JohnRobertEichel

Goddamn do I miss John Scott.

Is Jokiharju maybe expected to be the long-term defensive partner for Dahlin?

Long-term, this team desperately needs a top right winger more than a #2 center. We have Mittelstadt, Cozens, and Asplund at center but only Reinhart and Thompson at RW. So any RW who would be a good fit with Eichel and Skinner should be considered in a Risto trade.

Rodrigues is currently our 5th best forward. This is indeed a very sobering revelation.

The best 12 I have are: Skinner - Eichel - Olofsson Johansson - Mittelstadt - Reinhart Sheary - Rodrigues - Vesey Girgensons - Larsson - Okposo This could, in theory, work if Mittelstadt and Olofsson take big enough steps in their development.

Playoffs need to be the franchise's expectation for this coming season. At a certain point, you have to be concerned about the collective psychology of a team that manages to miss the playoffs for 5 straight seasons after the 2014-15 tank season. I'm looking specifically at the core of Eichel, Reinhart, Ristolainen, Girgensons, Larsson, McCabe, and Rodrigues. JBot preaches player development, but how much can players develop in an environment that has only known losing for this long?

https://www.notinhalloffame.com/hockey Sabres-related summary: #1: Mogilny #7: Turgeon #12 Barrasso #17: Martin I'm not so sure about the other three's chances, but with Mogilny, I only feel that it is a matter of WHEN and not IF.

Trend "bear" for Lafreniere? That's exactly where I'm at as well.

So basically reverse the O'Reilly trade and we make the playoffs last season?

He'll retire as the all-time career wins leader for American goalies, though Quick will eventually surpass him for that title. He was absolutely elite for a period of time in the NHL and should have had a Stanley Cup title or two if ownership had been more devoted and management more proactive.

I would not be at all comfortable choosing Caufield over Cozens.

Using Randall Flagg's Theory of Roles, this is the best I could do with what we currently have in the Sabres organization: Line 1: Skinner - Eichel - Olofsson Line 2: Sheary - Rodrigues - Reinhart Line 2: Nylander - Mittelstadt - Thompson Line 4: Girgensons - Larsson - Okposo Can anyone do better? I'd be happy enough with everything here except Sheary and Rodrigues on the 2nd line and Okposo...well...anywhere. It's obvious to me that we badly need a #2C and probably 2 top-6 wingers from outside the organization while we figure out what we have with Mittelstadt, Nylander, Olofsson, and Thompson.

Can I assume there's a plan at RHD after a potential Risto trade? At least temporarily, our depth chart at this position would become: Montour, Bogosian, Nelson, Borgen. You would assume there's a plan, but you never know with this garbage GM of ours...

I think if you exclude that one incident at Chernobyl on 4/26/86, Anatoly Dyatlov had also done a very good job.

Your dream world is my nightmare. I'm curious what everyone thinks Nylander's trade value might be at this very moment. The trade equivalent of a 2nd rounder maybe?

I also think it's too early to give up on Ullmark.

Last September, Nylander was just as deserving of a roster spot as Mitts and Tage. But (probably) because Nylander wasn't one of JBot's guys, he was demoted. Mitts and Tage went on to do jack sh!t with the Sabres last year. Nylander was actually performing really well with Rochester for a long stretch of time. He trailed off for a while, and I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps injuries? Perhaps he's mentally fatigued from being poorly and unfairly handled by arguably the most incompetent franchise in the league? Nylander still has all the physical tools to be a 1st-line NHL RW. His problems are entirely mental, but this entire ***** team has mental problems, so he'll probably fit right in with these guys in the fall. Or maybe just trade the guy. Whatever. I don't ***** care anymore.

That's certainly one way to look at this disaster. We basically traded Compher and Zadorov for Thompson and the 2019 31st pick over a 4-year period. There are two main points of sadness in this story: 1. Regier bombing on the 12th overall pick in 2012 and 16th overall pick in 2013. This is pretty much what he did for almost an entire decade (2005-2013), thus setting up the darkest era in franchise history. 2. Botterill turning around and recklessly destroying the one thing Tim Murray did right during his brief, miserable GM tenure (aside from commanding the Eichel tank). And beyond simply losing a really good player at a position of need, there are three major lingering concerns that do not bode well for the future: 1. How much do the Pegulas meddle in transactions like this one? 2. How confident are we that Botterill knows how to build a roster, given this trade and the fact that he didn't bother to replace O'Reilly's production during the season? 3. Exactly how deep do the locker room problems go on the current Sabres roster? We were led to believe that O'Reilly - along with Lehner and Kane - were the main issues. Yet all three flourished as soon as they left Buffalo. We even took in another (Skinner) whose team broke their 9-season playoff drought as soon as he left. O'Reilly's Blues were able to bounce back after a rough first half of the season, while the Sabres imploded as soon as December arrived.

