Sabres Lines September 23

[MakeSabresGrr8Again]

1 minute ago, triumph_communes said:

ROREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Ouch. That reads like someone scratching their nails across a chalkboard.

[Curt]

22 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

This trade had someone else’s fingerprints all over it 

My suspicion as well.

[TrueBlueGED]

2 hours ago, MakeSabresGrr8Again said:

And yet WITH ROR we finished DFL and 1yr removed(and about $25M less paid out), here we are back at the same point before Botts got here (76pts vs 78pts in the standings).

We also finished DFL with Eichel. That doesn't mean we should go trading him for a giant pile of poo and saved payroll. 

37 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

 

This trade had someone else’s fingerprints all over it 

With the teams Botterill has iced, I see no reason to give him the benefit of the doubt and dump the mess on the owner. 

[MakeSabresGrr8Again]

19 minutes ago, TrueBlueGED said:

We also finished DFL with Eichel. That doesn't mean we should go trading him for a giant pile of poo and saved payroll. 

In an earlier post of this conversation I included the entire core of the team and agree that we shouldn't trade Eichel. 

If that were to happen, Botts should be fired immediately!!! 

[Brawndo]

1 hour ago, TrueBlueGED said:

With the teams Botterill has iced, I see no reason to give him the benefit of the doubt and dump the mess on the owner. 

There is no doubt, therefore no benefit to give. The trade was an absolute disaster and that’s on Botterill, but the restrictions placed by the refusal to pay the bonus prevented a bigger return.

[nfreeman]

11 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

This isn't that time. Also I am one of a few people on this board who admits when they are wrong. That all said, the only thing that makes a ROR trade "great" is if Tage Thompson becomes a 60+pt NHL winger that other teams have to be aware of. Having an okay 2c doesn't suddenly make this trash trade good. 

Since you are complimenting yourself here, it should also be noted that there is often a fair amount of drama before a realization and an admission.

 

10 hours ago, dudacek said:

Semi-related, has anyone else noticed how much Sam’s game so far has resembled O’Reilly’s?

He’s winning nearly every contested puck and playing with a pace we haven’t seen from him.

Easily the best Sabre in camp, IMO, for whatever that’s worth.

For God's sake man.  This gushing is both indecent and premature.

(But he has looked good in the few periods of preseason that I've seen.)

 

9 hours ago, Drunkard said:

I'm not saying they have to do it for me at all. I stopped giving this team my money years ago and I fully understand that even if I was still funneling my money to them, it doesn't entitle me to a vote on how they do things. They need a dose of impatience because the athletes they pay millions of dollars to have a shelf like. They just gave Skinner a ton of money and he's likely approaching the end of his prime soon. If they intend sit around scratching their ***** and sniffing their fingers for another few years Skinner will be in decline (but still hold a full NMC for huge money) and all the supposed cap space they free up from losing the dead weight from Bogosian, Sobotka, etc. is going to get eaten up by giving Dahlin a boat load of cash and giving Reinhart a raise over his bridge deal.

Pegula seems to want to emulate the Penguins but I'm pretty sure they managed to turn things around in a shorter time frame than you would use to track glaciers. I'm pretty sure they went from trash to actually making the playoffs once or twice while Crosby was still on his ELC. We piss away the cheap years of our tank fruit like a rebuild can last a decade when in reality a decade is longer than 95% of the league will even play in the league. Patience is fine, but this isn't like season mode in video games where you can just waste year after year. If they have that type of mindset they may run the risk of turning the fan base into one like Carolina's where the arena is 75% empty most of the time unless they are in the playoffs.

This was actually a delightful surprise in the midst of another grim, apocalyptic sea of pessimism you've graced us with.

 

9 hours ago, Randall Flagg said:

Sports doesn't care about their impatience, but the idea that our team is just logically being patient over the last [x] years is nonsense at this point. 

x can be 2.5, 5, 7, whatever you want it to be. 

Botterill is mediocre-to-awful at his  job at this point, even if he somehow GETS better, and then has a better team in the future because of it.

And fans talking about that mediocrity in detail with frustrated undertones doesn't mean we think that we can change things or that we know better than all the smart hockey people in the world

I'm not there yet although admittedly some signs are there.

I'd be interested in any data anyone might have about how often good GMs started their careers with a few lean years.

