The Ryan O’Reilly Discussion Quarantine Zone [All ROR Posts Here] (Mod Notes OP)

[joshjull]

I suspect he meant it was the darkest because after having those hard times already, he got traded to what should be a good team that was expected to be playoff bound and like groundhogs day his team was crap despite his best efforts.

Obviously that has reversed itself quite nicely for him.

I don’t see much value in the idea the Blues leadership group giving O’Reilly this comfort level that allowed him to reach another level.

I mean who are those guys? Pietrangelo and Tarasenko maybe? They brought in a lot of youth and new pieces this year.

Isn’t a simpler answer that scoring is up league wide, as you said, and that he is playing a couple less minutes with two good linemates regularly?

I mean his whole time with us, his best linemate was young Reinhart and half a year of solid Okposo, and normally someone who had no business being a top 6 player.

Here’s a possibility. Is it likely that as someone else said, O’Reilly was artificially suppressed offensively by his insane usage and generally crappy teammates and his year in st. Lou is part upgrade of on ice talent, part league wide scoring increase and part career year?

I think that is more likely than expectations weighed him down. It just seems to me there are a lot of concrete reasons for offensive improvement that can be looked at before we go down intangible road.

Of course you don’t see much value in that because its counter to the “its all Housley’s fault he didn’t do it here” narrative.

ROR is producing at a rate that blows away EVERY SEASON of his career. But appearantly the only thing causing that is being away from Housley who only coached him one season.

Here’s a thought. Housley can simultaneously suck in his use of ROR and ROR can be reaching new heights in his career for reasons that include, but also go beyond, just being away from Housely. I know it’s nuanced and isn’t simply bashing Housley but I think it has legs.

Just a FYI, under Disco ROR had easier minutes than he has with the Blues. His OZS% with Disco were 48.28% and 50%. He is currently at 45.87% with the Blues. Which is better than the 41.68% with Phil but its still the 4th toughest of his 10 year career.

Getting easy and favorable Ozone starts wasn’t required to get ROR going. He certainly isn’t getting them with the Blues. Maybe, just maybe it was due in part to being in the best situation of his career with the Blues being a great fit for a variety of reasons. Its not just about the leadership element.

 

[Icicle]

Losing ROR in a trade for futures is nothing like losing both Drury and Briere for absolutely nothing. Lol

 

[Baccus]

Sure, impotent toxicity would seep into every level of familial relationships. I'd hope we're better than that here.

I don't expect people to be "over it" per se but arguing the same lines over and over just serves to work people up. I really don't enjoy having to play principal here over the same arguments every week.

I have absolutely zero concept of why you'd have any reasonable expectation that anyone would be better than that when most can't even agree on the basic "reason" for the trade.

I totally understand the annoyance of the repeated moderation POV (I've been involved/dealt with other online forum issues in the past), but it's the devil's bargain with the general moderation principle that HF operates under. Argue the post not the poster is fine except in reality, many of the posters are often, let's say NOT "fair & balanced" thus leading to a never ending cycle where the responder's content is under far more scrutiny/expectation then the random drive-by comment. The drive-by incendiary is 'encouraged' because it does not break the rules but constantly fans the fires. Thus the cycle.

I'm not excluding myself from my own criticism here, nor trying to argue about the general moderation principle at work, but simply commenting on the realities of online forum moderation. Barring an incessant hammer of doom, this is what you get. I found the ROR Exclusion zone idea interesting, but really it's a 50/50 proposition as to its usefulness I'd wager.

Again I'm not on the front lines, so moderators may see things very differently. Mod/edit/delete as you see fit as I gather even mentioning moderation policy is often is a no-no here.

 

[HogtownSabresfan]

Ok, closing this thread was clearly a mistake on my part, because all that did was spread the same bad posting to other threads. Mea culpa.

Moving forward, though, this thread is going to have a heightened standard for discussion. Don't expect to come in here after every ROR multipoint game or STL loss to reignite the same argument that goes nowhere. Make posts worth reading, and behave civilly with each other. Expect repercussions if you do not. If you think someone else is not living up to this standard, report them instead of engaging.

