The Jeremy and Joe Show LIVE | June 26th 2025 | WGR SportsRadio550
good morning breaking news over overnight jj purka is no longer a buffalo saber the sabres have traded purka to the utah mammoth for defenseman michael kessler and forward josh don shortly after the deal purka signed a new contract with the mammoth for 5 years at $7.7 million per year on top of the persa trade reports are still swirling that the sabres are close to a bow and byum trade though no reports on any potential destinations as of yet in other nhl news the nhl and nhlpa are meeting to discuss new terms on a on the next collective bargaining agreement that doesn’t expire until 2026 but one main topic of discussion is increasing to an 84 game season rather than 82 darren drager also reported yesterday the nhl is looking to expand once again with front runner cities being atlanta and houston the nhl draft is tomorrow night at 7 o’clock be sure to stay tuned to all our draft coverage throughout today and tomorrow and the weekend right here on wgr coverage of the nhl draft is brought to you by outlet liquor when you need to stock up it’s the place to buy a case what’s your outlet by feel carar and joyce your border attorneys and by dash’s market serving western new york for over 100 years shop the family of finer foods the nba draft was last night unsurprisingly the dallas mavericks select 18-year-old cooper flag with the first overall pick flag was played flag paid one season for duke recording 19 points per game for the blue devils that’s your paddock chevrolet sports update paddock chevrolet celebrating 90 years of being your hometown dealership i’m josh schmidt for wgr sports radio 550 when it’s really coming down out there last night i janna says to me “we need to cover the patio furniture before we go to bed.” and i said “yeah why?” “well it might rain a little bit in the morning.” i’m like “ah it’s not going to rain but i’ll cover it.” thank god i listened to my wife that that sentence has been uttered many times in my life but yes i woke up this morning and said “wow glad i covered the patio furniture.” yeah the word uh monsoon came to mind uh at times early this morning waking up luckily for uh jeremy who’s got the 100 holes of golf as all those guys do at wanuka country club this morning it doesn’t appear that it’s raining like that down in hamburg so and i don’t think it’s going to last yeah so right yeah so it could be worse it could be worse i guess good morning maybe you are waking up to the news that i know i woke up to i think it had the trade happened at like 12:45 a.m last night i i i went i had a long day yesterday went to bed early because having to get up for the show is not normal for me right i got the alert like the text alert while i was sleeping okay did you wake up to the text alert yes okay so you you kind of did find out in real time then i i found out in real time from the sabers text alert right so it had been reported i guess before that before they make it official but i found out via that and i had to look at the phone to kind of see exactly what was happening and wait a minute oh my god and you start to think all right do i get up right now and look into it no no no i’m going to talk about this in like 5 hours right go back to bed rest up there’s time there’s time to get to that do you do you keep your phone then on like on alert like overnight like you’re text someone texts you like there’s the the ping notification question i will have to tell you and so i do i do part of the reason is when i was younger my father passed away when i was in college it was a like more of a late night thing and that happened so i’ve always been weary of okay plus i’m in the business of news happening like i just have to be ready for something to happen the ironic part is the night the bills allegedly traded for antonio brown i had my phone on silent without realizing it when i went to bed and did not know okay so i actually never had to deal with that you didn’t i meanwhile i drove in here to talk for an hour with brian thinking that the deal had hap was h was like done so i’ve done a show talking about antonio brown coming to the buffalo bills and i’ve done i basically slept through the whole thing and woke up and said “hey what happened what are you guys talking about i didn’t see this it was over by the next morning.” no doubt about it um but to answer your question what’s funny is a couple nights ago had a few texts come in late just for things that people were texting me about and it was like dude it is it’s late i’m trying to fall asleep but i don’t want to shut off my phone right you know so and then you wake up this morning and it’s almost appropriate right i think a lot of people are upset and here’s it’s gloomy and it’s raining and it’s it’s appropriate that what the sabres did last night trading jj purka joe i said yesterday on the extra point show you were there mhm i said yesterday i don’t see any way this team gets better in 2025 on the ice simply with a purka trade you’d have to get the best player in the deal and i didn’t see that happening at all there’s no way to me they were trading jj purka and getting better via just a jj purka trade so if you’re going to deal him and by the way the the goal this year is to be better right you have to be better you have to win they’re not trying to get they’re not trying to take a step back rebuild they’re not trying to get younger the only way to get better via a jj patka trade is to have a secondary move after that doesn’t have to be a trade could be a free agent signing a plan that says “yes we’re moving him but we’re replacing him with player x or player x y players x y and z whatever it is.” okay i would say i think the opinion is after what happened the first part of that is right they did not get better they are not better today than they were 24 hours ago they are worse on the ice than they were what’s next anything because if you don’t replace if you don’t now make another move to get better this is not a good trade for them to get better in 2025 and be a better roster i completely agree i do not believe that they are a better roster this morning jeremy joe by the way sal is in this morning and if you have reaction to this trade feel free to get in on the phone lines at 8030550 we’ll be talking about it all morning love matt oy a little bit later on in the show we have some open paul hamilton as well but open time for your for your calls it it to me on its own really the only defense for it in my opinion is the well if i then go and trade bo byum for a really good forward then i look back on the totality of the deals and i feel pretty good about it but how does that feel that that’s the defense or maybe the best defense when you make a trade of with a player of this caliber that’s generally not a great trade in the moment when you your instant reaction is well i hope they do this to offset what they just did because what they just did to me is they caved they caved on a player that didn’t want to be here and they said okay pretty quickly like they did not really show much of a backbone in my opinion to trying to figure out if there could be a future here where purka would sign a short-term contract or even see if like go ahead you think you can get an offer sheet from somewhere go do that and we’ll match it like there was none of that from this team with this player i thought at least from reading elliot freriedman and listening to elliot freriedman over the course of the week it sounded like from him which was a little different sounding than from other insiders like i think frank saravelli was more plugged in on the agent and that side of it but freriedman had a sentiment for two weeks of the sabres don’t want to do this they don’t want to trade purka they’d like to find a way to keep this relationship going or they would trade him they’ve begun listening but the only way they do it is if they i don’t think he used the word blow your socks off but it was by all intents and purposes what what he said that you’re really going to have to give them a juicy offer to get this player off their team michael kesserling and josh don to me doesn’t strike that chord and it doesn’t mean that those two players cannot help the sabres i think there are some things to like about both of them really what this trade does for me is it confirms a lot of priors about the sabres that you might have had one the players that want to be here mentality right again no fighting no what do you mean you want out okay you have you have four years of of we have four years of leverage of contract control before you can hit unrestricted free agent status so okay i respect your um wanting out but no i’m not doing that i’ve got you for four more years i’m at least playing you for one more of the four and he’s got a sign to the not spending to the cap you you would have been had that confirmed yesterday at this time they could go and use it like owen i woke up to your tweet of like well now the sabres do have all this cap space to use and i’d love for that to be true how confident are we though that the sabres are going to turn around and they’re now viewing this as man look at we got $21 million in cap space now after trading purka we didn’t have to pay him 7.7 million which is what he signed with utah so we can go use that that’s not how i approach that that’s not how i think about it on the surface it’s oh they’re not going to spend at the cap again because they traded a player that cost almost $8 million and they replaced him with a couple of players that make less than $2 million total so that prior would be confirmed and the other one which this isn’t necessarily a negative one this is something i think we’ve known about them for two years which is they want to be tougher to play against they absolutely want to be tougher to play against and i think they did that with this trade they got a good defensive defenseman who i’ve seen described even though he’s 6’5 as physical but he’s not like the meanest defenseman he will drop the gloves if he needs to but he’s not going to be a bone crushing hitter out there so that helps you and then josh don looks like he’s a player that makes a really solid defensive impact but what did i give up to get tougher to play against you know like i gave up my second best five on five score to not great in the power play but i gave up a lot of goals a lot of points and a lot of contract control to get two players that are pretty good the only thing that you might get to to me to say “look i get it you kind of had to do it this way is looking at the number he signed with in utah.” 7.7 for how many years five years five years five years 7.7 7.7 for five years and i i could see fans right now saying “yeah that’s i’m not paying jj burka that much.” like if that’s what his asking price was and he was going to make things really difficult on this organization but i’ll go back to but you still had you had control here like you had leverage is he going to sit out the whole year you’re going to qualify him and what’s he going to do go to germany and play i guess he could do that and joe there is a scenario and remember we talked yesterday we said yesterday we may we we wondered what kevin adams meant by i’ll have more specifics i can get more specific after the draft right if kevin adams tells us and we don’t know if he’s going to do this or not if he tells us after the draft look guys the reality is jj burko was going to make things very difficult and said and we we didn’t know how long this could go we could get to september he’s not playing for us we had to make a move here because this is what he wanted we didn’t want to do that right it’s it’s kind of the james cook situation but different because the bills actually he’s under contract and football’s different but you know how you say it could get ugly and if he says that and you get to we had to do that and then you think well how many other teams were willing to pay him 7.7 that’s why you got this return utah was willing to do it not as many teams so you have less biders that’s the to to me that’s the only kind of the best way to get to i can make a little more sense of this because otherwise what i keep coming back to is you got to