canucks decline

Canucks have a lot of wingers and not very many 2nd round picks. Think we’ll sit this one out

Canes just give up gards and a 2023 third to AZ, they undercut the sabres every day of the week. Also if you are acquiring gards and playing him on the first line shouldn’t the sabres be paying, not a second, but maybe a 6th or 7th

Yikes. That Canucks trade is atrocious for Buffalo, this roster is terrible. They aren't taking other teams cap dumps, all of those cap dumps won't make the roster (let alone be on the Sabres top pair with Dahlin)

Gardiner is maybe a 7th dman in Buffalo and that's a hard maybe

The only reason I am saying he is a top line d man is that the creator of this post lined him up there. I think gards is a solid 5d on buffalo behind power, dahlia, jokiharju, and maybe and that’s a big maybe in Bryson. To suggest he is a 7 d is like to suggest he is a first line d. Gards is a bottom 4 d man in the league imo, bottom pair on a good team, middle pair on a bad team.

I know why you asked the question, but gardiner wouldnt be in the Sabres top 6 without injury

i gotta put someone in the top spot

Power is a much better option

they play power with jokiharju on the 2nd pair, dahlin plays with a mishmash of d partners

Do you really believe that? The three i see who are better than him without doubt is power dahlin and jokiharju. Before gards injury he had a higher point avg than Bryson, Samuelson, and Fitzgerald who are all on this team. The UFAs the sabres have are pysyk, miller, and butcher. Gards had a higher projected point total than pysyk and butcher. I know points aren’t everything but gards had evolved into a solid defensive player as well. Gards is a top 4 d man on the sabres if they don’t resign miller and is a 5d if they do.

I mean if u see what I just posted, if the sabres don’t resign miller gards is the best option to be that man up there

??? Samuelsson Dahlin was their best pair last year, and universally it's expected they start the year together. The Sabres aren't resigning Miller or Butcher for the same reason Gardiner isn't in their top 6, they don't need them. They're looking for a solid vet RD partner for Power. Bryson, Samuelsson, and Fitzgerald are not offensive dmen, and are not expected to put up a ton of points. Jokiharju and Power are automatically getting priority over Gardiner, and Bryson, Fitzgerald and possibly Pysyk have been fine for the bottom pair.

i agree but you cant expect everyone to be healthy, and buffalo needs to spend money to get to the cap floor, and if you give a guy like gardiner a chance and he performs you could flip him at the deadline

I follow the league pretty well I’d say. I have never heard of Samuelson before today. Ur the sabres fan so I’ll take your word on it. Looking into it rn Samuelson seems ok, not who u want as a top pair d man but ok overall. Tbh I’d rather have gards on that d core than Fitzgerald but that’s just me. I would imagine the reasons I don’t know Samuelson is because he is a defensive d man, doesn’t have insane advanced analytics, and plays for buffalo. That’s why I treated him as a bottom pair d man as opposed to a top pair like u said.

They'll be able to get to the cap floor by filling out their roster, and the GM said many times he's not trading for players that will block their youth

Fitzgerald is their 8th dman. Samuelsson was also a rookie, who played half the season. Advanced stats with no context and not watching the player means pretty much nothing, especially when it's just lumping his entire half season into one number, when he came up as a sheltered rookie and won a spot on the top pair with his play further into the season. Completely different situations from when he came up to where he ended

We will see how this season goes and if Samuelson makes a name for himself. His advanced stats r ok but it’s probably based on his situation. End of the day, I still believe gards is a solid 5d on the sabres and we will agree to disagree on his value to the sabres organization. You know the players, I know the guy coming in. We shall see what happens

I see zero upside in this deal for Minnesota. We have $4 million in cap room to sign a backup goalie, a depth forward, and leave room for injuries. Making this trade doesn't fill either of those holes, but it cuts out $500k for us to work with and it drops us back almost a full round. Add on to that the fact that Mittelstadt hasn't played close to a full season in 3 years and we now we definitely need the extra forward to compensate for his injuries. From our perspective, we're taking on the worse contract and paying for the right to do so which makes this an easy pass.

I wouldn’t say zero upside. I’d say Casey is a better player than Jost is. He still has the potential to be a top 6C. I’d accept this deal if I was BG. His injuries have held him back, but he’s young enough where as he understands the game better that could change. This feels like a minimal ask for a potential top 6 C.