From now on, this will be the place to discuss ROR. The team is good enough right now that there's plenty to discuss in the other threads without taking this show on the road. That's not to say there's an absolute ban, but if you want to make an ROR post, it will usually belong in here.

Let me explicate further: from this point
forward, low-effort one-liners will get you warnings (read:infractions).
-Rasmus Ascendant


***MOD EDIT (JOSHJULL): I started this thread to keep the Around the NHL thread from getting derailed into a ROR trade battle. ***






John Vogl had another Q&A and mentioned the ROR trade -


Live Q&A: John Vogl answers your Sabres questions on...
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This is not the first time we’ve seen reliable media members say stuff like this.

I was mad when ROR was traded. I hated to see him go. But as much as we may not like it, sometimes it’s best for everyone if a guy moves on and unfortunately I think this was one of those times.

We don't know the truth, media hasn't reported it doesn't know either.

 

[sabrebuild]

Of course you don’t see much value in that because its counter to the “its all Housley’s fault he didn’t do it here” narrative.

ROR is producing at a rate that blows away EVERY SEASON of his career. But appearantly the only thing causing that is being away from Housley who only coached him one season.

Here’s a thought. Housley can simultaneously suck in his use of ROR and ROR can be reaching new heights in his career for reasons that include, but also go beyond, just being away from Housely. I know it’s nuanced and isn’t simply bashing Housley but I think it has legs.

Just a FYI, under Disco ROR had easier minutes than he has with the Blues. His OZS% with Disco were 48.28% and 50%. He is currently at 45.87% with the Blues. Which is better than the 41.68% with Phil but its still the 4th toughest of his 10 year career.

Getting easy and favorable Ozone starts wasn’t required to get ROR going. He certainly isn’t getting them with the Blues. Maybe, just maybe it was due in part to being in the best situation of his career with the Blues being a great fit for a variety of reasons. Its not just about the leadership element.

At what point do you think I blamed Housley for O’Reilly’s usage under Bylsma? Or said that O’Reilly was only used poorly by Housley?


I have said repeatedly that Bylsma used him atrociously as well. Too many minutes, too hard of minutes and too crappy of linemates.

You are so hell bent on making up these bizarre straw man arguments, that it’s difficult to even follow some of these replies of yours.

You have said a couple of times that the leadership elements in St. Louis was a part of his career year.

I don’t see it. Zone starts have changed a bit from last year, but zone starts are a relatively small deal.

What does seem to matter, is actually playing with good teammates and the league having a general bump in offense as you have repeated.

In the end, assume he stays ppg to the end. That’s only about a ten point improvement on his first year with us, if he had stayed healthy.

My point is, with the addition of Dahlin, Sheary and Skinner, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to believe that O’Reilly could be having the exact same year here as he is in St. Louis.

 

[sabrebuild]

Losing ROR in a trade for futures is nothing like losing both Drury and Briere for absolutely nothing. Lol

Did someone say it was?

 

[fingerpainter]

Wow, I know I'm the only one to think this, but I'm starting to think the ROR trade may end up being a little bit of a mistake for Buffalo. Does anyone agree or am I alone here? I know it's not been said yet.

 

[ISeeStars]

Still cant believe he traded, at this point in time, a 67 point player for essentially two 12 point players and a guy who would only have about 12 points if he wanted to stick around this hellhole.

3 guys for half the production of 1 player. Unless Tage has some sort of resurrection with his play they will all be gone in 2-3 years too.

This trade wouldn't have saved the season by any means but I cant stress how devastating it was for us to get nothing of value to help the roster out this season. That right there is worthy of Botts being on the hot seat going into next season alone.

 

[toomuchsauce]

Botterill: Give me Thomas and a 1st.

Armstrong: No.

B: Okay, Kyrou and a 1st.

A: No.

B: Okay, okay - give me your three worst players and a 1st.

A: Deal.

 

[DolanPlsGoSabres]

Botterill: Give me Thomas and a 1st.

Armstrong: No.

B: Okay, Kyrou and a 1st.

A: No.

B: Okay, okay - give me your three worst players and a conditional 1st.

A: Deal.

FIFY

 

[itwasaforwardpass]

Botterill: Give me Thomas and a 1st.

Armstrong: No.

B: Okay, Kyrou and a 1st.

A: No.