be better in 2025 that’s the goal everyone knows everyone stated it people’s jobs are on the line this trade in itself does not make you better 7.7 for 5 years would you have been okay with that if they did this if we woke up today instead to the sabres just signed jj burka to 7.7 over 5 years what’s your reaction i think it would have been great news i think it would have been great news because i don’t really view 7.7 as that expensive for a player of his caliber disagree i think actually we have yet to as a fan base been i mean he’d be that that’s more than tage by the way he’d be the second highest paid player joshua norris 7.9 taage thompson 7.1 how about that a guy that some people forget is even on the team because they only played three games their highest paid forward but we haven’t as a fan base really even been exposed to what players like this get in the open market because you have two things that have been working against that one sabres have never spent to the cap since you know it’s been at least 5 years since they spent to the cap it’s like $30 million of unused cap dollars in the last three seasons four seasons that they haven’t used so that’s one part of it the other part of it is they sign guys so early that you never go through this with tage where ta 7.1 million guarantee you taage is not a $7.1 million hockey player he’s closer to a $10 million hockey player the other thing now is the cap has gone up big time $95 million this season and next year there are talks that it could be over a hundred so $7.7 million to me would have been welcomed for this player he’s a very good especially on a 5-year deal versus a leaving even longer maybe you can revisit and see where you where you are sure i would have been fine with the five years i mean i it was two years i would have been okay with it just anything that is going to have him on the ice for you this season because this season i don’t care about the age for this moment in time i’m trying to win right now if i’m that team and this guy helps me win in a big way and to have him dealt like this this quickly where oh man like the worry of oh he might not be signed and sit out in training camp in september just come on i i’d hate to harp on the same example all the time but jonathan duan wrote a letter to the lightning saying he’d never play for the organization again and the team said “yeah we’re still not trading you.” and he ended up playing for them again it happens and and yesterday the other part of it was what i said when we were on together if kevin adams does this if he trades him only because the guy says “i’m not playing for you i want to play for you.” and his mantra is i only want players who want to be here and here you have a 23-year-old who has not developed we know that look i mean he’s super young in this league who’s a highle scorer for you and you say “okay you don’t want to be here i’m going to trade you.” it’s setting to me it’s just setting a bad precedent to keep doing this because what’s to stop the next guy from doing it and by the way maybe that’s why they signed maybe that’s why they signed ta thompson early and matias samson early and dylan cousins early because i just don’t want to get a position where they say they don’t want to play for me anymore it’s not even about the yeah that’s right i don’t want to be in that position you just made it if this is the reason why you’re trading ta thompson guess what you just made it even easier for the next guy to walk into your office and say “wait that’s all i need to do to get to go somewhere else i don’t want to be here anymore please trade me.” okay like that i i i fear about that i i would too a little bit i used the example yesterday of was high school or college or whatever maybe you had this where you have a job like a like a retail job that like that really stinks nobody likes it and but you got like a group of friends that are there so you’re all doing it together or whatever and then that first person quits and then it’s like okay i think within a month everybody’s gone cuz like all right we’re good here and sure if in a year maybe right now they’re saying i’m good we’re going to give it another year i’m not thinking about it right now but in a year if they miss the playoffs again and dene goes year eight i think i might be done and he thinks you know jj got out pretty easily last year mhm wasn’t that contentious it wasn’t that much of a fight he got right out then it might allow them to be it might allow them to get to that decision quicker rather than an organization that listen you just you can’t just do everybody’s got to be dying to wake up a buffalo saber like adams talked about earlier in the week you can’t assume everybody on the team is thinking that way it’s just you you haven’t earned that as a team and as an organization you have to you have to earn that and they have a locker room right now with guys that it just might be how depending on how brash a person is where okay a guy like purka has the self-confidence to go tell his agent like yeah go go get me out of there like i don’t want to be there where there might be other players on the team that are thinking it every day but they don’t really want to make a problem and now when you show everybody else like oh it won’t really be that much of a problem we’ll just trade you in a week or in a month however long it’s been since purka might have caught it out just i i don’t like the precedent that sets and i don’t like that they were willing to set that precedent for only this much which again like if you don’t know much about these players listen that’s nope no shame on you like these are not really household names in the league they’re young players they have played each two full seasons in the nhl they have actually only played one right 22 and 25 not that they’re here to score goals but they have scored a combined goals in their careers less than what purka scored last season so there’s that but one of them is a defenseman and kerling could be good i watched some of him this morning like 65 he skates really well he has a nice shot although i did see a good evaluation of him that he shoots all the time like he has a he shoots a lot which might not be a good thing because he only scored seven goals um but whatever like there looks like i’m kind of here for that that’s funny just shoot just get a guy that just shoots all the time and like we’re just gonna go mad about it they’re gonna love it when it goes in and then like why is this guy shooting yeah he’s the jamus winston of defensemanly unccoring it so that might be a good player right shot defenseman 6’5 like i we could talk more about him we’ll try to get a guest on from utah at some point and then josh don who’s going to help them on defense good defensive forward let me ask you this you just said it right shot d remember kevin adams even said in the press conference right shot deer very hard to come by do you think is it i mean it reads to me like they kind of made sure like if we’re going to do this we got we got to get that type of player back which kind of pins you in a little bit of a corner if you’re going to do that like hey what’s the asking price for jj purka you ask you know you ask 20 teams who are interested and every team he talks to he says you got to give me back a right shot d y that really limits the pool of what you can trade for it does and i i don’t man i i think they probably did prioritize that in a big way and i would question that i would really question that because the whole left shot right shot d i do feel like it is way overvalued especially when the sabers specifically have two defensemen that lead that position group one in dene who has spoke openly about that he prefers the right side because it gives him more passing angles as a defenseman and then two adams is the one who said this not anybody else at the end of season press conference when asked about right shot left shot d and and owen power he said that they had numbers that indicated power is better on the right side than he is on the left i guess that’s not true or it’s true and they just don’t care or they just think that the future he’ll be better on the le i don’t know but i i didn’t have any problem with dene power playing on their off sides and i think that if you if they acquired a lesser player because he’s a righty instead of a lefty that’s not going to sit well with me but but he is right like there are not a lot of right shot d that are available they are way overvalued in the league and listen that would be one area where i’d like a gm to kind of take advantage of the league not fall in line with oh yeah i’ll spend a ton to get guys that i mean keserling he kesserling cost a lot to get jj purka is what it cost to get this guy as a right shot defenseman who has never played 18 minutes a night per season he’s played it in a single game i’m sure 17 minutes and 41 seconds okay i’ll let’s hear what they have to say about an increased role cuz i would imagine they’re putting him on the ice 20 minutes a night at least to make this trade worth it well i i want to get into today to what could be next because you have to start thinking now about what they could do but i’m looking at the number and i’m thinking about the conversation did you hear yesterday the conversation i had with josh about you know how offer sheets work with the aav compared to a normal aav yeah i think so uh so so so so if you sign a player to an offer sheet it doesn’t matter if it’s six years or seven years or 10 years you only take the total value and squeeze it to five years for the compensation purposes interesting i didn’t know this until marty brought it up on sabers live so if you if you if you sign a if you sign an offer sheet to a guy for let’s just use round numbers here 7 years 70 million mhm it’s not 10 million a year for the compensation purposes it’s 70 divided by five not seven really yes so i’m looking at the number i’m like so that’s why marty said marty said this a couple weeks ago he said “that’s why offer sheets are generally no longer than 5 years.” now i look at peter’s contract he signs five years 7.7 i’m thinking that maybe utah made it known to buffalo we’re going to sign him to an offer sheet of 7.7 you look at that aav of 7.7 offer sheet what what is the comp two first a second and a third i’m sorry a first a second and a third one first one first a second and a third if i’m the sabres i’ve said this all along and i’ll stick to it i’m not interested in that i’m not taking that compensation i don’t care no so so what does that lead you to savers go “okay we’re not paying them that so just make a deal and give us players.” because that because to me it has to be where the sabres then said “then we’re yeah we’re not going to match that offer sheet but we’re also just we don’t want the compensation so what do you want to do here or you match it right they could have matched it i agree with you or you match it i agree with that and they should have done that but but my my thought is here this is what happened right that they decided we’re not paying that money but this is where this is where i just don’t and we got to take a break and we have some some guys who want to get in on on the phone lines on this that’s where i i just don’t feel like the sabres were squeezed i know that there was the talk of the offer sheet and you know the a guy that doesn’t want to be there but i don’t feel like they were squeezed that much because even in a hypothetical like that i’m still the guy with the leverage if i have the opportunity to match it cuz okay i’m i’m not saying you’d want him to play the whole five years but all right here you just gave me f an extra year of control you’re under contract now for five years and i’ll trade you when someone offers something good i’ll look i’ll like to in in respect to the player like i’ll call around even i’ll listen but i’m not trading you until somebody gives me the value and until then you’re under contract and you need to keep playing but somebody wants you and wants to pay you right and listen that’s the other just there’s a lot of asset or factors to get to on this and the idea that they felt like they had to trade him but purka like you didn’t even test