- 2 days ago
Mike Schopp shares his thoughts on the Sabres after the NHL Trade Deadline on Friday.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00The final Sabres trade is for winger Tanner Pearson of Winnipeg.
00:06He's also been, like I say also, like Shen and Carrick, in the league a long time.
00:11The Sabres are not, their average age went significantly up after these last 24 hours.
00:19Pearson has been on six teams, I think, four in the last four years.
00:23Vancouver, Montreal, Vegas, Winnipeg.
00:26This year for Winnipeg, another trade with the Jets.
00:29Three players from the Jets.
00:31Seven goals, 13 points in 52 games.
00:35Wonder if he's also depth.
00:38I gotta think, I'll guess that he is.
00:43So, there it is.
00:45Four players.
00:48Incredible.
00:50Is it incredible?
00:51What's incredible is that all of this has happened.
00:54That the Sabres have turned this season around so dramatically
00:57that they're adding four veterans today as opposed to, you know, trading them off,
01:05which is most years in the last decade and more.
01:08Logan Stanley, 6'7", defenseman, nine goals this year.
01:14Far and away the most of his career.
01:16So, that's probably pretty fluky.
01:18Luke Shen.
01:20He's old enough for me to probably have his hockey cards.
01:23That's back when I was still collecting before my wife and I moved, before we had kids.
01:29Luke Shen is back, what, 2000?
01:31He played as a teenager for the Leafs, right?
01:342009-ish.
01:35So, I should have made him the card of the day, maybe when I get home, if I have it,
01:40if I can find one.
01:41Not exactly, you know, in a frame.
01:43Sam Carrick from the Rangers.
01:45He's been around a long time.
01:47A forward, center.
01:48And now Tanner Pearson.
01:50The Sabres end up giving up five draft picks.
01:54A second next year.
01:57Four picks this year.
01:58Third, fourth, sixth, seventh.
02:01They're hosting the draft.
02:03At least they still have their first.
02:04When they had the Perico announcement, I thought about, well, do they want to trade?
02:08I guess they did.
02:10Their first round pick when you have the draft.
02:12I mean, maybe that's a conversation.
02:15Maybe it shouldn't be, but it can be.
02:17But that didn't end up happening.
02:20Jacob Bryson, Isak Rosanne go to Winnipeg.
02:25What do you think?
02:26803-0550 for your call.
02:28Sam Paniadovich rescheduled to 4.30.
02:30Sal Capaccio at 5.30.
02:32EJ Raddick, NHL Network at 6.
02:36Here's Bob with us.
02:37Hi, Bob.
02:39How are you doing today?
02:40Okay.
02:40I really like what they did.
02:42I feel like they've added some depth.
02:45And they didn't really disrupt the top nine and the forwards.
02:47Your top four defensemen.
02:49That's a pretty good young core.
02:51And I'd like to see those guys develop.
02:52And I think it was Mike Robitaille said this years and years ago.
02:55I'm like an empire broadcast, how much players develop just after one year of getting in
03:01the playoffs and just that experience of playing at that level.
03:04And I think that, you know, you've rewarded these guys with some help, but you haven't
03:08disrupted the core.
03:09And I think, you know, there's nobody playing better hockey than Buffalo Sabres, but they're
03:14going to have to figure out how to play playoff hockey.
03:16And I think that could take a few years to crack.
03:18But yeah, I'm really excited about the future here and going to the game tomorrow night.
03:22First time in quite a few years, I've been to a Sabres game.
03:25So I got tickets for that.
03:26And I'm really excited to, you know, see what develops here.
03:29Right.
03:30Yes.
03:30I bet you are.
03:33Thanks, Bob.
03:34Have fun tomorrow.
03:36You know, it's definitely the point about experience is definitely what they were thinking today.
03:45And I never thought they were going to disrupt anything by trading, you know, any important,
03:53no offense to Bryson, starter away.
03:56So I'm not surprised that they didn't.
03:58But I appreciate that they didn't.
04:01Like you said, the core, right?
04:05Last night on Twitter, when stuff was, you know, bubbling around what they might be doing.
04:12And then before that, even when you had Pareko, this was trading your most recent first round
04:18pick and then presumably this year's first for him.
04:24And as you know, if you were with us on Wednesday, that was, you know, a very much mixed feelings
04:31about it because he's a big name and a big guy.
04:36But what does he have left?
04:38I talked to Travis Yost yesterday and Travis thinks the Sabres dodged a bullet by Pareko turning
04:43them down.
04:44I don't know what he thinks about these players, by the way.
04:47Uh, the charts aren't so good on a couple of them, but anyway, um, that's what he thought.