B: Okay, okay - give me your three worst players and a conditional 1st.

A: Deal.

Sadly, that's not even an exaggeration.

Paajarvi was waived.

The other three got them ROR.

 

[truthbluth]

Some of us were saying, trade Eichel for a windfall, build around RoR. Seems like it might've been a good idea.

 

[Jim Bob]

 

[OkimLom]

Some of us were saying, trade Eichel for a windfall, build around RoR. Seems like it might've been a good idea.

Where was I during this period? I don’t remember anybody saying trade Eichel let alone build around ROR and trade Eichel

 

[Aladyyn]

Some of us were saying, trade Eichel for a windfall, build around RoR. Seems like it might've been a good idea.

I know this is going to be extremely controversial and outrageous but maybe we should have kept both.

 

[Chainshot]

I know this is going to be extremely controversial and outrageous but maybe we should have kept both.

Maybe - hear me out here - maybe, the GM should have made a move or two LAST YEAR to make the team better and balance his roster with the futures he had rather than waiting and burning up his cache with one of his roster players who his coach rode into the f***ing ground.

I know, I know, preaching to the choir.

This was my worry last season and the bitter fruit it has born is sadly an extension of the expected outcome.

 

[Dubi Doo]

I know this is going to be extremely controversial and outrageous but maybe we should have kept both.

The thought of having a dynamic offensive center and a two-way selke calibre center does seem unconceivable.

 

[Sabresfansince1980]

I would like to hyper-vent against somebody for the terrible result of this trade for the Sabres roster. The collective area sports media needs to do their job and put the owner and GM to the fire and get specific answers about why that trade happened the way it did. Then when they give foggy answers, even if it's to be considerate of O'Reilly, the media need to challenge them and get a real answer, for the sake of this fan base's mental health.

 

[sufferer]

I would like to hyper-vent against somebody for the terrible result of this trade for the Sabres roster. The collective area sports media needs to do their job and put the owner and GM to the fire and get specific answers about why that trade happened the way it did. Then when they give foggy answers, even if it's to be considerate of O'Reilly, the media need to challenge them and get a real answer, for the sake of this fan base's mental health.

It seems as though the entirety of Buffalo's sports media were not only fine with the idea of trading ROR but happy with the garbage return. White, Hamilton and Vogl seemed damn near ecstatic about it, for varying reasons (White just seems to enjoy breaking news from his "Sabres insider"). It's hardly ever brought up now by columnists, the radio guys or even the callers -- and if it is, they treat it as though it's only been a marginal setback in making this team competitive, since apparently Thompson and that late first are just so promising.

 

[Jim Bob]

It seems as though the entirety of Buffalo's sports media were not only fine with the idea of trading ROR but happy with the garbage return. White, Hamilton and Vogl seemed damn near ecstatic about it, for varying reasons (White just seems to enjoy breaking news from his "Sabres insider"). It's hardly ever brought up now by columnists, the radio guys or even the callers -- and if it is, they treat it as though it's only been a marginal setback in making this team competitive, since apparently Thompson and that late first are just so promising.

They just tend to fall back to the "ROR had to go for the culture" or "they had to change things up, so...." or "they never won anything with ROR, so he had to go".

If they are trading guys that have never won anything, then everyone must go!

 

[Jim Carr's Rug]

I generally stay way from this thread because it't makes me some degree of depressed or angry.

But at this point, I'm simply dead inside. Sadness has turned to rage, rage has turned to numbness.

I simply popped in today to say, I miss you Ryan.

 

[MagnumForce2]

They just tend to fall back to the "ROR had to go for the culture" or "they had to change things up, so...." or "they never won anything with ROR, so he had to go".

If they are trading guys that have never won anything, then everyone must go!

I think Botts ego had a play in this trade also....he unloaded everything for the most part that Murray brought in...except the obvious which are Eichel and Reinhart. It is probably part of the reason that Thompson is still playing in the NHL while Olafsson is in Rochester.

 

[MagnumForce2]

There was more to Ryan O'Reilly getting traded than just a culture change. Just my opinion.

 

[Baccus]

I can feel the tears welling up.

 

[Zip15]

How many more years will Botts gift Thompson a roster spot in a futile effort to glean something from that historically bad trade?