PalmTreeMafia

Original 6, 4 of the 1967 expansion teams (Flyers, Penguins, Stars, Blues), and then the Sabres.

I like Wikipedia's answer the most: Rochester is definitely WNY. Also, in my opinion, the cultural differences between any location within upstate NY (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, etc...) are very minor. I'm defining "upstate" here to mean everything north of Rockland and Westchester Counties. This entire region is probably better represented culturally by Buffalo than by NYC. If the Sabres and Bills weren't such historically loser sports franchises, most of this region would probably be considered strong Sabre/Bill territory.

Right, but Botterill will need to supplement the out of free agency if he wants to have a viable playoff roster, particularly among the bottom 6 forwards. And I view making the playoffs next season as an important part of the "development" aspect of the young players currently on the Sabres roster, much in the same way Botterill sees a competitive Amerks roster as important to the overall franchise development. There is currently an awful stench of failure surrounding the Buffalo Sabres organization. It's becoming more and more deeply ingrained with each passing season that gets added to the record-breaking playoff drought. Oh, but not all hope is lost. There is one simple antidote to all that ails us: JOHN TAVARES. :w00t:

I don't think the Bills can do all of that in one off-season. Asking for a franchise QB, a rebuilding of the front 7 on defense, and increased depth throughout the roster might be too much for a team that also has the league's worst dead cap situation in 2018. Most likely, Beane and McDermott are looking at this as a 2-year rebuild before we can be considered a serious playoff team and not a fringe one. The Dareus and Taylor contracts will be completely off the books by March 2019, and Tom Brady will be 42 years old by the fall of 2019. I'm personally not that fond of Rudolph. As a second rounder? Maybe. But not in the first. I don't think there's a single QB in the draft that I would want to trade up for, either. I do like Mayfield and Jackson, however, in case they fall out of the top 20. Darnold, Rosen, and Allen of course will be long gone by pick #21. My prediction for the first round: #21 - Rashaan Evans, LB, Alabama (assuming Roquan Smith and Tremaine Edmunds are already taken) #22 - Harrison Phillips, DT, Stanford (assuming Vita Vea, Da'Ron Payne, and Maurice Hurst are already taken)

I'm really having a hard time drawing any negative conclusion from that 7-second clip. Perhaps a little bit of cognitive bias happening here? O'Reilly is one of the few players on this pathetic roster that is actually producing...and fairly consistently at that. He's a solid #2 center whose contract is very reasonable beginning in 2019-20. We better be getting one hell of a return package on an O'Reilly trade. Assuming there is actual conflict between Jack and Ryan, then someone needs to sit these two down and get them to resolve their grievances like adult males. Maybe this should be Housley's job? Sure seems like this should be part of his job description.

If the goal next season is to put together a roster capable of making the playoffs, then I think we are in a little bit of cap trouble for 2018-19. Pominville ($5 million), Moulson ($5 million), and Bogosian ($6 million) alone will account for 20% of the cap (~$80 million).

That's a bit much. It will certainly place a limit on any future growth of contact sports, as more parents will steer their kids toward the non-contact ones. But as long as there are adolescent males and young adult males with healthy testosterone levels, there will be an interest in contact sports and in engaging in activities where health and safety are compromised.

My massive erection is making it difficult to type this sentence on my laptop.

Not happy at all that Lehner is sucking and Kane is cooling off...the only thing that has been keeping me interested in the 2017-18 Buffalo Sabres is the trade deadline talk.

Maybe Jack should call Phil up, go for a skate, and tell Phil how it's his job to step up and start coaching better. In terms of raw hockey talent, this Sabres squad is probably only a little below the league average (1.0 ppg caliber) yet is somehow producing at a Tank Year level (neighborhood of 55 points). Bottom of the league in both scoring and in Phil's supposed forte of defense. Unacceptable.

That's my suspicion as well, but also remember that we once stole a 21st overall pick in exchange for Paul Gaustad. The trade deadline can sometimes be a time for wondrous, magical surprises. I'd trade Lehner for a 2nd, but you're better off keeping him for anything less than that. In addition to Kane, Lehner, and Gorges, I'd add Larsson as obvious trade bait. If there is some creative way to unload Moulson and Bogosian, I'd jump on that too. Basically, the priority should be unloading as many of the locker room and salary cap cancers as possible by the trade deadline.

I realize that everyone likes winners and shiny new toys, but will Las Vegas even have a pro hockey franchise 10-20 years from now? It's only the 29th largest US metro market and is filled with transients and Hispanics (not being racist here...just saying that non-whites tend to be much less into ice hockey, statistically speaking). Could the Vegas Golden Knights sustain several down years? Could their burgeoning fanbase handle - say - 7 straight years without the playoffs, 11 straight years without a playoff series victory, 47 straight seasons without a Stanley Cup victory? Cheer for whomever you want for whatever reasons. I'm a Sabres fan because they represent the city of Buffalo. If they were to suddenly relocate to where I currently live, I wouldn't cheer for them anymore. But that's just me. I'll do me. You do you.

Yep. Drafting well is obviously very important, but a lot of people here are forgetting the other two means by which a GM can build a roster: trade and free agency. We're not expecting a Stanley Cup next year. But becoming one of the top 50% of teams in the East is not an unreasonable request. Other franchises have tanked and bounced back in a lot less time than the Sabres have been taking. Also, people need to stop acting like a desire to accelerate a rebuild is some sort of vice. Tim Murray didn't fail as a GM because he tried to hurry up the rebuild. He failed because he lacked vision, had no people skills, sucked at drafting, picked a bad head coach, was reckless with trade assets, and brought in the wrong vets to establish a locker room culture of hard work and high expectations. Not that we need another reminder: but playoff droughts longer than 7 years have only occurred 7 times in NHL history. If the Hurricanes make the playoffs this season, the Sabres will have the longest active drought in the league. And the all-time record is 10 straight years without playoffs.

