PalmTreeMafia

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.

But remember that even Pominville was putting up good numbers when he was on that line. Long-term, I'd move Reinhart down to the second line and find a young, speedy sniper at RW to make the Skinner-Eichel line the most deadly in the NHL. And I don't mean to knock Reinhart as a player. I think he's going to be an amazing second-liner for our Cup-contending teams of the very-near future.

If your wife is at all familiar with the Bills franchise, she will be suspicious about any game of theirs being a must-see in December.

Tennyson is the Nate Peterman of hockey.

Yeah. We're having a hard time finishing off the league's best (Washington, Toronto, TB, Nashville), but at least we're highly competitive in these games. Next game is in 19 hours!

I could definitely go for that which I bolded. In fact, I could see myself buying into your entire argument. However, I do take issue with the "Tim Murray 2.0" comment. For one thing, the current state of the franchise is MUCH further along in development than it was in 2015. Also, trading away multiple future assets for singular proven assets can be the better choice in many instances. Are we there yet? Perhaps not. Probably not? But the concept of "windows of opportunity" is a very real thing. Carpe diem because you never know when injuries, contracts, and other team developments (TB, Tor, Bost, etc...) interfere with your wonderful long-term plans for Cup glory.

Sort of. Not really. I took issue with your probabilistic claim that there was a very good chance that NONE of Guhle, Nylander, and either 2019 1st rounder becomes a good NHL player. I happen to think Guhle will become a solid #4/5 D-man, Nylander a solid 2nd line winger, and that at least one of those 1st rounders ends up as a solid NHL player in a deep draft. But the odds of either 1st rounder becoming an immediate impact 1st line RW for Eichel seem very low to me. That is why I am saying that I would be willing to trade some package of one or both picks for such a player. Those kind of players are more likely found within the top 5-10 picks. Now LGR4GM just posted to dispute this. That's fine. I've lost interest this morning in searching for any data I'd need to back up my claims on the likelihood of finding top line wingers who can contribute immediately. So I'll wrap up my post by saying that I think it's time this franchise starts thinking about winning a Stanley Cup sooner than later. Maybe even this season if a perfect storm of developments occur, but most likely next season or 2020-21. So in my opinion, JB's GM decisions should be based on shifting a Cup-contending timeframe up sooner than he lets on publicly.

I think this franchise could be a lot closer to being elite than JB lets on. Almost all of the important pieces are in place somewhere in Buffalo or Rochester, with the one notable missing piece being a first-line RW sniper. The big issue at the moment is pro experience. Specifically: Dahlin, Pilut, Mitts, Tage, and Ullmark in Buffalo. Then Nylander, Olofsson, and Guhle in Rochester. If some of those 4 1st round picks in the next two years can be traded for that missing RW1, then JB would be wise to make the move. 3 of those 4 picks will be in the high teens and twenties anyway.

A "very good" possibility?! I strongly disagree with your assesment of the odds. And last I heard, Guhle and Nylander were doing fine in Rochester.

I think this is exactly what ends up happening in a couple years. JB makes a deal with Seattle so that they don't choose our 4th best d-man (Pilut or McCabe).

Pilut needs to stay up here as long as he's playing like he's among the best 6 defensemen that give us the best chance to win each night. It's that simple. When everyone is healthy, our top 6 are Dahlin, Risto, McCabe, Pilut, Bogo, and Scandella. That means Beaiulieueieu and Nelson sit while Hunwick stays down in Rochester. Guhle and Borgen get bumped up only in cases of injury or if guys in Buffalo are playing so poorly that a shake-up is needed.

But using the highlighted example, you're still denigrating people with learning disabilities. You're just doing it in a less blunt way. How about this: get the ***** over it and move on to another topic. Guys say nasty things all the time on the "battlefield" that they wouldn't say in polite society. Oh well. By all accounts, KO is an excellent teammate, family man, and leader in the community. I don't care what he says in the heat of battle, something which clearly wasn't intended for anyone off the ice to hear.

Reinhart's pass to Eichel on Skinner's goal tonight was a perfect example of what this guy does to make those around him better.

More games like this from Sheary-Mitts-OK, and then Toronto and TB will start sweating.

I consider this to be a "MUST WIN" game.

Probably just 3 this year: Skinner, Eichel, Reinhart. A Stanley Cup contending team should strive for 6: all of their top-6 forwards. Okposo and Sheary have the talent to do it this year, but they probably won't. Next year Mitts can do it. Nylander and a forward not currently on the roster will make up the 5th and 6th 20+ goal scorers of the future.

So would I. Everyone is assuming that Mitts will be our 2C, but I'm wondering if our second line of the future might be better with Mitts at LW, Nylander at RW, and Reinhart at C. FWIW, there are currently 60 NHL players with more points this season than Sam Reinhart. There are 93 first-line NHL forwards. So he's currently producing like a mediocre first-line NHL forward. If you think Reinhart's future is as a borderline top-6 forward, then perhaps you are just an overly negative person in general?