Speculation: Armchair GM Thread - Looking to the offseason

[Kat Predator]

Concerning Fabbro, there was a lot of talk that Poile was shopping him at the TDL. Might have be wishful thinking and nonsense. Poile did re-sign him immediately after the TDL.

Personally, I'd keep him around. I never really understood why he went from 1st pairing, as the wingman to a guy who had the best season of his career, to demoted to minimal minutes.

 

[Predsanddead24]

This sounds a bit strong. IMO, he's a solid, young D that hopefully still has some good upside. Since he is young, however, I'd think it would take a solid offer to entice management to think to move him.

Yeah I think regardless of what you think about Fabbro there isn't any real reason to move him unless you get a king's ransom (like the Jeannot trade or something). I don't see that getting offered, but I also didn't see the returns of some of our other trades coming but who knows. Otherwise, why not just let things play out another year and go from there.

As someone else mentioned Carrier is the much more interesting decision because he is poised to be a UFA at the end of next season. Do you try and lock him up long term? Sign him to a one year deal and see how things play out at the risk of losing him for nothing? Try and move him this offseason and roll with Livingstone next year?

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

I think we should refrain from trading anybody from the current d-corps. It's not like we have any embarrassment of riches atm. If we happen to have 4 guys on RD, great, we probably need to have 4 considering there are some question marks on Carrier's durability, Barrie's likelihood of staying past the deadline, and Foote's ability to even be a regular NHL player. There is no pressure here to make a move.

Now, if Jake Livingstone wants to try to create some pressure... go for it. I hope he does. But until/unless that happens, we don't really have anything to discuss in terms of trading a D away now. And even then... if Livingstone looks good in 5 or 6 games at the end of a lost season? What exactly does that mean? Farrance got a smaller cameo and looked pretty decent in that small sample. We might not even really get enough to go on regardless.

 

[nine_inch_fang]

Somewhere along the happy medium between Fabbro lovers and haters?

You didn't want to get called a Hynes apologist, huh?

Seriously though, it's a good topic, I freely admit to being positive about his abilities and am somewhat biased so a different substantive evaluation that puts him as a bottom pairing kind of guy would be interesting.

 

[Scoresberg]

Look, I don't mind Fabbro and I don't think trading him for a return like 2nd + B prospect makes a whole lot of sense. He's fairly young, cost-effective and can play without embarrassing himself.

That being said, I stand by what I said earlier. At most, he's your low-end 2nd pairing defenseman. Ideally, he's your go-to 3rd pairing guy.

 

[triggrman]

See you lose me at ideally he's a 3rd pairing guy. His skill and play are already above that level. The kid has consistently been tasked with carrying his pairing defensively.

 

[Scoresberg]

See you lose me at ideally he's a 3rd pairing guy. His skill and play are already above that level. The kid has consistently been tasked with carrying his pairing defensively.

Ideally - I mean in a Cup-contending team. I just don't see anything "more" from him. Which is fine, also.

To me, his biggest weakness is his decision-making under forecheck and pressure. He's also too timid offensively, and I think he could've had more offensive upside if we had developed him in a more offensive role.

Defensively he's sound but his size limits him to an extent. I'd be more comfortable with him as a "hybrid" mainstay defenseman in the top-four if he had more size.

 

[triggrman]

he does need to settle some, but remember, he's still our youngest defenseman.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

See you lose me at ideally he's a 3rd pairing guy. His skill and play are already above that level. The kid has consistently been tasked with carrying his pairing defensively.

Maybe if your "ideal" is for like a pre-Salary Cap dynasty team! Ideally I'd like that kind of team too.

I don't think Fabbro has upside much greater than he has already shown in previous years, mind you. But that was already a decent top-4 19-20 min/game guy. It just seemed a little "arbitrary" that they shifted him directly to the bottom pair to start this season, after his first 3 years were in a higher role right out of the gate.

He looks better again now that the trades and injuries have bumped him back up. Ditto for that stretch when McDonagh was hurt and he got a temporary bump in Decemberish. So while we need not oversell him or expect any huge untapped upside to manifest, I think it's safe to say he has ALREADY shown he's capable of being a solid contributor as a complementary top-4 partner.

 

[Scoresberg]

he does need to settle some, but remember, he's still our youngest defenseman.

Yeah, true. We can afford to wait him.

 

[Olderfan]

Takes those Dmen longer to develop. Fabbro’s problem is that he’s doing that development in the NHL instead of the AHL. We’ve seen him, early on, at his worst. He’s now better but appears to be reaching his peak; which is “serviceable”. He’ll do.

 

[Der Jaeger]

Thank you all for the response. From a Sabres perspective, trading for Fabbro and Sissons would be smart additions for the team.

Assuming that Hynes is not really happy with Fabbro's play (as it seems from your responses), and Poile was just re-signing Fabbro for a year so Trotz could make future decisions, what would be a sensible trade for the Preds?
It can be something generic (1st rounder + B prospect) or players off the Sabres rosters/prospect pool.

thanks in advance

 

[GoldOnGold]

Look, I don't mind Fabbro and I don't think trading him for a return like 2nd + B prospect makes a whole lot of sense. He's fairly young, cost-effective and can play without embarrassing himself.

That being said, I stand by what I said earlier. At most, he's your low-end 2nd pairing defenseman. Ideally, he's your go-to 3rd pairing guy.

