What is this terrible deal with Winnipeg? OMG, people are completely crazy, let's give up his RHD which is gaining 40+ points and can improve with a new coach and coaching staff and we get two landfills caps and a young RHD who played in the NHL 30 games, if Botterill will make such a deal, it should immediately be fired, because it will be his second such deal (ROR).

He's had 4 different coaches. Most of his points are on the power play (40%) And while he contributes to over 40 goals he also gives up over 80. He makes the same mistakes he made his first year and has even showed regression in the defensive aspects of the game

Perrault will be a stop gap for Mittdlestadt. Gives sabres a 3C when Mittdlestadt is ready. Kulikov is off the books in a year, Niku is a young defenseman to fit along the other two young defenseman.

Yes, and he never not see really good partner, he played 25+ minutes, plus recent years, although he is not a defender #1, we had a terrible coach and coaching staff. I don't deny that Risto is totally not to blame for his bad game, but swapping it for that package, it looks really bad. Kulikov cap dump, Perrault is not worth more than the third or fourth round, Nikku is not proven at the NHL level, this is a terrible deal for Buffalo, I would then rather save Risto than trade for this return.

That I can agree with keeping him at this point but I think this is what a deal is gonna look like if it takes place. But I don't like the pairing argument because the only time Risto has done statistically well is when he was paired with Matt Hunwick. Dahlin and Pilut have been paired with Scandella and still managed to produce so that argument doesn't get me ya know?

We can keep it, or we can exchange it, it doesn't matter, the main question is what we get in exchange for Risto, how much it is valued by other GM leagues, because I have seen a lot of different opinions about Risto from other teams, someone is not willing to give a good fee for it, but a lot of adequate people offer a good return, not Kulikov, Perrault and Nikku. I think the partner is affected too, although maybe to a lesser extent, I liked how Risto looked pretty good paired with McCabe, I saw good chemistry with Pilut.

BTW, let's check the O'Reilly trade out in a year. It appears we got Montour out of this trade and Thompson was the Amerks best player after he joined the team. Big players take longer to develop and not many are as big as Tage. O'Reilly led the Blues to last place in the NHL on Dec 21, 2018. Four days later Binnington joined the team and finished the season 25-5-1 and led the Blues to the conference finals. I should add, if he is such a prime time player why is only winning 47% of his face offs. He quit last year and he announced that he quit. Check out what Hoffman returned to Ottawa when his wife was a locker room problem, then compare that the O'Reilly trade before we vilify Betterall for making a bad trade.
BTW go to this site to see what some Shark fans think of Kane https://www.capfriendly.com/armchair-gm/team/1167569
All trades need to taken in context of what the contemporaneous deals. I was shocked that Beaulieu returned only a 6th, until I researched the return of other defensemen at the TDL.


Yes he has had 4 different coaches and they ALL played him 24 minutes a game. If he was such a loser why did BriseBois have an interest with acquiring him? We do not know any details but, there were reports that the best team in the NHL wanted the worse. If he was the worse, why was their ANY interest.
Yes I have seen him make mistakes, but I have seen Charlie McAvoy turned into a pretzel by Nick Foligno (Nick Foligno?).

I do not see Betterall making this trade. Ristolainen has demonstrated an ability to score pts, he is big, young, led the team with 235 hits, 121 blocked shots, ice time 24:38/gm, and has a decent cap hit (let's keep in mind Drew Doughty had the second worse +/- does that make him the second worse NHL defenseman). I think we have not seen the best of him and it would take a huge over payment to move him. I would not trade McCabe for this collection of cap dumps and pseudo prospects.