04:53I mean, it was a, it was a mixed bag of opinions about what was going on with Pareko.
04:58And my thought was, and I tweeted this to a friend last night, like if you know the movie,
05:04all the president's men and you should, by the way, I think the show has sounded older.
05:10I mean, that's a classic certain movies are old, but it doesn't matter how old they are.
05:15The Godfather, you can't like, Oh, this guy's ancient.
05:18He's talking about the Godfather.
05:21So if you know all the president's men, there's a moment in the movie where Woodward and Bernstein
05:27exposing the Watergate scandal slip up and the white house gets what it wants.
05:34It's a chance to blast them, ridicule the work and basically claim that all of it's a
05:41lie and, you know, all of that kind of thing.
05:43And the editor of the Washington Post in the movie says, F it, let's stand by the boys.
05:49There's a big meeting.
05:51You know, what do we want to do?
05:52Are we going to backpedal?
05:53Do we want to retract the story?
05:55Anything.
05:55And he's like, let's stand by the boys.
05:57And that's how I felt last night about the Sabres at one point.
06:00Thinking about Pareko, and I'm sorry to go a little bit of a distance there, but it's
06:05just me here today.
06:07Let's stand by the boys, you know?
06:09And I think the point about the value of a playoff experience, the value of a run, makes
06:19sense.
06:20It's not always necessary, though.
06:23And this is where I guess it'll come out in the results if the Sabres win or lose after
06:29making moves with a specific goal of bringing in experience, size, you know, all of it's
06:38going to be depth.
06:38You bring in anybody, it's going to count as depth.
06:41But there are a couple of traits that they went for, and everybody would understand it.
06:48Size is always, you know, better than not.
06:51And experience is always considered better than not.
06:54But this season, and your calls are welcome at 803-0550, I won't talk about movies anymore
07:01or how people drive.
07:03This season has been so reminiscent of 05-06, which is, I mean, it's a compliment for one
07:13thing.
07:13Any season that reminds you of that season is, you know, great news.
07:20And one thing about that year was, that team did not have playoff experience.
07:26This was post-Hashek.
07:28I mean, I don't know.
07:29They probably had, I mean, they had Chris Drury, who maybe had been with the Avalanche
07:35on a run.
07:36I don't even know.
07:36It's so long ago.
07:37But they didn't have it.
07:39Like, they did not have playoff experience.
07:41That was a team with a couple of veterans like him and Breer, and then you had this core
07:46of players who came up through their system.
07:49Vanek, Roy, Miller, all those, Campbell, those guys who came up through Rochester.
07:54And there's a long list.
07:55That's what that team was.
07:57And I think they got a little bit of a short shrift going into the playoffs for not having
08:04that one trait.
08:06And it didn't hurt them.
08:08I mean, you want to tell me it did because they lost Game 7 to Doug Waite's team?
08:13I don't know.
08:14But they went deep.
08:17And I just, I think people are different.
08:21I think Tage Thompson doesn't have playoff experience.
08:25He has a gold medal from the Olympics from a higher caliber of competition than most,
08:33if not all, of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
08:36How about that?
08:37He also, like Paul mentioned, won gold at the Worlds last year.
08:41I mean, that's for players who aren't in the playoffs, but it's something.
08:45He scored the gold to win the tournament.
08:48He's got some experience winning important games.
08:52And he was very relevant in the Olympic run, by the way, as you know.
08:56So that.
08:57But Rasmus Dahlin, eight years, now nine, with the Sabres, no playoffs.
09:04Tons of world-level international competition.
09:10And he's never the reason why they don't win Sweden.
09:13I mean, the thing about him in his career is more that he doesn't play enough at times for Sweden,
09:20I think.
09:20I mean, I know I've heard that.
09:22But I don't think he's necessarily lacking because he hasn't been to the NHL playoffs.
09:29I mean, he's got tons of competition at the highest level in the world.
09:34And, you know, maybe there are other examples of this on this roster.
09:37But they don't have the playoff piece, as you said.
09:40And they went for it.
09:42And it makes sense that they did.
09:44I just don't think it always matters.
09:46And there are going to be teams in this playoff field that don't have a lot of it either.
09:51Whether that's Montreal or Detroit.
09:54Whoever it is.
09:55I mean, the Islanders.
09:57There are teams in here who are relatively new to it.
09:59You don't have Florida.
10:00You don't have Toronto.
10:02You don't have the Rangers.
10:03You don't probably have Washington.
10:05These are teams that are often, they're always in the playoffs.
10:08So there's a lot of new blood.
10:10I'm not worried about it.