I feel like he surpassed being a low-end 2nd pairing defenseman when he was Josi's partner en-route to a Norris-worthy year. He definitely won't ever be a #1 d-man, but he already has played an entire season of being a complementary #2 on the top-pairing. It's true that a lesser partner than Josi might expose his weaknesses more, but Josi had more even-strength production next to him than he ever did next to Weber or Ellis.

 

[Scoresberg]

Thank you all for the response. From a Sabres perspective, trading for Fabbro and Sissons would be smart additions for the team.

Assuming that Hynes is not really happy with Fabbro's play (as it seems from your responses), and Poile was just re-signing Fabbro for a year so Trotz could make future decisions, what would be a sensible trade for the Preds?
It can be something generic (1st rounder + B prospect) or players off the Sabres rosters/prospect pool.

thanks in advance

I'd certainly take a 1st for him. Don't know much about the Sabres' prospects so can't answer you there.

If the offer is not something significant (which you probably won't want to pay for Fabbro) it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for us to trade him.

We don't have much coming in the pipeline to replace him and he can play, he can fill those minutes.

 

[triggrman]

Or it could be Poile asked Fabbro to give it one more year, I'm sure Fabbro is frustrated.

 

[Der Jaeger]

I'd certainly take a 1st for him. Don't know much about the Sabres' prospects so can't answer you there.

If the offer is not something significant (which you probably won't want to pay for Fabbro) it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for us to trade him.

We don't have much coming in the pipeline to replace him and he can play, he can fill those minutes.

Do you think Trotz is going to look to move on from Duchene or Johansen? If so, the Sabres easily have the cap space to absorb either contract.

Is that worth enough to Nashville to facilitate a trade?

 

[Bringer of Jollity]

Do you think Trotz is going to look to move on from Duchene or Johansen? If so, the Sabres easily have the cap space to absorb either contract.

Is that worth enough to Nashville to facilitate a trade?

Can't see why he would trade either unless we got value back for them. We don't have any cap issues and Johansen is off the books after two more seasons, assuming he recovers from this injury enough to be a regular player again. Just getting rid of their contracts has no real value to us.

 

[Armourboy]

Do you think Trotz is going to look to move on from Duchene or Johansen? If so, the Sabres easily have the cap space to absorb either contract.

Is that worth enough to Nashville to facilitate a trade?

I mean none of us know what Trotz will do. I could tell you pretty close what Poile would do but not Trotz.

Trotz is just getting started so my guess would be he does nothing. If they want out he may do something but certainly not at a cost I don't think.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Do you think Trotz is going to look to move on from Duchene or Johansen? If so, the Sabres easily have the cap space to absorb either contract.

Is that worth enough to Nashville to facilitate a trade?

We also easily have the Cap space now. And, no disrespect intended to a Sabres team on the rise, but we're ahead of you in the standings, even while we rant about how bad our coaching is, and have had all these guys injured down the stretch, and made all those seller trades at the deadline. So I don't think we're looking for more picks or prospects, we are already planning for an immediate upswing into a playoff spot next season, just as you are.

Trading Fabbro even for a 1st doesn't really make sense for us, in that context. We need him on D. We already have lots of picks, and a fair number of D prospects who are more like 2 or 3 years off, but we need to keep Fabbro if we're going to push for a playoff spot next season. Which anyway, should be the default plan out of the gate. It could certainly go awry. In which case that stance could change at some point in the course of next season if we aren't keeping pace.

I don't think Trotz will be able to move on from Duchene or Johansen even if he wanted to. Duchene has his warts, but we do still need his goals. Johansen for all we know will be LTIRetired now... hopefully not, but at any rate, nobody is going to trade for him except at an astronomically negative value, which we don't have the motivation to pay. He's not going to be healthy in time to be bought out this summer, but if he does come back but can't perform well next season, a buyout in 2024 is going to be cheaper than the negative trade value, if it comes to that.

 

[Der Jaeger]

Thanks for the thoughtful responses, appreciate it

 

[wmupreds]

Trading Fabbro for a 1st (unless it's a pretty high one) at his age wouldn't really make sense to me except in a full rebuild scenario. He's done just fine for a 17th pick IMO so not a lot of point in swapping for a similar pick if we're planning to be competitive in the near term.

 

[PredsV82]

I havent the knowledge to weigh in with any authority but reading all this about Fabbro makes me think our perspective is wildly skewed by the fact that we have had an absolute embarrassment of riches in our defense ever since we drafted Suter, Weber and Klein in 2003.

Fabbro should be a solid top 4 on any team in the league. We are so spoiled by having had, for example, a beast like Ekholm or a skilled PMD like Ellis as our 2nd pair that we just cant see it

 

[BigFatCat999]

Another minor concern is the cap floor. Preds will be playing a LOT of rookies. I expect the cap to be 84 Million. Cap floor would be 71.4 million. (85% of 84 million) Preds will be over BUT it will be close.

PoileTrotz: Oh sure. we will eat 50% of Johansen and Duchene.

 

[wmupreds]

Another minor concern is the cap floor. Preds will be playing a LOT of rookies. I expect the cap to be 84 Million. Cap floor would be 71.4 million. (85% of 84 million) Preds will be over BUT it will be close.

PoileTrotz: Oh sure. we will eat 50% of Johansen and Duchene.

Cap floor is 85% of the midpoint, not the top. This year it's $61M

 

[BigFatCat999]

Cap floor is 85% of the midpoint, not the top. This year it's $61M

Thank you, I even googled it, LOL