Columbus is massive recency bias id argue they're still not a top 3 team in the metro especially not knowing this whole Laine situation

When Dallas Eakins wins the ducks the Connor Bedard sweepstakes, we’ll build a statue of him after GMPV fires the heck out of him for running Derek Grant and Gerry Mayhew out on a line with Zegras every night.

Possibly, But I like their team. if Laines gets traded I like their team less but still think they make the playoffs.

What is the Laine situation?

Less worried about the Laine situation than I’d be about the poor defence/mediocre goaltending TBH. They’ll fight with Detroit and Ottawa for the last wildcard spot at best,

Gerry Mayhew is a Future Hall of Famer tho. Zegras is lucky to play with such a high Caliber player.

Yeah, I mean, if one more year of Eakins gets us Bedard, so be it. After that, all the cap space in the world, a good young core, and an oddly horrific Pacific division.

Currently don’t have 3 mil in cap space and his QO was like 9 mil (right? I think?) and a long term offer runs them around there.. was rumors no one would do a QO sign and trade this morning so it’s a bit of a cloudy situation

I don’t love their defense or goalies too much but who knows maybe I end up being completely dead wrong I also think they need top tier center to be good til silenger is ready

They currently have a bit over $5 mil in cap space since they're counting 26 players on their page. If they trade Nyquist they have $11.2 mil in space. Signing Laine is no issue whatsoever.

Why does everybody think the Sabres will be last in the Atlantic? They will easily be better than Montreal, and more than likely be better than Boston.

Is someone LTIRed? I see 3.167 on cf website . And yeah they could but they’re gonna be strapped to the cap next off season with that I think it seems like it’s more of a long term issue having both but could see him signed soon obviously

Nobody is on ltir. They're counting 2 extra forwards and a 3rd goalie from their regular IR list. Boone and Texier go back into the regular lineup from IR which moves Gaunce and Meyer to the AHL and then Tarasov goes from the IR also to the AHL. That leaves them with 14 forwards, 7 defensemen and 2 goalies and $5,729,167 in cap space. If they trade Nyquist's $5.5 mil cap hit away then they're up to $11,229,167 in cap space. Easy to sign Laine with that much space.

The only significant signings for the next year would be Gavrikov, Texier, Peeke and Chinakhov and they would have somewhere around $11-12 mil in cap space. Texier is maybe a cap sacrifice in that situation.

The year after they have Sillinger, Johnson, Marchenko and Roslovic to consider and another $21 mil in cap space frees up that year. They're in a pretty good spot still over the next few years.