10:12In 2006, they had to beat Philadelphia in the first round.
10:17They were very even with them.
10:19Then it turned out they had to beat the best team in the conference, Ottawa, in the second round.
10:25And they did it.
10:25They did both of those things.
10:27And I was not surprised.
10:30You know?
10:31I mean, it was close.
10:31Ottawa kind of outplayed them.
10:33But they also beat them in five.
10:35So say what you want.
10:37I mean, I wasn't then or now really worried about experience.
10:43Look at the run they've had.
10:46People say about, at the risk of belaboring this, people say about this time of year now, once you get
10:53to March, you'll hear NHL people say it.
10:56Like, they're all playoff games now.
10:58They're not.
10:58But you have a higher, the break, I think, helps, enhances this, too.
11:04That you have games now that mean a lot in the standings.
11:08And they're, like, almost every day.
11:11So, I don't know.
11:13How different is it?
11:14But Kekeleinan himself said a few different ways.
11:19That to make a run in the playoffs, he wanted them to be bigger and deeper.
11:26And they did that.
11:28He accomplished that.
11:30I also think, and this is something that I'm not sure really what I can say about it because it's
11:37all kind of on the inside and I don't really know what his conversations were like with teams or what
11:45Kevin Adams' conversations were like with teams.
11:48But the piece about Adams to Kekeleinan happening right in line with all of this is incredible.
11:56And it's hard to dismiss it as a catalyst in what has happened to the Sabres.
12:04I mean, it's circumstantial, maybe.
12:09Kekeleinan's asked about it.
12:10He says coaching, right?
12:11He's not going to say it's because of him.
12:13Even if he thinks it, he's not going to say it.
12:15So, it might be circumstantial, largely.
12:19Or it might be what we all kind of think the story could be, which is that once the Sabres
12:29moved on from Adams, there's a certain credibility in Kekeleinan that Adams lacked.
12:36That's what people were all saying, and it always made sense.
12:40I mean, he was here five-plus years with no real success, and I think you could work for him,
12:47be a player in that locker room, and really just question how serious an organization this is.
12:53I mean, we said that all the time.
12:56Non-serious.
12:57That's a damning term for a sports team, but the Sabres came off as non-serious, didn't spend to the
13:05cap, didn't make moves in seasons when they had a chance, like the last couple earlier when their flaws were
13:13evident.
13:13They sat there, and he's the GM.
13:18So, you make that move, and boom, all of this happens.
13:24You know, it's hard to dismiss that as a catalyst for this.
13:29I started to say, though, on the inside, like, we're listening to Kekeleinan.
13:34Do you have an opinion about this?
13:35We're listening to Kekeleinan last hour, and not for the first time, but it hasn't been that often yet.
13:41He's still, like, year one here, and he's very easy to listen to and understand and, you know, get and
13:51like, even.
13:52Like, what do you want there?
13:54You want, what do I want?
13:56I mean, maybe you'd be different.
13:57I like it when they tell you stuff.
13:59That helps me.
13:59That's interesting.
14:00I want to know what goes on in the back, and this is, any of their doing that is interesting
14:07to me.
14:07So, you want informative.
14:10You want a certain level of mutual respect, you know, question-answer, and you want the answers to make sense
14:19and be believable.
14:20And he comes off very strongly in all of this.
14:25And, look, if you're trying to make trades with your fellow GMs, that's a trait you want.
14:32I did always try to stick up for Adams in this area with us when he stopped doing our show
14:43before this year started for some reason.
14:45I don't know if that was even our decision, but that didn't happen this year.
14:48But other years when he would come on once a month or so, I liked those conversations.
14:53I thought he was somebody that wanted to tell you really what was going on.
14:58You know, he would take a question that was just a little bit off topic.
15:02I liked my conversations with him, our conversations with him.
15:06But he did get pretty defensive at times.
15:08He did kind of lose the plot a couple times, and then, you know, you had the palm trees thing.
15:13And whether it was anything personal about him inside or not, and it doesn't have to be.
15:20I don't know.
15:22They were just not willing to take shots.
15:28And, you know, if you're Dahlin or one of these stars, it's just, it makes sense to think that you
15:35would not have everything to give.
15:39As damning as that can be about a player, especially when they're making tons of money and the captain.
15:44I never saw that in Dahlin, but I often wondered what he was thinking.
15:48Like, what did I get into here?
15:50He can love the city all he wants, but I'm halfway through my career maybe, and I've just accomplished nothing.
15:57As a teammate, as a player on a team.
16:00So, that move needed to happen probably, like, years ago.
16:07And it finally did.