him in his agent of what if they sit out and don’t play for you at the beginning of the season after you match an offer sheet or something how’s that going to look on him hockey is not like other sports like hockey culture could look down on you big time for that if you sit out games and don’t play so i just i think the saber i don’t i think the saber should have called his bluff i think they should have called his bluff on whether he might have sat out or not played or not signed a contract just and they didn’t even test it didn’t even test it i think technically i don’t know i have to look operationally i could be wrong i don’t think you could sit out after matching an offer sheet because that becomes binding i do think you could sit out after giving him a giving him a qualifying offer and then him yeah you’re right i what i’m saying though he he could have said he could have just not signed though i’m saying okay once he signs the offer sheet he signs then he’s got to play he’s signed he’s not under he’s he’s not under contract until during an rfa status right 8030550 is the phone number mark and scott if you hang on hold through the break we’ll get to you right when we come back we have open phone lines at 8030550 jj purka traded last night late last night almost 1:00 in the morning for michael kesserling and josh don of the utah mammoth the sabres trading another one of their critical players to a team that didn’t exist 5 years ago they did that before um jeremy is doing hundred holes right now we’ll check in with him get his thoughts on this trade and also what’s going on and how he’s doing down at wanuka we’ll talk to matt oy a little bit later on he did a mock off season yesterday we already got that we already got one deal that’s happened so off seasonason’s already begun for the sabres draft on friday it’s jody biosi sal kapacio your phone calls next here on wgr really what this trade does for me is it confirms a lot of priors about the sabres that you might have had one the players that want to be here mentality right again no fighting no what do you mean you want out okay you have you have four years of of we have four years of leverage of contract control before you can hit unrestricted free agent status so okay i respect your um wanting out but no i’m not doing that i’ve got you for four more years i’m at least playing you for one more of the four and he’s got a sign to the not spending to the cap you you would have been had that confirmed yesterday at this time they could go and use it like owen i woke up to your tweet of like well now the sabres do have all this cap space to use and i’d love for that to be true how confident are we though that the sabres are going to turn around and they’re now viewing this as man look at we got $21 million in cap space now after trading purka we didn’t have to pay him 7.7 million which is what he signed with utah so we can go use that that’s not how i approach that that’s not how i think about it on the surface it’s oh they’re not going to spend at the cap again because they traded a player that cost almost $8 million and they replaced him with a couple of players that make less than $2 million total so that prior would be confirmed and the other one which this isn’t necessarily a negative one this is something i think we’ve known about them for two years which is they want to be tougher to play against they absolutely want to be tougher to play against and i think they did that with this trade they got a good defensive defenseman who i’ve seen described even though he’s 6’5 as physical but he’s not like the meanest defenseman he will drop the gloves if he needs to but he’s not going to be a bone crushing hitter out there so that helps you and then josh don looks like he’s a player that makes a really solid defensive impact but what did i give up to get tougher to play against you know like i gave up my second best five on five score i thought at least from reading elliot freriedman and listening to elliot freriedman over the course of the week it sounded like from him which was a little different sounding than from other insiders like i think frank saravelli was more plugged in on the agent and that side of it but freriedman had a sentiment for two weeks of the sabres don’t want to do this they don’t want to trade purka they’d like to find a way to keep this relationship going or they would trade him they’ve begun listening but the only way they do it is if they i don’t think he used the word blow your socks off but it was by all intents and purposes what what he said that you’re really going to have to give them a juicy offer to get this player off their team michael kesserling and josh don to me doesn’t strike that chord and it doesn’t mean that those two players cannot help the sabres i think there are some things to like about both of them breaking news overnight jj purka has been traded to the utah mammoth the sabers trade pura to the mammoth for defensive defenseman michael kessle ring and forward josh don shortly after the deal perka signed a new contract with the mammoth 5 years at $7.7 million per year on top of the perska trade rumors are still swirling around bow and bum sabres and bum are reportedly splitting and bum is looking for a trade to another team in the nhl no potential destinations reported as of yet in other nhl news the nhl and nhl pa are meeting and discussing new terms on the next cba one main topic of discussion is increasing to an 84 game season darren drager also reported yesterday the nhl is looking to expand once again with the front runner cities cities being atlanta and houston the nhl draft starts up tomorrow night at 7 o’clock the sabres still currently hold the ninth overall pick in the first round be sure to stay tuned to all our draft coverage throughout the weekend right here on wgr coverage of the nhl draft is brought to you by outlet liquor when you need to stock up it’s the place to buy a case what’s your outlet by feel carar and joyce your border attorneys and by dash’s markets serving western new york for over a hundred years shop the family of finer foods those are your paddock chevrolet sports headlines paddock chevrolet celebrating 90 years of being your hometown dealership paying someone more money hoping that they’ll make them happy isn’t usually a recipe for success you know you have to have players that buy into and believe what you’re doing and wake up every day in buffalo excited to be a saber i i think that’s important in saying that are there hard conversations with times are players at times frustrated with things absolutely and that’s part of the relationship building that i believe in from my job through the coaches having those conversations there’s hard days too where players are frustrated or i’m frustrated and but that doesn’t mean you just because a player is upset at that day and you’re just trading them kevin adams you know i just to get the details on that example that i used from the last segment about this happened to the lightning once upon a time with one of their young stars and they decided not to do anything jonathan duan who they drafted third overall his agent the same agent by the way that jj purka has alan walsh whose paul’s talked about wrote a letter to the lightning where it said quote “in light of recent developments it’s clear for both sides best interest that the lightning tampa bay lightning trade jonathan is there’s no reason for jonathan to continue with the tampa bay lightning organiz organization in any capacity we will have no further comment as we await the lightning to conclude a tra to conclude a trade that involves jonathan he played 92 more games for the team he played 16 playoff games by the way and was almost a point a game player and helped them in those playoffs and then they traded him for a top pair defenseman to montreal to montreal like more than a year later mhm i mean this team would have traded him in an hour for a third pair guy i don’t know jj purka traded to the utah mammoth start taking your phone calls on this at 803 0550 on this deal we’ll also get to what’s to come next because i think purka leaves a big hole in their forward group with his with his departure and we got to get to that too also as sal brought up in the break uh the sabres traded for shane don’s son yes yeah so i’m sure many will remember when shane don was being tied to the sabres i guess 10 years ago maybe more now i don’t even remember darcy pushed really hard for him in free agency yeah this was like it was it was shane don season here for a while and that never happened no he didn’t want to come well here we are yep josh don shane don’s son uhhuh traded to the buffalo sabres right after he began his career career in arizona josh don mark and tana wanda’s first up this morning what’s up mark hey guys good morning thanks for taking the call sure i’m just i think i’m just really frustrated with the savers right now and i think it stems from the uh the meeting with kevin adams and jason carmonos and them the other day and it just felt like i don’t know it it felt like he kind of was trolling the fans a little bit and like he was acknowledging that jj wanted out we all could see it by him s not saying it it just it felt like an embarrassing day and then to see the trade results this morning that also felt really kind of embarrassing so it sounds like you guys are kind of there too but thanks for thanks for listening yeah thanks thanks mark for the call what the what’s the the defense what’s the how do they win it how do they win this trade how good does this player kessle ring by the way is is how you pronounce his name the l comes before the r kessle ring how good does michael kessle ring have to be i i i go back i go back to i you can of course people will do this we do this with every trade what did you get in return of the trade yeah that’s fine i still think there’s a path for if you want to really look at total totality of the picture for them to get better if they have a plan that’s bigger than this right there has to be you’re right like i i it’s almost impossible to see a team getting better if this was it right yeah you’d have to have these two players one of them would have to so smash right i mean sure and i just don’t see that happening so like do you see one of these players signing an $8 million contract no no way right exactly that’s the point so no way so to me just like i said yesterday there’s almost joe going into this i i figured there’s no way you can get better on the ice trade jj just no way unless there’s something that comes after that that you have a plan for that you know that you’re going to do a trade or a free agent signing say look we had to move jj to make this work right and you could even argue did you have to move jj but no moneywise spot-wise top six all that mhm that’s how you get to okay i can kind of see what you did here but to me it’s still kind of a long shot scott and hamilton on this morning scott hey morning guys i’m just curious like how deep are the wounds for this fan base where you know how are you guys going to turn this around where the fans are engaged in buying season tickets again like is it one year in the playoffs um i’ll hang up and listen thanks i i i’ll maintain what i said many times they make the playoffs the building’s sold out that first night it doesn’t matter and guess what people are buying season tickets after that i i we’re love our hockey here we do i know a lot of people have said “i’m checked out i’m checked out.” i get it you’re coming back if they make the playoffs if they make the playoffs absolutely you’re you’re going into the building you’re watching playoff hockey it’ll be loud and you’re you then you’ll be really excited for the next season that’s just the way it works as sports fans you could say all you want right now i’m checked out i’m not going back they make the playoffs you’re going back two years ago they didn’t even make it they just came super close and they recovered some on their season ticket base and getting fans back in the building and getting people to believe again right like the energy around the team was good that off seasonason after 20 the the summer of 2023 vibes were pretty good it felt like okay