JohnRobertEichel

A lot of the Sabres players are probably thinking that they can't wait to get away from this mess. What they fail to realize is that GM's and scouts from around the league are watching game film of these losers. They are noticing the poor effort, the poor hockey fundamentals, and the poor talent. Half of the current roster has already played themselves out of the league for next season. Good riddance. I have no tolerance for entitled millionaires.

But in the business of pro hockey, they are clearly not successful business people. They are worst in the league at it. I will also give no credit to a man who made his money by destroying Pennsylvania's environment. I will give even less credit to a woman who earned her position in life by being the billionaire ***** slobber that she is. Their good Christian facade is wearing thin as well. It's not very Christian of Terry and Kim to lay off a bunch of employees during a pandemic instead of reigning in their lavish lifestyle a tiny bit. These are two profoundly stupid and immoral human beings who appear to be completely incapable of self-reflection. There is no hope for the Buffalo Sabres to build success as long as the Pegulas continue to run the hockey organization in the hands-on manner that they do. What I am advocating for is a massive pressure campaign to separate these two pieces of sh!t from our team. We fans of the Buffalo Sabres can do this by refusing to purchase tickets and merchandise. Make it hurt for them financially to the point that they have no choice but to sell the team. Hopefully to someone who will keep them in Buffalo. If not, well then that would be awful but it's better than supporting a perennial embarrassment like the Buffalo Sabres of the past ten years.

Because I needed a 7th forward to protect in my 7F/3D/1G scenario with no prior trades. I mention draft pedigree because it illustrates talent and potential. Mitts is seen throughout the league as having more hockey talent than Borgen and having more potential at this point in their young hockey careers.

Could you imagine if we had some of the SabreSpace community members running this team? We'd probably end up with the worst record in the league and with a points earned percentage lower than that during the Tank Year. Or something. Leaving players like Mitts, Risto, and Joki unprotected in the expansion draft would be poor management of roster resources. At least trade those guys beforehand. If we're not talking trades, then I'd protect Eichel, Reinhart, Olofsson, Skinner, Mitts, Thompson, Asplund, Dahlin, Risto, Joki, and Ullmark. I like Borgen. I'm a big fan of what he brings to the roster. I would consider offering Seattle a draft pick or something to not take Borgen. But you don't protect 3rd line d-men with no offensive skills over young players with top-10 draft pick talent.

Are we overvaluing Borgen and Samuelsson? Isn't Borgen projected as a 3rd line d-man? Will Samuelsson even make the NHL?

Nothing fundamentally changes until the fracker and his gold digging wife go bye bye.

At this point, the only acceptable response to us Sabres fans would have been livestreaming his seppuku.

HUGE difference between being among the bottom half of the teams that don't make the playoffs and what we've seen from the Sabres this year and for most of the past decade. I don't claim to have any credible sources or any special inside information. I'm just guessing that at some point, the rest of the NHL has to look at a franchise that continuously looks like it's fielding an AHL team as a giant ***** stain on their brand. The rumors for the past year or more have been that the Pegulas are cutting corners throughout the organization to save money. If money isn't an issue, then why all the recent cuts to staff? Why so few hockey scouts? If enough fans boycott next season, wouldn't that make their financial situation much worse? This could be the leverage us fans need to get these piece of sh!t owners to sell. If the Pegulas aren't going anywhere no matter what the ticket sales are, then we're truly ***** because they've proven themselves to be too ***** stupid and stubborn to hire proven hockey people to run the team and then get out of the way.

Exactly. Their reputation around the league is ruined. I'm sure Bettman and other NHL execs want to maintain basic standards of competition, so the Pegulas may already be feeling the pressure behind the scenes to sell. Ticket sales will continue to plummet too, so they're going to lose a lot of money in the near future. The best solution for all parties involved is to sell the franchise to someone willing to keep them in Buffalo. Does such an ownership group exist?

At this point, I believe Thompson has squeezed everything he can out of the AHL experience and is ready for a full-time bottom-6 NHL forward role. What do people think about an Okposo contract buyout? We're currently stuck with him for 3 more years at $6 million each. A contract buyout would instead mean 6 more years at $2 million each. Is he tradable? Must he count as a protected player for the Seattle expansion draft?

If neither Montour nor Risto brings back a 2C in return, then Miller is likely to be traded since we would already have our top 3 RHD's (Jokiharju, Risto, Montour). In that case, Dahlin, Jokiharju, and Montour are the 3 protected d-men for the Seattle draft because I doubt Seattle would select Risto with his 1-year $5.4 million contract.