Interesting how 3 of the 4 remaining teams don't have great QB's. You can get pretty far in the NFL with an elite defense, a strong running game, and competent QB play. Winning the Super Bowl, however, likely still requires stealing the other teams' playbooks and paying off the refs.

Agreed. For comparison, William Nylander had played 22 NHL games by age 20, scoring 6 goals and 7 assists. So our Nylander is a bit behind in development at 4 games, 0 goals, and 1 assist...but by no means is he alarmingly behind.

Cool story, brah. I will be sure to to this while watching Columbus destroy the Sabres tomorrow night at 7pm Eastern.

I officially endorse this post 100%. Maybe something is going on in Reinhart's personal life that is affecting his quality of play and his work ethic? He is still only 22 years old, which makes him the second youngest player on the roster. He's currently on pace for about 25 points this season. No way is Sam normally a 25 point-per-year NHL player. He averaged about 45 for his first two full seasons. Sam was never drafted 2nd overall because of his blazing speed or his powerful shot. He was supposed to be this cerebral center who would poetically distribute the puck to the bigger, faster, stronger wingers. The problem with this idea is that a player like Reinhart can't really maximize his own talent until the talent around him improves from its current standing.

I think we've already discussed why: not all bridge QB's are the same. Taylor's style of play is not the same as Alex Smith's, for example. Moreover, his style of play makes it more difficult to evaluate the performances of players at other positions, specifically the WR's he refuses to throw to (but also the OL who have to constantly improvise their blocking positioning and sustain blocks longer because of Taylor's unconventional pocket presence). I refuse to believe Benjamin, Matthews, Jones, and Holmes are all as bad as their 2017 stats indicate. But I agree with you that a new placeholder QB shouldn't cost us high draft picks or take up too much more cap space. And we can definitely do worse than Tyrod Taylor at QB. His teammates like him, too, which should count for something. I'd really like to know more about the salary cap consequences for cutting Taylor. It's hard for me to take a strong opinion on Taylor's future without knowing how much dead cap he will cost. Keep in mind that we already have the worst dead cap number in the league for 2018 at over $18 million.

How can anyone possibly vote for any other team at this point?! 71-72, 13-14, and 14-15 all had built-in excuses for their awful play. Moreover, there was this little thing called HOPE FOR THE FUTURE during each of those seasons.

My Lord....Bogosian, Blowyou, and Johnson on the ice at the same time....we never had a chance this game.

Armia and Lemieux replacements can easily be found via free agency or low-risk trades. Losing the 21st and 25th picks of the 2015 draft are the parts of those trades that always bothered me the most, but then again drafting outside the top 20 has never been a sure thing. Wasting a 2nd overall on Reinhart and an 8th overall on Nylander have set this franchise back a lot more than Murray's Lehner and Kane trades. Getting a non-lottery 1st rounder, a 2nd rounder, a player, and a prospect are what I'm hoping to see collectively from future Lehner and Kane trades.

But RB's like Dalvin Cook, Kareem Hunt, and Alvin Kamara can't easily be found on the street. I'm not going to get so upset anymore with the front office for drafting or not drafting certain positions. A lot of us didn't want yet another first round CB last year, and look how that turned out! I'm more concerned with just finding quality players. The silver lining behind having a team with so many roster holes and depth problems is that a policy of drafting best player available is sure to also match a need.

Was that a typo?! If not, then it is a virtual guarantee that Taylor is gone. $15-16 million saved with a $2-3million cap hit is absolutely awesome for the Bills. I've read a bit more on the positives and negatives of Alex Smith. I'm slowly leaning toward bringing Smith in and letting him finish his career in Buffalo. He's only 33, which is only 4 years older than Cousins. He looks like a very solid bridge QB for a West Coast offense, and he'd allow the Bills to continue staying competitive on the field while giving Beane a bit more time in finding and grooming the franchise QB. Also remember that McDermott is a defense guy. He will want to use most of those early round picks on DL and LB, and it wouldn't be a bad route to take given the particular talent in the top 100 of the 2018 draft.

Thank you for the clarification. I'm not sure I agree with you, but I also don't have the data needed to make a case against your argument. Ideally, I would have the draft evaluations from every NFL team of every QB drafted in the first round, going back to - say - the year 2000. Then I would separate "league consensus 1st round QB's" from the list of actual QB's drafted in the 1st round. Basically, what I'm getting at is that I suspect a lot of 1st round busts have been a result of a very small number of desperate, incompetent, and paranoid team GM's reaching for QB's that most other teams felt weren't ever worth the risk of a 1st round pick. Example from 2004: Manning, Rivers, and Roethlisberger were consensus 1st round QB's. Losman wasn't. Example from 2013: no consensus 1st round QB's existed. Manuel was taken 16th overall. The most realistic 2018 draft projections I've seen so far have Darnold going 1st to the Browns, Rosen 2nd to the Giants, Allen 5th to the Broncos, and Mayfield 6th to the Jets. Jackson should also be gone by the first 20 picks. This is why I'm currently exploring the idea of Smith or Cousins instead. Yet another option is keeping Tyrod for one final year and using the first four 2018 picks on rebuilding the front 7 (2 DT, 1 DE, 1 MLB) in order to create our own Jaguars-like defense. I don't know if the fanbase can stomach another year of Tyrod, however.

The Vegas Golden Knights valued the concept of a fast-skating, hard-working team while taking advantage of the generous expansion roster construction rules. The current Sabres are the result of a decade of atrocious drafting, a reckless tanking strategy, and an incompetent Dwight Schrute doppleganger GM with an incoherent team-building plan prioritizing raw talent over hockey character.