[triumph_communes]

10 hours ago, Brawndo said:

There is no doubt, therefore no benefit to give. The trade was an absolute disaster and that’s on Botterill, but the restrictions placed by the refusal to pay the bonus prevented a bigger return.

ROREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE????

[LGR4GM]

9 hours ago, nfreeman said:

Since you are complimenting yourself here, it should also be noted that there is often a fair amount of drama before a realization and an admission.

And some never get to the point of admitting it. 

[Curt]

1 hour ago, LGR4GM said:

And some never get to the point of admitting it. 

You’re the best at being wrong!  ?

[Drunkard]

16 hours ago, MakeSabresGrr8Again said:

It all depends on how you look at things (the underlined).

1) The bolded.....Botts got to last place  and had the best odds without the great hole he created. He got there WITH ROR, Kane, Eichel, Reinhart, Risto, Lehner, etc.....best chance of winning the lottery given to him by the same players you're mad he got rid of. That core of players already had a slight dip (81pts - 78pts) prior to Botts arrival (and Housley). Besides having the best odds in that lottery, the odds were even more in our favor after losing the other lotteries. I would consider Chicago "lucky" moving all the way down to 3rd pick. Has it worked out that Edmonton was "lucky" winning the lottery?

2) If the Skinner contract becomes an anchor like you say it will.....was Botts "lucky"?

3) Botts got "some" value for a player he wasn't gonna sign. San Jose was the "lucky" one. They got the production out of Kane that they hoped for and re-signed him to boot. If they didn't re-sign him they would've lost Kane, a 2nd rd pick, and O'Regan. All for what....17games?

None of this means that I agree nor disagree with your take on the matter, just a different way of looking at things. It's all a crapshoot no matter how you look at it just as life itself. You might enjoy a beer when you come home from work and if it helps you pass a kidney stone you might consider yourself "lucky" you drank the beer. If you end up with liver problems 2yrs from now because of the alcohol will you still be "lucky" or have you created a giant hole you can't seem to get out of?

Or are you using the word "lucky" like some use the word "tiny". I'm sure you know "tiny"....the 6'11"/ 350lb guy who's a "teddy bear".

 

1. Yes he got lucky in winning the lottery and getting a generational defenseman. Sure they had the best odds to win by finishing in last place, but it was still lucky because as we saw in 2014 and 2015, having the best odds doesn't mean you get to pick first.

2. He was lucky that Skinner only wanted to go to Toronto or Buffalo and that Toronto wouldn't be able to fit him under the cap, so when he traded for Skinner he didn't have to pay much to Carolina in return. Skinner was 1 year away from UFA status and had complete control over where and if he got traded due to his full NMC. Botterill was lucky to be able to add a player of that caliber because (after trading away O'Reilly and Kane) we only had 2 top 6 forwards at that point (Eichel and Reinhart) so if Skinner wasn't willing to go to Buffalo we wouldn't even been able to ice a true top line last season. Can you imagine how bad last year's team would have been with the horrible scoring depth we had and having someone like Rodriguez playing on the top line instead of Skinner potting 40 goals? We probably would have finished at the bottom again. The crazy contract he re-signed him to is a separate point that happened later. In theory he could have let Skinner walk and still have been lucky to have him for 1 season, because he didn't pay much and he needed to round out his top line last season.

 I think the contract was bad because Botterill caved on all 3 parts of it (8 years max term, $9 million AAV, and a full NMC) when he might have been able to negotiate a more favorable deal on at least one of the 3 parts if the team was more competitive or had other options. Skinner had Botterill over a barrel though and took him to the woodshed on term, money, and a full NMC.

3. Botterill got some value for Kane but he may have been able to get more if he had traded him earlier (82 games of Kane should have netted more than 17 games) and/or if he had come down off his ridiculous demand of 4 pieces including a 1st round pick earlier than he had. Instead he stuck to his price until there was only one team fielding a serious offer and even that offer was for less than his asking price. For one, at the deadline only teams in the playoff hunt are interested in adding rentals. If he had traded him earlier in the season or before the season started more teams think they have a chance for the playoffs. This goes back to his dart thrower mentality where he seems more interested in quantity rather than quality when he's selling off assets. Danny O'Regan was nothing and is no longer even with the Sabres organization. Maybe if he had just asked for a 1st round pick or a quality prospect he could have gotten a better return either by trading Kane off to a team more likely to pick higher than San Jose or in the form of a prospect that might actually turn into a solid player. One quarter is better than 4 nickels, but Botterill seems to prefer to go for volume in the hopes that one or two of those nickels turn into dimes or quarters. In reality they turn into worthless slugs more often than not, just like Danny O'Regan did.

