I personally things that’s a pretty fair deal for Parayko and would take it. I imagine some others are gonna tell you no. Also, not sure if he waves for Buffalo, rumor has it he’d only waive for Edmonton to be close to home.

Very bad. Paraykos contract is bad

Thats true, but I really love him as a player, even more than Severson who is gone now and his salary is basically the same.
Also the cap will go up so not a huge problem there.

The parayko deal is quite bad.

Anchor contract

I agree but are there any other similar players with such skillset and physicality? I can think of maybe Carlo or Murphy who are making 1-2 mil less. But Carlo seems to be untouchable.
If someone can take his contract, it's BUF

You may feel he's piled up enough value for Parayko, but nothing in that offer is tempting. I loved Jokihatju in Chicago, thought he was going to be really good, but he has not progressed. He may have devolved. Ostlund is a tiny C, which the Blues don't cate for much. The 1st is deferred and with this trade, the pick value likely plummets. The most instantly enticing piece in the package is Philly's 2nd. Exactly none of this hurts to give up. So I do not agree at all that this offer is strong enough to consider, and I'm safely guessing Army would say the same thing. Nobody is going to pull Parayko away without giving something that hurts. Bet the farm on that one.

Anaheim has no need for UPL — we pass

Just because he’s small doesn’t mean he doesn’t have value. He’s a skilled, 19yo C. It wouldn’t hurt to have in the system. The 24 1st would be in the 20-32 range but still holds value. And that early second this year would be great. With our LD situation, I think we need to shift towards 3 years out and not next year. Parayko is still a great player and will be for several more years but as noted by all these Buffalo fans, the end of the contract isn’t going to be ideal. That will be the timeframe when we’re competitive again. Cap space is an asset and this deal gives us that.

But again, that’s what I would want. I know Doug thinks he can turn it around in a year or 2 but I think all that’s gonna do is give us 10 years of mediocrity.

The parayako defense from STL fans is reaching Gibsonian levels

1 - I didn't say he has no value. But "wouldn't hurt to have" is not getting Parayko. And he's not small, he's tiny. And we both know the Blues rarely want or acquire tiny Cs. It's not what they want, and it has been that way for decades.

2 - Never said it had no value. I said it's not good enough.

3 - We do not need to look three years out, and Army has said repeatedly we're not doing that. Everybody acted like this after the 17-18 season. You guys are just conditioned to assume the worst at all times and think everything is greener on the other player/prospect/pick. Relax, man. It's gonna be okay. When has this franchise ever had 10 years of mediocrity?

4 - Dude. These Buffalo fans never watch him play, they haven't a clue what they're on about. Not a one. And by the end of his contract, the cap will be at or over 100M. And he plays the exact style that ages well. Again, relax.

5 - Okay, great. What are you getting it for? What do we spend it on?

6 - You want to take a deal that isn't the best you could get? Why? They're offering us all the things we don't want. There's no cause to panic sell for a mish-mosh offer.

Army is trying to fix the LDs. That's clear. Let him have more than a week maybe.

The Parayko Dunning-Kruger from Sabres fans has remained at stratospheric levels. So there's also that.

Huh?

He can have more than one week but your can’t actually think the current roster is the same as it was in 17/18 or anytime during Armstrongs tenure. We finished the worst we have in his tenure and are locked in to essentially the same roster due to the contracts the D have. Moving Parayko is likely the only way to get some positive return and start changing the team. It’s not an overnight fix and I personally don’t think it’s worth giving premium assets to change the LD. I get you think I’m thinking the worst but I’m not, I’m just being realistic. We are not in a win-now, 1 or 2 moves away from the cup situation. Not sure why you think we’re so close.

It's always easy to tell when someone never watches a player/team. I've barely seen anyone who sounds like they have. So far, I've been told like I'm a four-year-old that Parayko is stuff like slow (uhhh what???), a hard physical type player (nope) and many other things that add up to things like his AAV is outrageous (puh-lease), his contract is an albatross (constantly from the never-watch-but-totally-know-everything-including-the-future bunch) and just he plain sucks (sigh). And when I ask how many times they've watched him, I get avoidance, crickets, disappearance, a couple of admissions that they've seen him like two times or maybe, maaaaybe every moon someone that has probably seen him a whole 5-6 times but can't quite remember. And that doesn't even count the guy who swore up and down that analytic models are objective measures. Like he just could not accept the factual reality of math. And they all speak with an unbreakable assurance that they're declaring facts. Somehow.

All the encyclopedic/real world knowledge one could ever need, right?

You keep speaking in the most pessimistic absolutes possible, when none of these opinions are actually absolutes at all. That is NOT realistic. It doesn't matter what the roster was in '18, I'm talking about the Chicken Little attitudes Blues fans love to carry around. But hey, I get it, I'm from there, I know why the fans are so pessimistic all the time. I also know one can get over it. And moving Parayko is not the only way to handle this, or even the best way to handle it, and even if it was, Army can find a much more suitable offer than this. This is everything the Sabres are fine giving up. Nothing the Blues actually want. THAT is realism.

