BillsFan4

https://theathletic.com/2513045/2021/04/12/nhl-trade-grades-bruins-win-taylor-hall-sweepstakes-and-give-up-alarmingly-little/ ‘NHL trade grades: Bruins win Taylor Hall sweepstakes and give up alarmingly little‘

I don’t really care that they traded Lazar either. My only issue is that this Bjork better be the better player, otherwise what was the point in swapping Lazar, who makes 1/2 as much as Bjork does next season? ($800K for Lazar. $1.6M for Bjork). Why double the salary if he’s not the better player? Seems like poor cap management. Looking at both of their stats, they look very comparable. and Bjork’s been in the NHL 4yrs now so I’m not sure how much room for development is left (not that the Sabres can develop players anyway...). Might as well keep trying to sign him I guess. Hopefully that rumor about him testing free agency was false, or just a leverage move by his agent. Seeing what Hall and Montour got moved for, I wouldn’t be at all confident that the Sabres would get more than a mid round pick back for Ullmark anyway, and who cares about an extra mid round pick in this (weak) draft, and especially since the Sabres don’t really even have a ******* scouting staff! 🤦‍♂️

no clue who Bjork is but Boston fans are thrilled with the deal and don’t seem to care about Bjork at all. was hoping for a decent prospect at least. This return seems light. edit - 5 points total this season. His best ever season was 19pts. https://www.nhl.com/player/anders-bjork-8478075 and he has 2 years left on his contract at a $1.6M per year cap hit. Guess it’s not fair to get aggravated before seeing Bjork play, but is he better than Lazar? Or worse? If it’s a wash, then I’d just have rather kept Lazar. Especially since Lazar costs 1/2 as much for next season ($800k vs $1.6M for Bjork) Im wondering if the Sabres took a lesser return in Hall to avoid retaining salary? It’ll be interesting to see if they did. edit 2 - yep, they retained 50% of Hall’s salary (not sure on Lazar). Yikes. Hard not to feel like Adams got taken advantage of by an experienced GM. So, Granato’s connections have brought us Drake Caggiula and Anders Bjork so far.

can confirm: Hall will likely be traded to an NHL team sometime before the deadline tomorrow. I want credit for my sources if it happens... 😂

if this is true it completely changes my feelings on trading him.

good!

Now here’s a waiver claim I’d like to see the Sabres make! I knew someone good would go on waivers right after they claimed caggiula. Wonder if the Montour trade makes a Riikola waiver claim more likely? I hope so! Yep. Terrible asset management. Terrible drafting, and even worse development. If you have an athletic subscription, this is a really good deep dive into just how horrible our drafting has been during the rebuild. https://theathletic.com/2499017/2021/04/06/how-buffalos-poor-drafting-decisions-destroyed-the-franchise-and-who-they-couldve-picked-to-save-it

If you think the reactions to the vaccine are bad, imagine what a severe case of covid would be like...

Yikes. Yep. I figured he had sex with a bunch of massage therapists when his lawyer said the above.

of all the players waived this season.... 🤷‍♂️ I will say He is a high effort/energy guy and the Sabres could use more of that.

Supposedly everything was put on hold until after the trade deadline. I still think that Jason Karmanos joins the front office. Pretty much every hockey analyst has said it’s going to happen. I do feel like the Rutherford thing is less likely though. I really hope they still add some type of team president or senior advisor. It’s not that I really wanted Rutherford specifically. Just someone experienced who has connections around the NHL and can help Adams rebuild the organization (front office, scouting, coaching, etc). edit - also forgot to say, I think the thing I liked most about the rumored deal with Rutherford: that he required a written agreement with the Pegulas that they wouldn’t interfere in hockey operations.

😢

As they should be. Not all opinions are equal. Some opinions are not based on facts and should be treated as such (not talking about this specific conversation, just in general)

I didn’t get that impression at all. I figured he said that because he knew the offense was the better unit last season (but obviously couldn’t say that), so he figured they’d focus more on defense. Plus, the defense is returning as many starters as offense.

Thanks @stosh64! Appreciate it.

I’m confident that if he means what he says about being a “big statistics and logic guy”, he will get vaccinated. and who knows, maybe this answer will eventually end up helping more skeptical people choose to get vaccinated. If Allen (eventually) says he looked at all the statistics and chose to get vaccinated, maybe it’ll influence more skeptics to get the vaccine too. overall i don’t really have any issue with his answer.

Anyone have the YouTube link to the interview? edit - nevermind Spotify has the video

I’ll be shocked if we get a 1st for him the way he’s played this season. I don’t really care about the pick at all. Just get a decent prospect close to NHL ready. What you mentioned sounds great. I don’t see Skinner going anywhere. He has a full no move clause and with the NHL salary cap staying flat for the next 4 years, cap space is at more of a premium than I can ever remember. Look at all the good players that have passed through waivers this season because of their cap hits. No team wants to take on cap right now.

What a game by Dahlin last night!! Mittelstadt had a really good game too. And Thompson looked pretty good as well. So did Rasmus Asplund. Actually, all the kids are playing pretty good hockey right now. It’s definitely nice to see.

Nice! Glad he signed. I was wondering if he would choose to go the college UFA route.

He seems pretty happy to be leaving the NYJ 😂

The deadline is this coming Monday. So I think part of it is precaution. But I would hope that they are reasonably sure that a trade will happen. It wouldn’t be the best look to hold him out and then not trade him at the deadline 😂

I might actually watch tonight.