[Drunkard]

11 hours ago, nfreeman said:

This was actually a delightful surprise in the midst of another grim, apocalyptic sea of pessimism you've graced us with.

Glad you enjoyed it. The plant manager at one of my previous jobs used to use that term all the time. I probably should have used butts so it didn't get starred out.

[MakeSabresGrr8Again]

7 hours ago, Drunkard said:

1. Yes he got lucky in winning the lottery and getting a generational defenseman. Sure they had the best odds to win by finishing in last place, but it was still lucky because as we saw in 2014 and 2015, having the best odds doesn't mean you get to pick first.

2. He was lucky that Skinner only wanted to go to Toronto or Buffalo and that Toronto wouldn't be able to fit him under the cap, so when he traded for Skinner he didn't have to pay much to Carolina in return. Skinner was 1 year away from UFA status and had complete control over where and if he got traded due to his full NMC. Botterill was lucky to be able to add a player of that caliber because (after trading away O'Reilly and Kane) we only had 2 top 6 forwards at that point (Eichel and Reinhart) so if Skinner wasn't willing to go to Buffalo we wouldn't even been able to ice a true top line last season. Can you imagine how bad last year's team would have been with the horrible scoring depth we had and having someone like Rodriguez playing on the top line instead of Skinner potting 40 goals? We probably would have finished at the bottom again. The crazy contract he re-signed him to is a separate point that happened later. In theory he could have let Skinner walk and still have been lucky to have him for 1 season, because he didn't pay much and he needed to round out his top line last season.

 I think the contract was bad because Botterill caved on all 3 parts of it (8 years max term, $9 million AAV, and a full NMC) when he might have been able to negotiate a more favorable deal on at least one of the 3 parts if the team was more competitive or had other options. Skinner had Botterill over a barrel though and took him to the woodshed on term, money, and a full NMC.

3. Botterill got some value for Kane but he may have been able to get more if he had traded him earlier (82 games of Kane should have netted more than 17 games) and/or if he had come down off his ridiculous demand of 4 pieces including a 1st round pick earlier than he had. Instead he stuck to his price until there was only one team fielding a serious offer and even that offer was for less than his asking price. For one, at the deadline only teams in the playoff hunt are interested in adding rentals. If he had traded him earlier in the season or before the season started more teams think they have a chance for the playoffs. This goes back to his dart thrower mentality where he seems more interested in quantity rather than quality when he's selling off assets. Danny O'Regan was nothing and is no longer even with the Sabres organization. Maybe if he had just asked for a 1st round pick or a quality prospect he could have gotten a better return either by trading Kane off to a team more likely to pick higher than San Jose or in the form of a prospect that might actually turn into a solid player. One quarter is better than 4 nickels, but Botterill seems to prefer to go for volume in the hopes that one or two of those nickels turn into dimes or quarters. In reality they turn into worthless slugs more often than not, just like Danny O'Regan did.

We'll start with the bolded......We somewhat agree, just not on the "degree" of luck and this part confirms that. So, if we didn't get Skinner we might have been a whole 4 spots worse in the standings and guaranteed a top 4 pick instead of #7. I guess the degree of luck would be that instead of picking 5th we picked 7th all while having Cozens fall to us (loved that pick).

About Skinner, I now wonder, if he only would go to TO or Buffalo and TO chose JT could we have waited 'til this year to get Skinner for less because there really wouldn't be any other choice than the Sabres. 

Can someone please teach Botts to hit the bulls-eye on the dartboard or would that be considered skill then instead of luck.

As "lucky" as you think Botts is, maybe we should trade Risto now to Oilers (so they get 82 games from him) for a 1st rd pick.. They will think they're giving up a 31st pick overall and we'll end up with their #1 overall instead. Trade a Buffalo nickel for a shiny new penny.

[Doohickie]

On 9/23/2019 at 7:07 PM, Doohickie said:

Play Sobotka.  I don't care.

 

I don't care who's on the roster.  Just win. 

I still don't care.  But I didn't think we'd win with him on the roster.

I guess it goes to show ya.