I'm just gonna meta-comment here between thread starters: I made that "Cup Winning Roster" thread that I think the OP mentioned, where everybody put down altogether too many homegrown Sabres as a projection (including me), and I've gotta say, I'm very glad that this kind of rebuttal is taking place. It has something to do with advancing the conversation around long range planning.
When you go into a rebuild, you have to have this very flexible but also very thoughtful long range plan in mind, I think. That's why I like this kind of thing. You have to have a vision for how you're going to fill lines 1-4 and what it's going to take to get guys into the system that can do that on an elite level over a long period of time.
So my thread (which hasn't gotten nearly the participation that this one gets, props to the OP) kind of asks folks to fill in how close they think we are to being able to fill in all of our needs internally, and this thread asks folks to be realistic about how many we're going to WANT to fill in internally, and basically break it down to the guys who really, might be our best option for their role as opposed to trying to fill in from outside. And I appreciate that. It takes the conversation from, "do we have the guys/a vision for how to get the guys who can slot in throughout a championship lineup" to "which guys are going to really force their way onto that lineup so that we'd never want to move them or replace them from outside."
It's all insanely speculative, and I get why people are averse to that, but I think it's really helpful perspective to at least have in your back pocket as you're going through your tank years: what pieces do we absolutely need, how do we get them, and then once we start accruing them, which will we probably want to keep?
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