Sell me on the Buffalo Sabres

[Kamiccolo]

Tim Murray was a fan favorite in Buffalo, but now that he is gone he has become a scapegoat. Two coaches now, Eichel is the entitled shit we all knew he was, who got handed a 10M contract (By their new GM) without earning it, to be the new Kessel. A guy with the skills to be elite, but not THE guy, who also has attitude/maturity issues. This kid is your captain, no wonder the team is so bad.

It's just facts. I've said it before, I'll say it again. Couldn't pay me to take this kid for free. Whatever skills he has are negated several times over when factoring in his contract, and the negative impact he would have on any locker room. When your "captain", face of the franchise, and highest paid player can coast around and not give a shit, why the hell would anyone care? IMO, he needs to go OR they need to get a true leader in there who gets his head out of his ass. Only problem is, Eichel won't deal with a Marleau type situation where he gets striped and put on the back burner.

 

[Aladyyn]

Tim Murray was a fan favorite in Buffalo, but now that he is gone he has become a scapegoat. Two coaches now, Eichel is the entitled **** we all knew he was, who got handed a 10M contract (By their new GM) without earning it, to be the new Kessel. A guy with the skills to be elite, but not THE guy, who also has attitude/maturity issues. This kid is your captain, no wonder the team is so bad.

It's just facts. I've said it before, I'll say it again. Couldn't pay me to take this kid for free. Whatever skills he has are negated several times over when factoring in his contract, and the negative impact he would have on any locker room. When your "captain", face of the franchise, and highest paid player can coast around and not give a ****, why the hell would anyone care? IMO, he needs to go OR they need to get a true leader in there who gets his head out of his ass. Only problem is, Eichel won't deal with a Marleau type situation where he gets striped and put on the back burner.

You should change your Occupation from "Network Engineer" to "Bad Armchair Psychologist"

 

[Aladyyn]

Required reading for the "coaching is not an issue" crowd

 

[Whileee]

They got a little trigger happy in trying to swiftly climb out of the rebuild. They were looking really good a couple of years ago (in terms of team trajectory, not in terms of the actual team), and then traded the farm for ROR, Lehner, Scandella, Kane/Bogosian, etc.

Not to say those trades were all bad-value trades or anything, but they had the effect of eating up a bunch of their cap-space, eating into their depth, and helping Buffalo finish higher in the standings the last few years (but not actually contend) and thus get a worse pick.

I think those aggressive trades were just a year or so too early. They should have just added some short-term band-aids, sold another guy or two off to boost the farm, and let the team start to at least moderately compete internally, before making those big splash moves to put the team "over the top".

The Jets trade hurt them a lot, by hollowing out their prospect depth...

Armia (has turned into a very good bottom-6 forward - 10 points in 21 games)
Lemieux (14 points in 11 AHL games, looked good at the NHL level earlier this season)
Roslovic (1st round pick in 2015 has turned into the Jets top prospect, 3rd in AHL scoring as a 20-year old)

Add in Myers for Bogosian (Myers is having a bounce-back year with 11 points in 24 games)

 

[YUngToothPaSTe]

As a Sabres fan, i'm not sure if i'm sold on the sabres. On paper, we have a good top 6 but apart from that we are garbo.

 

[Aladyyn]

The Jets trade hurt them a lot, by hollowing out their prospect depth...

Armia (has turned into a very good bottom-6 forward - 10 points in 21 games)
Lemieux (14 points in 11 AHL games, looked good at the NHL level earlier this season)
Roslovic (1st round pick in 2015 has turned into the Jets top prospect, 3rd in AHL scoring as a 20-year old)

Add in Myers for Bogosian (Myers is having a bounce-back year with 11 points in 24 games)

We have too many wing prospects as-is.

 

[Whileee]

We have too many wing prospects as-is.

Then those prospects should be able to acquire good players to fill in the gaps. Point is that I think they gave up way too much talented youth in that deal, and that is the most valuable currency in the NHL today.

 

[AppsSyl]

They're suffering because they never won the lottery (McDavid+Ekblad vs Eichel+Reinhart), and Eichel+Reinhart have failed to take the next step while Girgensons regressed. Add a terrible defence, and you have the Buffalo Sabres.
That's the negative.

In almost any other draft in the last decade, Eichel would have been the #1 pick. So I am not sure the whole they didn't win the lottery argument is a valid excuse.

 

[Brock Radunske]

He's like everyone's obnoxious little cousin...

 

[Tapu Coco]

We have too many wing prospects as-is.

I won't comment on Lemieux since there were rumors that he wasn't going to sign with us, but having Armia in that 3RW spot would have kept Griffith in Rochester and wouldn't have resulted in the exposure of our forward depth we saw when none of the "cerebrus" stepped up in camp. In fact, it would make them easier to use as trade chips. He also could have given our scoring lines a little more flexibility.

I believe Roslovic is a center, so easing him in at 3C could keep reinhart with Eichel, where he's most effective at this stage of his career as well, and allowing larsson/girgs/josefson to take on defensive matchups.

Of course, it's hard to say that we would even have some of these players we do or made the signings we did if the prospect pool wasn't thinned out. Or if we would have even taken Roslovic, of course.

 

[Kamiccolo]

You should change your Occupation from "Network Engineer" to "Bad Armchair Psychologist"

This was evident the moment he was drafted.. Buffalo will never win a thing with him as captain, I guarantee it.

 

[joe dirte]

I'd say they're closer to the Buffalo Bills.

lol. it's actually uncanny how much a city has teams that have finished second so many times. but never won. even their lottery picks!