devin levi’s here and that was our only problem and we’re going to score a bunch of goals again and now we’re going to make it and oh florida they were only one point better than us and they made it to the finals like oh we’re not far away from that think think of how that sounds now by the way they weren’t that far away from florida three years ago two years ago and now holy cow yeah i think people will come back but if you don’t turn it around how long can you go not turning it around and like because every year more and more people will check out and more and more people will stop believing and i i think that all happens in waves if if this group right here with dene and thompson and tuck like those are the guys where if they hit the ejector seat then i think a lot of people are going to file out for believing in this team and and buying tickets and in all of it and i’m sure some people already have like there’s no doubt i think that that even happens a little bit he was a fan favorite for some i the most popular player but he’s probably one of them joe i have an 11-year-old at home who has not found out yet he’s probably finding out right now as we speak uhhuh it’s his favorite player sorry he’s got two jerseys sorry buddy got a blue and a white yep and we go through this as sports fans and it’s different than when i was a kid you didn’t have as you didn’t have the kind of free agency you do today when i was a kid so anytime you buy jerseys now you’re like how long is this player going to be here you kind of have to think about that then you know that like there’s a possibility you know you think about contracts so it is different today i remember going through this with jack when this happened much younger though i don’t even know if he remembers but it was like bracing and had jack jerseys and things like that yeah so uh i know that uh i know that that’s hitting that’s hitting hard this morning for me it did happen quick i mean you you buy a purka jersey at any point in the last two years like if someone was asking me like “hey i want to buy a jersey for my kid what who should i buy who’s safe who’s a player that i shouldn’t really have to worry about?” like i would have told him purka’s one of the like 22 years old how long do you have the jersey a year i’ll give you the three i’ll give you the three that we have that he has oh no cousins pra and owen power oh someone go someone go someone go hide owen power oh no but that’s yeah that we don’t need to point the question yeah how long is jana says well if we’re going to buy a cousins jersey how long is he going to be i’m like well he just signed a contract he’s going to be here for a while right bam two years later whatever you know but that that again it’s it’s it’s wild i mean the trade deadline was the first time i really thought about the idea of purka being traded not not really but before there were whispers but even before that about he might not love it here and you know that is something that we should dig into a little bit later on maybe when we have paul on or before that the idea that yeah he might not love it here big city kid he’s from munich right like he might want to go to a bigger market how many times was that said a lot i heard that a lot he went to and signed in salt lake city i mean salt lake city is salt lake city even bigger than buffalo i don’t even know it’s not it’s not by like 80,000 people he didn’t go to los angeles he went to utah i found that weird too i mean it is a i mean they have hosted the olympics i mean it’s a you know what i mean they have a but come on he didn’t go to a a metropolis no i i get it but city-wise you’re right it’s it’s not even bigger dig into that a little more if you’re on hold stay there we’ll roll through calls we’ll check in with jeremy as well but he got the he did get the money 8030550 it’s jody bassi and sal kapacio here on wgr i thought at least from reading elliot freriedman and listening to elliot freriedman over the course of the week it sounded like from him which was a little different sounding than from other insiders like i think frank saravelli was more plugged in on the agent and that side of it but freriedman had a sentiment for two weeks of the sabres don’t want to do this they don’t want to trade purka they’d like to find a way to keep this relationship going or they would trade him they’ve begun listening but the only way they do it is if they i don’t think he used the word blow your socks off but it was by all intents and purposes what what he said that you’re really going to have to give them a juicy offer to get this player off their team michael kesserling and josh don to me doesn’t strike that chord and it doesn’t mean that those two players cannot help the sabres i think there are some things to like about both of them really what this trade does for me is it confirms a lot of priors about the sabres that you might have had one the players that want to be here mentality right again no fighting no what do you mean you want out okay you have you have four years of of we have four years of leverage of contract control before you can hit unrestricted free agent status so okay i respect your um wanting out but no i’m not doing that i’ve got you for four more years i’m at least playing you for one more of the four and he’s got a sign to the not spending to the cap you you would have been had that confirmed yesterday at this time they could go and use it like owen i woke up to your tweet of like well now the sabres do have all this cap space to use and i’d love for that to be true how confident are we though that the sabres are going to turn around and they’re now viewing this as man look at we got $21 million in cap space now after trading purka we didn’t have to pay him 7.7 million which is what he signed with utah so we can go use that that’s not how i approach that that’s not how i think about it on the surface it’s oh they’re not going to spend at the cap again because they traded a player that cost almost $8 million and they replaced him with a couple of players that make less than $2 million total so that prior would be confirmed and the other one which this isn’t necessarily a negative one this is something i think we’ve known about them for two years which is they want to be tougher to play against they absolutely want to be tougher to play against and i think they did that with this trade they got a good defensive defenseman who i’ve seen described even though he’s 6’5 as physical but he’s not like the meanest defenseman he will drop the gloves if he needs to but he’s not going to be a bone crushing hitter out there so that helps you and then josh don looks like he’s a player that makes a really solid defensive impact but what did i give up to get tougher to play against you know like i gave up my second best fiveon-ive scoreer all right back here on wgr justin brian john hang on hold we got an open hour coming up we’ll roll through phone calls on the trade from last night purka to utah let’s check in now with jeremy jeremy white 100 holes down at wanica and i guess it’s not raining there like it is here which i i’m sure is good for you no not raining there’s a train thundering by i cannot confirm nor deny whether it’s the wide receiver train but there is a train going by okay we had a situation yesterday me and s played oh yeah where on the s remember on the 17th hole i am 100 yards out and i’m in the middle of my back swing train horn like like very close like a train was just passing by our hole i don’t know what the usg rule is dur during his back swing has has the talk this morning amongst the group and the people been all about jj purka or more golf here yeah on the on the course little bit of purka a little bit you know you got here like 4:30 four 5:00 a.m like all right what happened what happened so little bit of that um you know we’re the early stages are where you go the fastest because you know you want to make sure you get the holes in before the time runs out y so we’re moving as you guys were talking i had you on speaker phone on the ground as i hit a 50°ree wedge so wow you know how’ the shot go efficiency you know fine a little less all right i’ve got two i got two birds though so two birdies already through and how many holes are you through um we are through 12 or 13 okay all right really good start you you set my over under what seven and a half i seven and a half you’re well on pace for that i think although i think you then set reset it at 77 this morning yeah so we’re out here and uh sorry i missed what you said we’re just going up to the green um but yeah 2 through 2 through 12 so 21 12 or 13 tell every tell everybody how they can uh still donate to you while you’re on the course jeremy well i tweeted it recently but if you want just the actual address it’s give.razswwellpark.org/ and this is the easy part that i made my own page uh roswell lets you do this with all their fundraising give.well.orgjeremy and that’ll redirect you right to my page some make donations i’ll post some more stuff i got a match coming up later today with nate so um noon today nate and i play together he’s out here doing this as well um you know it’s a great event we got a lot of people and uh raising money for the courage of carly fund and for uh the luca colani foundation two local charities that um you know give a lot of money to kids and families in this area for um you know for quite some time now here so this event gets bigger every year and uh you know it’s always a pleasure to be out here i’m sorry to miss the purka news but um you know exc you you i think should be happy because you said yesterday you were hoping for big things happen to retake the big things happen crown while you’re away true i was not hoping i mean the particular thing we’ve been talking about for a couple you know weeks and today it settled in i don’t think my kids are old enough to be heartbroken by it you know s like if you’re talking about max what sammy watkins when he got traded might have been a moment i i no no i just i told it’s actually perka is his favorite player because he’s from germany like a jersey like his mom and he has two jerseys two jj jerseys yeah that’s tough i mean i jj the turkey was one of the fun things we we had i love that and that’s that’s gone like both my you know the twins would say jj the turkey all the time and now you know that’s just that’s it’s gone which whatever that happens or or they’ll be utah mammoth fans yeah but from a yeah you still call them turkeys and in utah that’s okay hey um what what about from a hockey standpoint quickly from you how did it hit you real quick jeremy i mean are they raising a right-handed defenseman like they want a cup i don’t mean to be snarky they’ve always been looking for this so hopefully they finally got one that fits exactly what they want um but you know there’s the impartial national hockey writers have quickly gone to well the sabres are certainly saving some money here you know instead of committing 7 million to a player they get two players for not a lot of money so i don’t know it’ll take time to see the rest of the offseason see what byum can fetch for them um so from a hockey standpoint i i can’t i can’t possibly tell you i know about a you know mid pair defenseman from the utah mammoths too well but if it if it gets the job done then that’s all that really matters does it get the job done you know yeah all right uh make that putt we’ll uh check in in a little bit all right thanks guys i got it uh if you another easy really easy way if you want to donate to jeremy’s page if you just google 100 holes of golf at wanuka country club or just google 100 holes it’s the first link that’ll come up and there’s a search bar right there where you can just search jeremy white so a couple of different ways to get to it uh courage of carly fund live like luca foundation and they’re on hole 13 we have the 11-day power play tonight it’s fundraising season team wgr takes the ice at 6:00 owen back on the ice and um expecting expecting uh a shutout effort for the whole squad i don’t think it’s ever happened maybe we’ll be the first that would be that would be one maybe the best performance of my hockey career if i can get through three hours there