rivalry in North American pro sports. USA vs. Canada, blue collar vs. cosmopolitan, Eichel vs. Matthews, Dahlin vs. Reilly, Nylander vs. Nylander, both starving for championships for half a century, separated by only 100 miles...good stuff! We just need to fix the second and third lines before we can really start to scare them. Mitts, Tage, Nylander, Olofsson, Asplund, and Davidsson are the 6 guys I currently have penciled in to fill these roles in the future. And as you can see, none of these 6 are ready yet. We're stuck at the moment with sluggish old men like Okposo, Pominville, Sobotka, and Berglund.

I think they are more concerned about Tampa Bay than us. Toronto's offense is looking so much better than ours right now that our advantage on defense won't matter. That could change, however, if Mittelstadt and Nylander reach their potential.

Good stuff. 5 of top 12 on that list are/were Sabres: Dahlin, Bogo, Anderson, Bodger, and Svoboda.

That and his contract. His contributions to the team are simply not worth $6 million of cap space. But I used to be a major Bogo hater, and I'll concede that he has proven me wrong this season with his durability, leadership, and on-ice skills.

Quick note: 20 of our first 34 games this season (59%) have come against the top 15 teams (that is, teams positioned to be in the playoffs at this very moment). 27 of our next 48 (56%) come against the other bottom 15 teams. So our schedule does get noticeably easier now. This certainly helps our chances of ending the 7-year streak without playoffs. The border between making and missing the playoffs is currently 34 points, so we do have an 11-point buffer.

No doubt, but noticed I said "long-term," which to me means next year and beyond.

The 92-93 Sabres team had 5 Hall of Famers play for them that season (LaFontaine, Hawerchuk, Andreychuk, Hasek, Fuhr) plus a possible 6th in Mogilny who may get in any year now.