16:09And it finally was a GM who had been a GM before.
16:15And that's something that the Sabres never had.
16:18I don't know.
16:19Maybe John Muckler would count.
16:22Scotty Bowman.
16:23I mean, decades ago.
16:24It was always somebody who was new at it.
16:28And I think that's, it's tougher for those guys to establish their own credibility.
16:34And when it goes a while without any success, then it can be a real drag, I suppose.
16:40So, credit to them for finally, to Pagula, for finally getting there.
16:45And look what it has led to.
16:47The caller is going to his first game in years and can't wait.
16:51And it's against Nashville.
16:54Sorry, Nashville.
16:55Nashville and Minnesota are the two teams over the years when we talk about attendance.
17:00They're the teams we tend to pick on as, like, these are the, you know, these are not marquee games.
17:10But, I mean, it's a Saturday.
17:12Still, like, there's definitely, Kekalainen talking about the building, that doesn't sound like spin at all.
17:19I can believe that completely.
17:21I've been in there, and maybe so have you, when it's like this.
17:26And it's the best.
17:28And this is when Buffalo, as a hockey market, really shines.
17:32And we'll talk to EJ Raddick later.
17:35I'm excited to talk to him about that.
17:37I think some of hockey guests and people over the years that have come and gone, you know,
17:43and there just hasn't been a relevant team to discuss, we've just missed that.
17:48It's not just going to games when it's still light out.
17:52It's, we've missed the getting takes on how hot this market can be when this is happening.
18:05And I want to think that, at this point, these fans, you, are all the way there.
18:12I mean, I guess there's still 20 games left, and there can be some question about how good they are,
18:20I suppose.
18:22But 26-5-2, who does that?
18:27You watched the game last night.
18:29Every five minutes, I thought I was hearing A.J. Maleshko or Bob Wischusen say,
18:35make some reference to, this is the best team in the NHL since X.
18:38This is how they've become the best team in the NHL since X.
18:42Wischusen and Maleshko, by the way, what a combination of names for a booth.
18:47What a pair of names.
18:48I loved last night.
18:50I had a smile on my face the whole game.
18:52And they're getting calls, right?
18:54Did you think the Norris goal would count?
18:57Well, Doan is in the crease, and he turns on his own to face the goalie, and he makes contact
19:02with the goalie.
19:03Good goal.
19:04How about Malenstein running that guy into the wall?
19:08Right in the back.
19:09He turned right at the wrong time for Malenstein.
19:11Right in the back.
19:12Two minutes.
19:14He's gone.
19:15He wasn't gone.
19:16It was a two-minute penalty that they killed off.
19:18The Penguin coach, you could read his lips.
19:20He was just in disbelief.
19:21Like, what is going on tonight?
19:24That's when you know you're hot.
19:27Maybe, you know, honestly, maybe they want one of these new defensemen to be a heavy.
19:36That's kind of what they probably will want.
19:38And if they had been on the scene for Malkin and Darlene last night, they'd probably take on Malkin.
19:46I'm glad they weren't.
19:47I got a five-minute power play.
19:49I scored four minutes into it and never looked back.
19:51If I get a penalty there on some dumb retaliation thing, then let's not have that.
19:57This is better.
19:59Nothing escalated.
20:00The Sabres walked away.
20:01They went on the power play.
20:02They scored the winning goal, and that was it.
20:04And Malkin left.
20:06Good enough for me.
20:07I didn't need to see him confronted.
20:09It would have been stupid.
20:10So, yeah, it's all going so well.
20:16Let's get Frank in quickly.
20:17Hi, Frank.
20:19Hey, good afternoon, Mike.
20:20I just want to touch base with your mentioning what you think can actually change with this team.
20:25And I want to bring up the fact that when we got rid of certain players, like players who thought
20:30they were maybe too good to be here
20:32and wanted to be elsewhere, like J.J. Paterka, I mean, when we brought in, like, Doan, players that were
20:39maybe, you know,
20:41wanted to get ice time, it just seemed like when we brought those players in, it added a spark to
20:46this team.
20:46And I don't know when the hooting and hollering started in the locker room, but the culture, it seems like
20:52these guys have, like,
20:53energy about them that, you know, is contagious.
20:57And you can see it in their play on the ice.
20:59Yeah, I totally see the same thing.
21:02Energy is great word, confidence, belief, all of that.
21:07I think players would, to a man, say the same thing.
21:09It shows.
21:10Thank you, Frank.
21:11Next up, Sam Panijatovic.
21:13We'll talk a little DJ more when we come back.
21:16No Bulldog today.
21:17We'll talk a little DJ more when we come back.
Comments