He is definitely not worth more with this contract so please stop patronizing him

Who ever said he was worth more than his contract? What does that even mean?

This Parayko mania has been going on in various forms for years on CF, and I've yet to be wrong. Of course, I actually watch the player and the team and listen to management and understand how they operate. Now, if you tell me an estimation of what your GM would do with your players in your franchise, guess what... I will listen to you and learn something. Because while I watch the Sabres a decent amount, mostly because they're fun to watch, I do not have the nearby view you have. What I don;t do is parrot a bunch of wild comments from other people who never watch Parayko or the Blues. And when someone says their team isn't doing that because x and y or whatever, I say okay. I don't berate them for not liking my idea.

Those certainly are words

I don’t think I’m being pessimistic. I think I’m being optimistic for the future and hoping for moves that can do that. I don’t like how our team is structured and want to change it. That’s not being negative that’s my thoughts on our roster. And so what if Buffalo is okay with giving up these pieces, I’d happily take all of them. They are all solid assets. Plus, I know moving parayko isn’t the only or the best way to fix our issues, he could be a part of the future if we could restructure the left but I don’t think we’re gonna be able to do that in a way that builds us up for a long successful future. I think we do that and buy a year or 2 then have no futures and crumble again. I like the offer and thing it would benefit both teams. We were okay with giving up all the pieces to Buffalo in the orielley trade and now both teams are happy. Don’t see why this wouldn’t be similar.

Plus, I’ve said it multiple times. I mess around on cap friendly to do things I would want to do if I were the GM. Not what I think Doug would do. I agree he probably doesn’t want to go this route but I personally think it would be a good idea.

Buddy. Every single description you use is worst case scenario, if not downright irrational. You're still doing it in this reply.

And two of the pieces we gave up were large cap dumps totaling around 20M (which everyone seems to forget), so I'm not sure what pieces you're talking about.

Where do I go worst case scenario? I think this is a good trade for parayko and I think it would be a smart move for the team. And that helped prove my point that we gave up the pieces we wanted to. We wanted to give Tage over Thomas, we’re happy to give our first and then 2 roster players that we’re not worth their contracts.

I’m confused why you were preaching your kindness and willingness to accept other peoples opinions while you’re ****ting on me for no reason. It’s kinda funny. We see the blues as being in a different spot. That’s fine. You can go trade one of our late firsts for Ferraro or sign graves and use high picks to move leddy. I don’t think that’s a good move. Simple as that.

Like seriously, re-read all of this and tell me again with a straight face that I’m some doom and gloom hate the blues and doug sucks. Parayako is the worst player ever. Blah blah blah. I didn’t say any of that ****. I said that personally, I want to shoot for a 3 year rebuild/retool. That’s all. No need to be a dick.

First of all, I'm not being a dick and I'm not s***ting on you, nor do I recall preaching for kindness or whatever.

As for the pessimism, you said we need three years to fix the LD mess, if we try to fix it too fast we'll be mediocre for 10 years, that if we do it we buy a year or two then crumble, Parayko is the only way to get a decent return, his contract will end up bad, etc. So like anything we do that isn't a three-year plan will bomb and fail and crash and burn and we'll be buried for years (as if a three-year plan is magically foolproof or something). Sorry, but this team is not far from the one that gave Colorado it's toughest opposition on the way to their Cup last spring. And now that we have a coach for the D and the PK, even if we change nothing, they will probably bounce back fairly well. There is a way to tidy things up and carry on being competitive every year. And I'd certainly rather try that first before panic selling and planning to throw three prime years of Thomas/Buch/Kyrou/etc. and the last good years of Schenn/Faulk/Parayko/etc. away on purpose.

It's all in the execution and probably a little luck, just like in summer '18. Find a way to move one of Krug or Leddy or hell even Scandella with minimum pain and give Colt a proper partner finally, and the whole outlook changes. Just from that. But any way you slice it and any plan you want, this is a bad return for Parayko. And even if you think it's not a bad return, you cannot possibly think it's the best return we could get. Hell, this isn;t close to the best return we could get from Buffalo.

I wasn’t saying the a 3 year turn around is the only way. I said that’s what I want to do. Krug and leddy aren’t just gonna move. It’s going to cost you one of our firsts or something to do that considering they both have full NMC. We’re tight against the cap which we think is gonna go up but with the current CBA and Bettman holding escrow over the players heads, I don’t see the 90 million thing happening right away. A different partner for parayko would certainly help. It’s just a lot of moving pieces and holes this team has to put together a championship caliber team. In 18’, we missed the playoffs because we lost the last game of the year. We were out of contention with like 20 games left this year. We had the space, albeit the ROR trade created some of that space, to sign a big FA like Bozak and bolster. I think we could maybe do it for a year or 2 but not without spending most of our futures and I think we’d be left in a bad place. Again, this is a difference in options. I’m making like 3 ACGM right now that range from full rebuild, as you’ve already seen to a retool to a try and be immediately competitive. That one is definitely the hardest.