it is a long it’s a long time it’s really it’s it’s right because really it’s more like four shut outs right right at least it’s going to be yeah you know there’s a lot of a lot of hockey coming our way it’s going to be fun tonight at harbor center all right back to purka the trade last night he you’re waking up with us he is a a member a member i have to put a member in it because it’s not a plural team name right he’s a utah mammoth now there you go what what a life we’ve lived the last time we made the playoffs the thrashers were still in the league and now they’re trading their best players to the utah m yeah i always struggle with that too is he a buffalo bill he’s a member of the buffalo bills i hate saying it without the s right well he’s he’s a mammoth i guess uh john justin brian we’ll roll through your phone calls and we’ve got other open phone lines as well on this trade is there a defense for it at all does anybody want to want to like it let us know here on wgr i thought at least from reading elliot freriedman and listening to elliot freriedman over the course of the week it sounded like from him which was a little different sounding than from other insiders like i think frank saravelli was more plugged in on the agent and that side of it but freriedman had a sentiment for two weeks of the sabres don’t want to do this they don’t want to trade purka they’d like to find a way to keep this relationship going or they would trade him they’ve begun listening but the only way they do it is if they i don’t think he used the word blow your socks off but it was by all intents and purposes what what he said that you’re really going to have to give them a juicy offer to get this player off their team michael kesserling and josh don to me doesn’t strike that chord and it doesn’t mean that those two players cannot help the sabres i think there are some things to like about both of them really what this trade does for me is it confirms a lot of priors about the sabres that you might have had one the players that want to be here mentality right again no fighting no what do you mean oh you want out okay you have you have four years of of we have four years of leverage of contract control before you can hit unrestricted free agent status so okay i respect your um wanting out but no i’m not doing that i’ve got you for four more years i’m at least playing you for one more of the four and he’s got a sign to the not spending to the cap you you would have been had that confirmed yesterday at this time they could go and use it like owen i woke up to your tweet of like well now the sabres do have all this cap space to use and i’d love for that to be true how confident are we though that the sabres are going to turn around and they’re now viewing this as man look at we got $21 million in cap space now after trading purka and we didn’t have to pay him 7.7 million which is what he signed with utah so we can go use that that’s not how i approach that that’s not how i think about it on the surface it’s oh they’re not going to spend at the cap again because they traded a player that cost almost $8 million and they replaced him with a couple of players that make less than $2 million total so that prior would be confirmed and the other one which this isn’t necessarily a negative one this is something i think we’ve known about them for two years which is they want to be tougher to play against they absolutely want to be tougher to play against and i think they did that with this trade they got a good defensive defenseman who i’ve seen described even though he’s 6’5 as physical but he’s not like the meanest defenseman he will drop the gloves if he needs to but he’s not going to be a bone crushing hitter out there so that helps you and then josh don looks like he’s a player that makes a really solid defensive impact but what did i give up to get tougher to play against you know like i gave up my second best five on five hey huh good morning news from overnight breaking news the sabres have traded jj purka to the utah mammoth for defenseman michael kessler and forward josh don shortly after the deal purka signed a new contract with the mammoth 5 years at $7.7 million per year some trade rumors still swirling around the sabres as bowen byum reportedly still on the move no destinations reported as of yet but the trade is still out there in other nhl news the nhl and nhlpa are meeting to discuss new terms on the next collective bargaining agreement one main topic of discussion is increasing to an 84 game season rather than 82 darren drager also reported yesterday that the nhl is looking to expand once again with front runner cities being atlanta and houston but other cities are still in the mix as well the nhl draft starts up tomorrow night at 7:00 stay tuned to all of our draft coverage throughout the weekend right here on wgr the sabres still currently hold the ninth overall pick in the draft coverage of the nhl draft is brought to you by the by outlet liquor when you need to stock up it’s the place to buy a case what’s your outlet by figal carar and joyce your border attorneys and by dash’s market serving western new york for over 100 years shop the family of finer foods and in the nba draft last night unsurprisingly the dallas mavericks select 18-year-old cooper flag with the first overall pick flag played one season for duke recording 19 points per game for the blue devils that’s your paddock chevrolet sports update paddock chevrolet celebrating 90 years being your hometown dealership i’m josh schmidt for wgr sports radio 550 carried up by twoonone on entry jj purka fires and scores [Music] early goal here in the second it’s 4-1 buffalo jj purka on the move to utah the mammoth and he gets a five-year deal $7.7 million per year good morning it’s jeremy and joe jeremy’s got 100 holes this morning sal capacio was in and we got news to talk about we got full phone lines we’ll start rowing through your calls right before we get to calls though we were talking in the break about like the contract and whether that’s like i said earlier that’s a deal i would have been very happy with to see the sabres sign him to he signs in salt lake city utah he doesn’t go to a big market at all he goes to a team where it’s even really hard to argue like if the winning part of it is what really matters to you i’m not saying they are worse off than the sabres for this and like a belief of winning from a player but they didn’t make the playoffs last year they were fine they 89 points that utah did last year 89 points but you didn’t go to florida or tampa you know you didn’t go to some perennial winner you went to a team that was bad when they were in arizona and then they moved and then they were pretty good but they weren’t a playoff team so you didn’t go to a perennial winner you didn’t go to a big market or big you know you didn’t go to a big city was it how much of it was about the money i i think a lot of it was i i believe that if the sabres had offered this contract to jj burka he’d be a buffalo saber today that’s what i believe i don’t know that and to me that means that kevin adams just didn’t feel that that was the value for this player and if that’s if that is true man that would be i would have a lot of feelings about that that are not positive or or he could feel no i i i could have offered him that but i don’t want a guy who just doesn’t want to be here as we listen to him talk the way he talks and said look i could pay him that just for the money but i’m not what did he i do think it’s a very very telling quote from the press conference the other day he said we could play it i think do you have it there could you play that josh do you play the quote he said something about paying a player to is not always going to make a player happy or something like that do you have that can you let’s play this right here all right josh’s gonna fire it up here we paying someone more money hoping that they’ll make them happy isn’t usually a recipe for success you know you have to have players that buy into and believe what you’re doing and wake up every day in buffalo excited to be a saber i i think that’s important in saying that are there hard conversations with times or players frustrated i i i think it’s important to note here to me like i guess i should say i think what he’s saying is i could pay jj purka what he wants and he’ll sign it i don’t think that helps our team because he’s not going to be happy here and we’re dealing with this man i and and i’m not telling you it’s the right approach i think it’s his approach i think he’s got the wrong approach if that’s the case you are buffalo you are the buffalo sabres come on man even if if that were true you only have so many avenues to get talented players and to keep talented players and there would be a lot of players that wouldn’t even take your money you could go offer mitch martner $15$16 million a year and he probably will say no to you if a guy wants to come to your team because you’re willing to overpay this is professional sports that happens every single day and it works sometimes not all the time mario williams came for a hundred million dollars he was really good for the first three years he was awesome sure he loved the deer in jim kelly’s backyard but why’d he come he gave for $100 million and he was good like that that happens they cannot close themselves off to they can’t close themselves off to well not only do i only want players that want to be here i only want players that want to be here because of the culture and the logo i mean you will never get a good roster doing it that way all right let’s roll through some phone calls 8030550 is the phone number we’ll start the hour off with john in atlanta morning john hey um i know you guys got a lot of calls so i’ll try to be pretty quick here um this trade is terrible uh kevin adams should be ashamed uh he says that he doesn’t listen to the you know to the radio but he’s just as bad a liar as he is a gm um a real team just tells jj purka you know deal with it uh we’ll go into the summer um and then you know they come to a conclusion and then people forget about it in 12 months so being in atlanta and all the news coming out around like houston and atlanta getting expansion teams has really started to make me think that you know maybe actually the best case scenario long term for this franchise is it’s kind of like a cleveland brown situation where they move the team and just start fresh um with a new owner new everything because the current iteration of the owner uh that doesn’t want to spend money and the uh rink manager roller dog gm is not working thanks all right yeah well well that’s not going to happen they’re not going to they’re not going to the sabres are not going to move and then this and then buffalo gets another different team and it’s not the best case scenario for the buffalo sabres to move sorry right well he’s saying not they you’re he’s trying to weasle your way into an expansion draft is what is what you’re trying to do i know you’re frustrated but that’s just yeah we do have somebody who actually thinks this is a good trade for the sabres who tweeted at me okay thomas writes in at salesports by the way getting connected with our fans brought to you by northtown kia western new york’s number one kia dealer shop online at northtown kia.com thomas says they absolutely are better they got exactly what they desperately needed on the blue line and traded jeff skinner’s little brother a guy that can’t win one-on-one battles all right they did that and uh who’s who’s going to play in their top six now sure they might be they might be tougher to play against who’s going to play in their top six who’s going to score let’s go through it real quick before we get back into phone calls taage is a top six player yep every day of the week tuck top six player uh am i just forgetting the wrong josh norris okay injuryprone josh norris top six player that’s three who’s the next name i should mention here am i missing somebody obvious uh try to look i’m going who is a legitimate top six player on this roster i can’t be done at yuri koulique i mean now right now he has to be he has to be i mean he’s got to play there maybe i mean is he do you considering