 

[joe dirte]

The Jets trade hurt them a lot, by hollowing out their prospect depth...

Armia (has turned into a very good bottom-6 forward - 10 points in 21 games)
Lemieux (14 points in 11 AHL games, looked good at the NHL level earlier this season)
Roslovic (1st round pick in 2015 has turned into the Jets top prospect, 3rd in AHL scoring as a 20-year old)

Add in Myers for Bogosian (Myers is having a bounce-back year with 11 points in 24 games)

why would losing prospect depth, a bunch of kids who aren't even in the NHL, and may never be, cause the sabres to be at the bottom of the standings this season?

roslovic and armia wouldn't make a lick of a difference to them this season.

 

[BlueBaron]

Pretty foolish thread. "Sell me on garbage"...

Pretty bad team, not the sum of their part, leadership issues etc. Buy that....

 

[showtime8]

First step in the Sabres turnaround would be holding Eichel more accountable. As soon as you get him to compete for an entire game, then you can have success. Otherwise, you're counting on depth players to carry the team.

The Sabres have good pieces. I would take O'Rielly, Ristolainen, Larsson, Scandella, McCabe on my team any day of the week. That's not to say they're all amazing players, but slotted correctly, they would be good role players on a team.

 

[The Macho King]

First step in the Sabres turnaround would be holding Eichel more accountable. As soon as you get him to compete for an entire game, then you can have success. Otherwise, you're counting on depth players to carry the team.

The Sabres have good pieces. I would take O'Rielly, Ristolainen, Larsson, Scandella, McCabe on my team any day of the week. That's not to say they're all amazing players, but slotted correctly, they would be good role players on a team.

Eichel has to be the least impressive star player in the league to me. He clearly has puck skills and vision, but he plays like a passenger.

 

[Aladyyn]

First step in the Sabres turnaround would be holding Eichel more accountable. As soon as you get him to compete for an entire game, then you can have success. Otherwise, you're counting on depth players to carry the team.

The Sabres have good pieces. I would take O'Rielly, Ristolainen, Larsson, Scandella, McCabe on my team any day of the week. That's not to say they're all amazing players, but slotted correctly, they would be good role players on a team.

McCabe has been the worst regular on our blueline this season. The SABRES blueline. Certainly impressive, but not in a good way.

 

[Whileee]

why would losing prospect depth, a bunch of kids who aren't even in the NHL, and may never be, cause the sabres to be at the bottom of the standings this season?

roslovic and armia wouldn't make a lick of a difference to them this season.

...but Roslovic and Armia hold enough trade value to add important pieces.

To be honest, it's hard to know where to start with the Sabres. Their D is a mess, and somehow their forwards just don't seem to mesh.

 

[Whileee]

First step in the Sabres turnaround would be holding Eichel more accountable. As soon as you get him to compete for an entire game, then you can have success. Otherwise, you're counting on depth players to carry the team.

The Sabres have good pieces. I would take O'Rielly, Ristolainen, Larsson, Scandella, McCabe on my team any day of the week. That's not to say they're all amazing players, but slotted correctly, they would be good role players on a team.

Eichel needs to watch how Scheifele plays... Eichel has similar but better tools, but doesn't have the same approach to every shift.

 

[Dreakon13]

It's 100% mental with the Sabres. Boneheaded plays, lack of effort and defeatist attitudes. They don't know how to mentally work past getting scored on, which leads to a downward spiral most games where they just get kicked around for 45 minutes... and start to "bounce back" when the other teams let off the gas.

You could blame the coaching, but these are professionals, guys who have spent their lives playing hockey and in many cases have proven they can elevate their games at various levels. They need to be able to motivate themselves and eachother... but that isn't happening.

My personal thought is that a lot of players on this team don't like eachother, or at least don't share the level of respect that winning teams do. A mish-mash of heavy egos and quieter personalities, but no one really stepping up and doing the right things in the locker room or on the ice (or those that are don't have the talent needed to break games open). Instead of working together, everyone is trying to break the funk themselves, getting away from the basics, and tripping over each other in the process.

 

[showtime8]

McCabe has been the worst regular on our blueline this season. The SABRES blueline. Certainly impressive, but not in a good way.

I'm not denying that he's been bad. But playing him 20 minutes a night isn't the best idea. And that leads back to my point about slotting in players correctly. If McCabe played 4 minutes less a night, does he look like a new player? In a more complete system, if you play him 15:30 a night, he would look pretty good. When the team isn't going well, you obviously start to point fingers.

 

[Aladyyn]

I'm not denying that he's been bad. But playing him 20 minutes a night isn't the best idea. And that leads back to my point about slotting in players correctly. If McCabe played 4 minutes less a night, does he look like a new player? In a more complete system, if you play him 15:30 a night, he would look pretty good. When the team isn't going well, you obviously start to point fingers.

If he keeps playing like he has? No. He was solid for most of last season but has really dropped off.

 

[Critical13]

The Jets trade hurt them a lot, by hollowing out their prospect depth...

Armia (has turned into a very good bottom-6 forward - 10 points in 21 games)
Lemieux (14 points in 11 AHL games, looked good at the NHL level earlier this season)
Roslovic (1st round pick in 2015 has turned into the Jets top prospect, 3rd in AHL scoring as a 20-year old)

Add in Myers for Bogosian (Myers is having a bounce-back year with 11 points in 24 games)

I doubt they miss any of those players

 

[Whileee]

I doubt they miss any of those players

Good. The Jets' organization loves having them. Maybe that says something right there.

 

[Esq]

HF tells me that Risto is awesome. (Not sure why.)

That's all i got.