SnuggaRUDE
Registered User
- Apr 5, 2013
- 9,123
- 6,658
Tage is having a career year. He will never come close to this ever again. And the season he is having is fooling Buffalo management into thinking they are closer than they are. Now you've locked in your core to long term deals without even making the playoffs based on half a season of sample size.
Good luck is all I can say.
Cozens, Mittelstadt, Thompson, Tuch all having insane shooting% years and due for massive regression. Even Dahlin having a career year in shooting%.
I get it though, not the first fan base to think things will keep rolling. But even with all of these crazy seasons, they are still not a playoff team. Next year I predict by this time Buffalo is hovering in no mans land yet again with no cap room to improve with good players but not elite locked into long term deals.
Hedging into a losing position is dominated by playing to your outs.
Come hell or winning the draft lottery Buffalo won't have access to any elite players who aren't currently in their system as of today. There aren't any on the horizon through UFA. How exactly could they optimize capspace beyond signing good players?
Your implied alternative is to do what tear down the team and try again? Sign Thompson/Cozens to bridge deals taking them to UFA? Neither of those strike me as strictly better alternatives.
There's two outcomes for each of Cozens / Thompson:
1. Worth their contract or better
2. Worse than their contract
Three Strategies for Buffalo to pursue (one of which is suicidal)
A. Sign them long term
B. Immediately trade Cozens or Thompson
C. Sign them short term
In the case of 1 Buffalo wins by picking A
In the case of 2 Buffalo wins by picking B
In the case of 2 Buffalo 'ties' by picking C
But here's the problem with stopping there: If Cozens / Thompson aren't worth their contracts the team is dead in the water anyway; those are their high end forwards.