that i guess i mean you could on a good team i think that he’s a third liner with the potential to be a second liner but on this team right now he’s pencled in is benson isn’t there right that’s the thing you yes you are addressing ryan mloud i mean ryan mloud is you want him to be a thirdline center right that’s the thing you are you are addressing a need here you’re getting another defenseman who looks to be pretty good and you’re adding another forward that is good defensively that makes you tougher to play against you’re sacrificing an important piece off your first or second line that you do not have a replacement for right now and that’s where you you said like they got to get it now they got to go get it via a buy room trade or maybe they have to do it in free agency but they cannot they cannot walk into the season right without even trying to fill the hole that they just made cuz i think they just made a big hole it is possible to come out on the a on a really good end after this trade like on the better end you come out come come out on the other side better and it requires another move to replace losing jj because i think you did as you say fill other areas where you needed that said they’re going to trade bo byron too though most likely they are and i really do wonder what they’re going to get for him i don’t know how much confidence to really have that i don’t know how much confidence to have that they’re going to get a purka level player back for byum i mean maybe they could but purka purka was a weird one five on five five on five offense it was elite level production the the shots he generated the shot attempts he generated the puck possession like he was an elite five on five scorer he was bad on the power play and that was important because their power play has stunk and he’s bad defensively so i’m not telling you he was a perfect player but five on five offense is a really important part of your team huge part of your team and i think they have a lot of work to do to to fill that with whatever this buyer trade ends up being or what they do in free agency back to the phones we’ll go to justin in rochester morning justin hey guys i feel like i’m living in the big labowski like shaking terry pagoula where’s the money pigula like what happened to the jeff skinner money i thought that was supposed to go to signing players that we’ve drafted and developed and now who are we spending that money on the conversation with purka should have stopped and should have started and stopped at hey give us one year give us 40 goals give us 40 assists maximize your value and we’ll trade you instead you get pieces this makes no sense terry pigula is a mickey mouse owner who hires joke of gm who hires joke of of staffing around him this is ridiculous this is awful trade it’s a mickey mouse franchise i just cannot can’t stand this guy well that’s it thanks austin or justin on the sabres cap situation so right now they have $20.8 million in cap space after making those deals this deal overnight they are what is it 14th in the league with the most available space they actually are kind of in the middle um but some of those teams have more guys to sign than the sabres do with purka off the team that’s one guy you don’t have to sign anymore bo byum is the other guy you would have to sign and they’re probably going to trade him so that’s not going to be any money who they get for him will be interesting for this if they bring back in the bum trade a guy who makes seven eight million dollars a year you know then that’s that’s that’s a big chunk but that would be money that would have been earmarked for peter or bum in the first place and then you have mloud so it’s a good question i don’t even know if it’s really a wonder but i do question what their available cap space will end up being going into the season because going into this off seasonason if it was just hey byron’s going to sign and purka is going to sign and mloud’s going to sign and then quinn and levi will get their smaller deals if they just sat there and signed everybody at the end of the year and didn’t do anything else they’d be a team spending to the cap mhm and i wouldn’t even argue that was a good thing cuz that would be the same team you’d be running it back but you would be spending to the cap and right now what are they going to end up with 10 million of extra unused cap room which by the way add in a $4 million buyout of jeff skinner so you’re spending 14 million less than a lot of teams or are they going to use it because i can look at the list right now and say “well the sabres do have they have less space than carolina carolina is spending more or is not spending more.” but guess what you hear about carolina on a daily basis it’s they are getting ready to go all in for mitch mner they might have more space in the sabres right now but they are desperate to use it and you don’t get that vibe from the sabres by the way skinner’s buyout this year on the sabres cap is about 4.5 million yeah it goes to 6.5 million next year and then finally drops down to two and a half for the remaining three years okay so no they did they didn’t they did not really they didn’t use the space that they made available for them last year by buying them out they saved like 7 million last year and they had about 8 million of unused cap this year they’ll have you know what was the salary nine so the four and a half of four and a half million saved this year by not having him on their books and what are they going to do they’re going to have more than four and a half million i bet i bet you right now so i don’t know if they’re doing anything with it brian and williamsville morning brian yeah i’m um a little bit shocked surprised and stunned with this i mean you’re getting two players i looked up some of their staff and they’re not really good i know one father played in the league i’m not sure how good the sun is the other guy i have no idea about um defenseman like you said he shoots pretty well but we’re losing a 30 to 40 goal score a year i wouldn’t be surprised i wouldn’t be stunned if alex wanted out of buffalo that would be my concern not only do i have a jersey of tuck but i am the only one in buffalo with a c on it i would not and that was when got traded so i would not be shocked if if alex tuck wanted out of here i i think listening to the gm i don’t think that’s the case i i i think that there were there were things that kevin adams did not tell us okay the other day the one thing he told us and he kind of put himself in a corner now is we want alex tuck and he wants to be here right like that was basically it so i don’t think that’s going to happen brian to be quite honest with you um i you know i’m reading people who know more about some of these guys than i do mhm and i think kessle ring is the key to this trade to be honest with you oh totally like he it’s not don so when he says “hey his dad played in the league.” yeah he’s a young player yeah we’ll see he was a second round pick actually high second round pick kessle ring who was a sixthround pick actually he’s the key to this trade for the sabres and there are people who really like him and what he what he brings and he is a missing piece for the sabres lineup i get that i can get a little bit more of okay you did help yourself joe has brought up though and i agree someone tweeted at me and said “how do you know they’re not better?” i look i’m looking at exactly what joe said i don’t think they’re a better team today because you just created a big void in a very big spot in your lineup which is top six yep kessle ring if you want if you want to feel a little better about him being here like if you do take the purka end of it out which i think you kind of have to do to feel better about this but kessle ring like there are good numbers there are some good numbers about this player and his ability on the ice he’s still a young player too i mean when he’s been on the ice at five on five the last two seasons for utah well one of those seasons i guess is in arizona so arizona and utah the last two years when he’s on the ice at even strength they his team leads 99 to 70 75 99 to 75 is the score and the shot attempt numbers in his favor 54% um his team outshoots the opponents 653 to 561 that’s pretty good the expected goals is 54% last season that’s pretty good like there were some good numbers last year you go to you know some of those other advanced sites evolving hockey is one that i like to look at and he’s like in the 70th percentile defensively like there there are some good numbers here and above that there is some physicality you know he had not a lot of hits though which is always the weird thing to me i’ve read you know physical can can be physical i guess is what i’ve read so i don’t know if that satisfies people’s appetite to see them be tough i mean he had 87 hits last year a as the morning as the morning’s gone on i’ve i’ve seen some people a little bit more warm than than i think initial reaction in a lot of our calls uh pasta joe tweets in “thanks pasta joe i like the trade beta was not good without the puck which is the most of his game uh he would have hated the contract the sabres got him and said and gave that i’m sorry if the sabers had gave him that contract said when i saw kerling play he was always noticeable and feels fills a big no void at right shot d and i mean i like that matthew farburn of the athletic actually said this is a player kerling that um they talked a lot about he talked a lot about i think with his podcast with chris baker and they really like keserling like that part of the deal so you know and i’m guessing paul i don’t know we haven’t talked to paul yet paul has been saying for a while like they got to get better in that area not as much the purka area so we’ll see there are more people warming up to it though as i read here’s some more numbers on kessle ring from nhl edge which is the new like player tracking site um speed bursts over 20 miles per hour he hit 20 miles per hour 115 times last season the average in the nhl is 29 he did it 115 times so he’s in the 96 percentile he is fast and that’s one thing just watch you know just watching this morning like a five minute you know shift by shift you know view of this player the the thing that i noticed immediately is oh he skates really well like he’s a very fast skater his top shot speed last year was 103.7 mph 99th percentile honestly tae might be the only one that had a harder shot last season so we talked about the shot shots on goal he was in the 91st percentile um again the skating part of it is really the thing looking through all these like skating player tracking stats like he’s fast so big and that is a that is an area the sabres have wanted to concentrate on the last couple of years ryan mloud was a big reason yeah like he he’s a player i do like just the more research i do on him the more i am liking him but i am i don’t see myself getting to a place where i feel like he was worth jj purka 8030550 the phone number andrew in pittsburgh before we hit the break what’s up andrew hey good morning guys yeah i know they got positions they need but the value is just not there it’s it’s amazing how confident adams can be and i’m kind of surprised you know the league when they’ve had bad owners before have stepped in you know when does the league step in and and do something about the pigoula’s incompetence you know they helped out ottawa with bad ownership fought for arizona for decades but they just let buffalo’s owner continually make a mess thanks guys i mean we’re talking about totally different scenarios and situations they step in when there’s like issues with ownership in arenas and cities and not because you don’t like hockey trades mhm i don’t know i mean that doesn’t happen you don’t you don’t get teams step leagues stepping in because the team can’t compete you might want it but the pittsburgh pirates have been bad for 40 years or something has major league baseball ever stepped in and done anything about it when do they step in they step in when there are financial problems or there are arena problems or whatever the situ the owner gets arrested you know like that that’s when it happens it doesn’t i don’t think you you will