The consensus top tier seems to feature exactly 8 players: Lafreniere, Byfield, Stutzle, Perfetti, Raymond, and Rossi at forward plus Drysdale and Sanderson at defense. I'm not sure I would be comfortable seeing the Sabres take a Holtz or Lundell or Jarvis over any of these 8 guys, including Sanderson. I want the best NHL player available at #8. I don't care what position he plays.

I really like this lineup for our top-5 forwards. Excluding all UFA's and potential trades and 2020 draft picks, what's our most ideal 4 lines at the moment? Here's what I have: Skinner - Eichel - Kahun Olofsson - Cozens - Reinhart Mittelstadt - Johansson - Thompson Asplund - Lazar - Okposo This could work in theory. I don't like forcing Cozens as the 2C so early any more than the rest of you do, but maybe he's a fast learner and will at least have the benefit of playing with two high quality second line wingers. I don't know if there's any internal way around the glaring roster hole weakness at 2C.

That's a crying shame. So much of this roster depended on him being a quality 2C. This is a playoff roster if Mitts became what J-Not envisioned when he made the O'Reilly trade: Olofsson-Eichel-Reinhart Skinner-Mittelstadt-Cozens Johansson-Kahun-Thompson Girgensons-Larsson-Okposo Jokiharju-Dahlin Ristolainen-McCabe Montour-Miller Ullmark Hutton

You seem to watch a lot of Amerks games as well as Sabres games. So do you think it's time to give up on Casey? Can he still work himself into a second-line NHL winger or third-line center? He'll be 22 in November, has played 114 NHL games, and 36 AHL games. Give him 1 more year maybe?

Apologies for the secrecy! I was known as Marchand's Nose in my former life during the pre-pandemic era. I'm looking through the extended Sabres roster, including the prospects with any real NHL potential. Here's what I have: G : Hutton, Ullmark, Luukkonen, Johansson, Portillo LD : Dahlin, McCabe, Johnson, Samuelsson RD : Jokiharju, Ristolainen, Montour, Miller, Borgen, Laaksonen LW : Skinner, Olofsson, Johansson, Girgensons, Davidsson C : Eichel, Cozens, Mittelstadt, Larsson, Asplund, Pekar RW : Reinhart, Thompson, Okposo, Kahun, Lazar I count 7 for my New Core: Eichel, Dahlin, Reinhart, Skinner, Olofsson, Jokiharju, Cozens. Eichel and Dahlin, of course, are the only 2 in my Super Core. When putting together this list, one thing I noticed is that the Sabres have a glaring need for quality veteran leadership. I think Okposo, Hutton, and Johansson are the only vets older than 27. This could be a big part of the team’s problem. We need guys who actually know how to win in the NHL. Guys with playoff experience would be nice!

This team badly needs a second line center and a second line winger as well. You can't rely on Mitts and Cozens this season. Anyone know of any good free agents for the second line?

Whoa there!! Slow down, Mr. Botterill. Rome wasn't built in a day. We're pacing to make the playoffs for 2022-23 and win the Presidents' Trophy for 2027-28.

I could handle it.

Unreal. Threads like these are why I feel completely indifferent to the NHL returning from COVID-19. The Sabres are wasting almost $10 million per year alone on the Skinner and Okposo contracts.

I count up to 6 potential new starters: Diggs at WR, Daryl Williams over Ford at RT, Butler over Lotulelei at 1-tech DT, Epenesa over Murphy at LDE, Joseph or Klein at Sam LB, and Norman over Wallace at CB. I'll add 4 more specialty positions: Bass over Hauschka at K, Vedvik over Bojorquez at P, Gilliam over DiMarco at FB, and Davis over Foster at special teams gunner.

I would argue that the Bills did both tonight with Epenesa and Moss. This is shaping up to be yet another excellent draft from Beane, especially when you factor in Diggs.

It could also be: 3. The Communist Chinese have done an excellent job at pandemic quarantining. But I'm going with reason #2.

Yes, thank you. This is exactly my point. I'm assuming Mahomes and Jackson and Watson will keep doing their thing, Tannehill will regress toward career baseline, Darnold and Mayfield will stall due to organizational incompetence, Rivers and Roethlisberger will be making their retirement plans, Tua and Burrow will play like QB rookies, etc... 4th best AFC QB is a perfectly reasonable prediction. To quantify it a bit, I am expecting a jump in Allen's QB rating from 85 to 95. My reasons: third year of experience in Daboll's system, OL returning intact plus Darryl Williams, finally a true #1 WR with Diggs, and an expected north-south RB upgrade to Gore somewhere in the draft.

Agreed. And I have a fair level of confidence that Allen will perform like the 4th most valuable QB in the AFC behind Mahomes, Jackson, and Watson.