PalmTreeMafia

Small improvement basically means getting back to Bylsma's (and Eichel's) first season of 81 points, no? So no progress after 4 seasons....this is simply unacceptable.

Botterill will be fired if he doesn't make the playoffs by the end of his 4th year. And he's not safe if there isn't substantial improvement by the end of his 3rd year. Also, there will be a massive roster firesale if this team can't make the playoffs within the next 2 seasons. No one but Dahlin will be safe. Eichel especially will be gone. This is why it is in everyone's best interest to try and make the playoffs THIS season.

All of them were stupid tweets made by a juvenile trying to be "edgy" and nothing more. The "if it ain't white, it ain't right" was a reference to a joke from Modern Family. No one in the Buffalo Bills locker room today actually thinks Josh Allen is a racist. It's a non-issue to everyone but the most politically correct and easily offended. I heard rumors that the Arizona Cardinals were the team that released his tweets before the draft so that he'd drop to them at 10.

I love it, but I don't think any Risto-RNH trade is happening unless we're giving up significantly more. Why is Edmonton willing to trade RNH anyway? I've seen these rumors floating around, and I want to believe... Also, check out your D-men lineup. With the Gardiner rumors and the McCabe trade rumors, how about: Dahlin - Montour Gardiner - Jokiharju Pilut - Miller Notice that this would be a complete overhaul of Housley's first-year D-men crew, which of course is a very good thing. JBot is finally getting serious about winning hockey games. A little on the late side, but better late than never.

Being captain of the Buffalo Sabres has a similar effect on the body as being President of the United States.

We'll very likely need to protect Jokiharju, which is yet another reason why Ristolainen is as good as gone. 7 Forwards: Eichel, Skinner, Reinhart, Mittelstadt, Olofsson, Thompson, new guy from Ristolainen trade 3 Defenders: Dahlin, Montour, Jokiharju 1 Goalie: Ullmark Exposed: Asplund, McCabe, Miller, Borgen, Pilut Maybe Asplund eventually replaces Thompson. Or maybe Pilut's development will force the Sabres to choose the "protect any 9 players" option instead of the "7 F + 3D + 1G" option. But at the moment, the 2021 expansion draft isn't a concern.

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.