ever get that the league might root for it to turn around i’m sure they do oh i i think they would love i think they would love this market to be hot right the only thing and there’s been nothing about this here and and this is the key difference last year gary bman went to winnipeg because they were having attendance problems big attendance problems cuz i think there’s a lot of financial problems in winnipeg and it was a little threatening the statements that were coming out and him just being there in the first place like this can’t continue kind of mentality from the league about winnipeg like you guys can’t not show up but the key difference there was the team was good and the fans weren’t showing up again might not be their fault i mean there’ve been financial stuff there i guess but fans weren’t showing up and here like so that would be bman’s going there to try to get a greater picture of why this is happening why are fans not going to those games why were tickets sales down despite the fact the team was number one in the nhl because that would be more of listen if you guys are going to be really good and this market can’t support this team that’s when we step in here there’s no mystery he would know the only reason they’re not showing up is because the team’s not good the moment the team gets good batman’s not dumb he knows the moment the team is good everyone will come back it’s got to happen but if you’re on hold stay there we’ll keep rolling through some phone calls purka to utah there was a couple football things i wanted to get to a little bit later on with s but we’ll keep rolling through phone calls as long as they’re coming so um but there was some collusion nfl stuff this week that came out pablo tore was reporting on it um i want to get to that a little bit later but more on purka for michael kessler and josh don when we come back here on wgr to me yesterday was a great example of i listen to the press conference and you know sports one of the things that sports is sports is a monoculture we all take in the same thing and then talk about it it’s kind of like the sopranos or game of thrones this is the sabers show around here everybody watches this show and i watched yesterday’s episode and i came out of that episode thinking man wow i mean everything about what was said is the wrong tone to take am i nuts the gm kind of approaches everything in some defiant who are you who is anyone to doubt me mindset like where’d that come from what’s that about m and i thought how you know when we talked to brandon bean he’s defiant about the draft but he’s earned it right you can be defi he’s got uh we did this we did this well we did this well what are you guys worried about and even if we don’t agree you kind of have to say like well i mean you know he’s passionate about what he’s built and he’s passionate about these decisions and it’s not all been exactly right but the guy hey the guy’s got a resume the guy’s the guy’s got some wins on the card i mean not a super bowl but whatever like you can you can bring the receipts and the sabres gm cannot do that no it’s is it two of every three times there’s a press conference that there is something that is offputting how often is it like taxes and palm trees maybe swallows everything whole and makes it seem like it happens all the time but it it’s it’s starting to happen a lot i think i thought at least from reading elliot freriedman and listening to elliot freriedman over the course of the it sounded like from him which was a little different sounding than from other insiders like i think frank saravelli was more plugged in on the agent and that side of it but freriedman had a sentiment for two weeks of the sabers don’t want to do this they don’t want to trade purka they’d like to find a way to keep this relationship going or they would trade him they’ve begun listening but the only way they do it is if they i don’t think he used the word blow your socks off but it was by all intents and purposes what what he said that you’re really going to have to give them a juicy offer to get this player off their team michael kesserling and josh don to me doesn’t strike that cord and it doesn’t mean that those two players cannot help the sabres i think there are some things to like about both of them we all know all the stuff all the smoke about purka is real so that goes back to november when we started to kind of talk about that adams would not answer about purka and that’s you know he doesn’t want to lie okay so he didn’t he said i don’t want to talk about it and and in that he basically told the truth without really telling the truth because he clear i mean did not do a great job of hiding it at all no if there was and maybe he doesn’t care if there was a goal in that press conference to not confirm to everybody that purka has asked for a trade they absolutely did not do that yesterday right under no circumstance did they do that i mean they it might be tough because they did talk the way about alex tuck the way you might have hoped they would talk about purka right like oh we’ve talked to him and he wants to be here and be a part of the solution like uh no we we heard you talk about two separate players in the same press conference in very different ways so i don’t think there’s any hiding it jj purka no longer a buffalo saber the sabres traded purka to the utah mammoth for defenseman michael kessler and forward josh don last night shortly after the deal purka signed a new contract with the mammoth for 5 years at $7.7 million per year on top of the purka trade rumors are still swirling that the sabres are close to a bow and byum trade as well other nhl news the nhl and nhlp pa are meeting to discuss terms on a new cba the current one does not expire until september 2026 but one main topic of discussion is increasing to 84 games in a season rather than 82 darren drager also reported yesterday the nhl is looking to expand once again with front runner cities being atlanta and houston the nhl draft starts up tomorrow night sabres still currently hold the ninth overall pick be sure to stay tuned to our draft coverage all throughout the weekend right here on wgr coverage of the nhl draft is brought to you by outlet liquor when you need to stock up it’s the place to buy a case what’s your outlet by feeal carar and joyce your border attorneys and by dash’s markets serving western new york for over 100 years shop the family of finer foods those are paddock chevrolet sports headlines paddock chevrolet celebrating 90 years of being your hometown dealership all right looks like the rain has held up uh it’s still raining a little bit here in the north towns south looks okay good morning jeremy and joe jeremy is doing 100 holes at wanukica you can still donate by the way give ro give park.org or you could just google 100 holes of golf and you’ll see it there and there’s a search bar you could find jeremy there that’s another way to donate plus we have the 11day power play tonight fundraising season and that’s an easy one too just go to 11day powerplay.com and search team wgr and you can donate to our campaign there um before we get back to calls on jj purka it’s jody biosi sal kapacio is in for jeremy last night was the nba draft and the dallas mavericks had the number one overall pick they selected cooper flag from duke who’s supposed to be a stud like a star player the mavericks fans at their own draft party were still chanting fire nico fair foul is it is it should they be over it because they got the number one pick should they still be mad i don’t know i guess i wasn’t expecting them to on the night they draft their new star to still be like still want the gm gone get him out of here no i mean they are still very very very upset they traded their cornerstone franchise player who was an absolute fan favorite yep and there that that does you got the number one pick you didn’t go trade for cooper flag and some you know couple second rounders you had the number one pick kind of gifted to you through a lottery you you made that every gm would have made that pick so it’s not that you did this right right right you didn’t make a move that oh okay you got you had an idea here no no no no no right some ping pong balls fell your way is all right so so they’re still very very mad definitely about the luca trade yeah they probably will be for a long time i mean they could they could even be great this year and still i mean if they’re amazing and go to the conference finals and lose to luca they’re going to be furious yeah furious anyways purka traded to utah the mammoth do you like their logo by the way oh i got to look it up the new logo they announced it like a week ago how about the team name too they settled on mammoth um because yeti there was like trademark issues with so they went with mammoth instead i don’t love their logo no it’s got it’s like a mammoth head but it’s got mountains on the top of the head kind of i’m getting a little bit of slug vibes wow interesting yeah i think it it’s just a little it looks a little roboticy to me i could see that i could see that yeah i also don’t like that they’re going with a black jersey or dark is it dark navy even that’s part of the part of the point though i mean it depends on which logo you’re actually talking about they do have a few that they unveiled oh there’s only one official one this is this is the one i’m sure you’re looking at yeah that’s what i’m looking at because i kind of do like the other ones by the way here you go like the con the concept ones right i kind of like that better too they wanted to incorporate the mountains though i i i understand that purka to utah what’s next tage to houston sorry i didn’t need to throw that out in the universe it’s not going to happen we’re good they’re just going to make the playoffs they’re just going to make the playoffs and everything’s going to be fine right right uh let’s go to the phones uh dennis and lockport’s next up what’s up dennis hey guys uh good show um look at i’m going to say it right here when they start getting these other markets for this uh nhl don’t be surprised if pagoula just moves our team out of here because he’s been there for 14 15 years he told us when he came here i’m a hockey guy he doesn’t know nothing about hockey maybe about a t-shirt and a logo that’s when his wife and him were really good that’s all they ever sold but kevin adams got on wgrz told people that when they were talking about the draft but turka was authored right on tv this is a couple days ago and you guys been announcing he basically called the media a bunch of liars they’re just making up stuff no he’s the liar he’s not putting any any team together he wants fans in the in the in the stands all pagoula wants is all the property he owns downtown and he he’s got a winner with the bills making him a lot of money he could care less about the sabres because if he actually did want to he was a hockey guy he would have put something into get the right um management to take care of that team and make it a winner like it used to be i mean there was a time there wasn’t where the sabres didn’t make the playoffs at least we may not have went all the way through but we were at least in the conversation for playoffs every year until after uh rigus left and after that it’s been nothing but downhill under pagoula’s um ownership so i’m going to leave it at that thanks dennis for the call um the the point about i don’t even know there’s a lot there was a lot there i pretty much disagree with pretty much everything he said and i mean by that like he’s not moving the team no he’s not looking to move the team i mean could it could he see a scenario where the team gets sold at some point someday sure there’s been a lot of rumors about that i don’t think that’s happening anytime soon he’s not moving the team um you could be very upset at how the team is run or owned or whatever i get it i don’t believe i think you’re confusing dennis unless i’m wrong i could be wrong here maybe kevin adams did something separate on channel 2 i think he’s talking about the press conference and maybe he watched it on channel 2 maybe and it was the press conference where we aired it and he said there’s a lot of misinformation out there and i feel