I 100% agree that the roster needs to get bigger and more physical (two different qualities that can be mutually exclusive). However, I disagree that the draft is where you necessarily make these decisions. I'd prefer the Sabres use the draft strictly to select players they think will have the most impact at the NHL level. In other words: best player available. This is especially true for a top 10 pick. Size, style of play, and position shouldn't dictate who gets chosen with the 7th overall pick. If the Sabres have a glut of players of a certain type or at a certain position, then the GM should use trades and free agency to balance out the roster. If Cole Caufield is projected to be a clone of Alex DeBrincat at the NHL level while - say - Dach is projected to be the next Mikhail Grigorenko, then just take Caufield at #7 and maybe wait until July to add forwards with size.

He has made 2 already: ROR and Housley. This is a very critical off-season for JBot. He needs to aggressively improve the team now. And by "team" I am referring to the Buffalo Sabres, not just the Rochester Amerks.

I think he meant to type JBot instead of Eichel.

We lost the trade.

My prediction is that the top 6 picked will be Hughes, Kakko, Byram, Turcotte, Zegras, and Cozens. This would leave Boldy, Dach, Krebs, Podkolzin, and Caufield available at #7. Of those 5, I'm guessing the Sabres go wth Caufield to be the long-term answer at RW1 with Eichel and Skinner.

Nylander has played 165 games over 3 seasons in the AHL. He's about 4 months younger than Tage and about 9 months older than Mitts. The time is right for him to be a full-time Sabre. Give him a shot at 1st line RW with Eichel and Skinner just to see what happens. If nothing good, drop him down to a 3rd line with fellow underachieving 1st round picks, Tage and Mitts. Either way, it's time to see what he can do in the NHL.

1. I'm not even going to bother listing specific 4th line alternatives to Girgensons and Larsson. If you think those two were the best JB could do these past two years in terms of on-ice production, off-ice leadership, and cap hit... 2. So maybe part of the problem with Okposo and Bogosian in the locker room was that neither ever really felt as dejected as O'Reilly? Seems like too many guys on the Sabres were okay enough with losing. I already said how to get rid of these two: trade our trash for someone else's trash. Change of scenery for both parties. No valuable prospects or high picks need to be included from either side. 3. I just don't see the value of keeping Pominville here any longer, and it has little to do with cap number or contract length or even the roster spot at this point. As a vet, he has already shown here in Buffalo (twice, really) to be incapable of motivating younger players around him. Find someone else who maybe can. 4. If you know JB's clearly stated plan, can you just reiterate it for me here real quick? Is it: build a team that's fast and skilled but physically weak and mentally even weaker? Is it: continue to make no effort to fill glaring roster holes with the big club so to accumulate lottery picks? Is it: focus on player development in Rochester so that these players will be able to carry the Sabres to their first playoff appearance since 2011 about 5 years from now? Is it: completely bomb with your first choice of a head coach hire so to set the stage for RK? Is it: trade away one of the best two-way centers in the game so to secure the next Ales Kotalik? It's very depressing to see the contortions fellow Sabres fans are making to justify Botterill. I know it sucks to think that Pegula possibly made yet ANOTHER terrible GM hire, but so far it's looking like that's a distinct possibility, so let's at least type candidly about it on an internet message board. The positive news (IMO) is that there is still time this summer to make a successful course correction. The Skinner trade and re-signing was solid. The Amerks are looking healthy. There is nothing objectionable to RK or the past two drafts at the moment. There is a decent core of young talent in place. But for the love of God, JB needs to be aggressive this summer and find two top-6 forwards, move out the roster dead weight, and have a successful 2019 draft. His job depends on it. If the Sabres can't even get back to the Bylsma level of 78-81 points this season, JB might not be given a 4th year. If the Sabres don't make the playoffs by April 2021, no way does he stick around beyond that point.