bad for my fans for our fans and he was talking specifically i think more about maybe the matias samuelson situation so see he he was but i really do wonder how much of that was misguided anger from purka reporting because i just can’t believe i still can’t believe from from two days ago three days ago now that he thought fans fans were angry or are upset because they’re reading on twitter that the team might get rid of one of their least favorite players samuel said after it was a question about purka and there was a lot of reporting about purka and i i really thought that was maybe the source of it but hey a lot of it ended up being true right like maybe not every exact detail happened there was a report about chicago considered offering the third pick it didn’t say that they were going to trade the third pick there was a report two reports frank cavelli and renaol lavois at the trade deadline that a deal with the rangers was close that might have been gravely exaggerated but it planted the seed that night of this is a player that could get traded and months later it ended up happening so how much of it really ended up being untrue saravelli said earlier in the week that his expectation was he’d get traded by friday well he got traded by friday so misinformation whatever you know like it again was just not the right note to hit at that point in time and you know to get back to the purka trade though about this and where their where they were their stance and how the deal ends up happening i still think the biggest problem here more than even the players they got back cuz i do like things i’m hearing and reading about both the players they got back but it is the idea that they traded for two players that were not worth jj purka when they did not have to do it i don’t think they needed to act like this needed to happen this second that it was a we got to deal them that this is a problem the player wants out i think you don’t you got to you got to have a little bit more of a backbone you got to be willing to tell the guy i have the leverage here and i don’t need to trade you they must re i what there’s there’s one thing missing here they either believe these players are far more valuable than i do or a lot of other people that are covering the league or they just needed to they just felt like they needed to trade him and if that’s the part that i can’t understand if that’s if that’s the the truth of it is they knew they weren’t getting enough value for him but they just needed to trade him they felt like they needed to get him get him out of here because it was bad pr or something to be reading every day about a player that doesn’t want to be here i don’t know i think at some point like if you decide we might have to do this you kind of have to resign your yourself to the fact that we’re probably not going to get the true value for him it’s just not going to happen you’re not winning the trade winning the trade so you do as best you can with doing that and it looks like they got good serviceable good players here who can help this team but you’re not even giving yourself a chance to to maybe somebody does eventually come at you with a better hockey trade of a one for one or maybe somebody is willing to go purka and bum or purka and another piece for their player like i just i those are the only deals i would have ever moved him for and again i like these players castle ring looks pretty good mhm i just don’t think the value is there 8030550 is the phone number if you’re on hold we’ll get keep rolling through phone calls um we’ll talk to paul hamilton in the 8:00 hour and then map o in the 9:00 hour so lot to get to stay tuned pura traded to utah um hopefully the weather clears up a little bit you might have woke up to a rainy morning and the news of this trade um so yeah hopefully the sun comes out for the team too here on wgr we were talking in the break about like the contract and whether that’s like i said earlier that’s a deal i would have been very happy with to see the sabres sign him to he signs in salt lake city utah he doesn’t go to a big market at all he goes to a team where it’s even really hard to argue like if the winning part of it is what really matters to you i’m not saying they are worse off than the sabres for this and like a belief of winning from a player but they didn’t make the playoffs last year they were fine they 89 points the utah did last year 89 points but you didn’t go to florida or tampa you know you didn’t go to some perennial winner you went to a team that was bad when they were in arizona and then they moved and then they were pretty good but they weren’t a playoff team so you didn’t go to a perennial winner you didn’t go to a big market or big you know you didn’t go to a big city was it how much of it was about the money i i think a lot of it was i i believe that if the sabres had offered this contract to jj perk he’d be a buffalo saber today that’s what i believe i don’t know that and to me that means that kevin adams just didn’t feel that that was the value for this player and if that’s if that is true man that would be i would have a lot of feelings about that that are not positive or or he could feel “no i i i could have offered him that but i don’t want a guy who just doesn’t want to be here as we listen to him talk the way he talks and said “look i could pay him that just for the money but i’m not what did he i do think it’s a very very telling quote from the press conference the other day he said we could play it i think do you have it there could you play that josh do you play the quote he said something about paying a player to is not always going to make a player happy or something like that do you have that can you let’s play this right here all right josh’s gonna fire it up here here we go paying someone more money hoping that they’ll make them happy isn’t usually a recipe for success you know you have to have players that buy into and believe what you’re doing and wake up every day in buffalo excited to be a saber i i think that’s important in saying that are there hard conversations with times or players that frustrated i i i think it’s important to note here to me like i guess i should say i think what he’s saying is i could pay jj burka what he wants and he’ll sign it i don’t think that helps our team because he’s not going to be happy here and we’re dealing with this man i and and i’m not telling it’s the right approach i think it’s his approach i think he’s got the wrong approach if that’s the case you are buffalo you are the buffalo sabres come on man even if if that were true you only have so many avenues to get talented players and to keep talented players and there would be a lot of players that wouldn’t even take your hey really what this trade does for me is it confirms a lot of priors about the sabres that you might have had one the players that want to be here mentality right again no fighting that no what do you mean you want out okay you have you have four years of of we have four years of leverage of contract control before you can hit unrestricted free agent status so okay i respect your um wanting out but no i’m not doing that i’ve got you for four more years i’m at least playing you for one more of the four and he’s got a sign to the not spending to the cap you you would have been had that confirmed yesterday at this time they could go and use it like oh i woke up to your tweet of like well now the sabres do have all this cap space to use and i’d love for that to be true how confident are we though that the sabres are going to turn around and they’re now viewing this as man look at we got $21 million in cap space now after trading puka and we didn’t have to pay him 7.7 million which is what he signed with utah so we can go use that that’s not how i approach that that’s not how i think about it on the surface it’s oh they’re not going to spend at the cap again because they traded a player that cost almost $8 million and they replaced them with a couple of players that make less than $2 million total so that prior would be confirmed and the other one which this isn’t necessarily a negative one this is something i think we’ve known about them for two years which is they want to be tougher to play against oh jeremy at 100 holes at wanuka he is two birdies in i believe still jj purka traded overnight maybe you’re just waking up to that news i’m everyone’s going to be waking up at different times and finding out if you weren’t up at 1:00 in the morning let’s go back to the phones quickly to go to derek and g morning derek hey good morning guys apologize for the voice fighting a bit of a cold here um just first want to say as a canadian love the people of buffalo western new york united states and it saddens me that after 20 years i i canceled my season tickets this year you know i loved going down i love the people going to cobblestones but i just couldn’t take it anymore i felt like my only voice was my money and my money had to talk and i i just couldn’t do it and hearing the news this morning just reaffirms my opinion you know i i just don’t know what’s going on as the old pee-wee coach how do you replace goals i get they got to be better defensively but i just don’t agree and it saddens me that you know i’m not going down to games this year yeah i i like this call because a couple things i think you speak for a lot of people who are frustrated in a lot of ways and some people have kind of exited their their timeline and at different times some are still there and some are still going and that’s just going to be what they always do and have belief and hope that they’ll get better that’s fine but i think the part is that you just touched on how do you replace goals joe you made a really good observation to me when there was an evolving wild um stat and chart that came out mhm um and i retweeted it and said this makes me feel a little bit better that you know this person says okay he’s that bad here so don’t pay him that money the qu the issue i have is though he’s 23 he’s 23 and you can de still develop that part of the game i made the point the last couple weeks about freaking sam bennett holding the cup up and i’m like i can’t believe this guy’s only 28 he’s been in the league 11 years like it takes a while for this happen anyway you could what you said off the air you could say on the air about it doesn’t matter the offense is so much more important basically the offense is more important and like even if if you go to his player card on that their site evolving hockey and it’s like the 96th percentile offensively and the second percentile defensively like as bad as you could be defensively and as good offensively and what is the what does it all come to on the overall 82 out of 100 cuz the offense matters and that’s a very simplistic way of looking at it and it’s just that one player card it’s not like even the number like that’s just goals above replacement um is this kind of the same same the uh kind of a running back i’m sorry a running game debate in the nfl like you got how much does it really matter and then you have people go it doesn’t matter at all just throw the ball over the place and score a little bit i i do think it matters some but right not as much as i i think you got to be able to score goals and i think this team this is a continuation of a belief from them since they missed the playoffs by one point that you can’t win that way that they have to be better defensively they have to be tougher to play against and i don’t disagree with that it just it too often is coming at the expense of really good offensive talent they they missed the playoffs by one point without being able to play defense all year or get any saves and their decision was well we can’t play that way anymore rather than just hey maybe get a goalie that makes a couple of more saves and you’re in it was we need to we need to change completely the style in which we play hockey and to me this trade last night is a continuation of that that they don’t think they can end this playoff drought just by scoring and i feel like that’s the wrong approach i feel like you’re just trying to add to the scoring not take it away so that you can go add the tougher to play against element in exchange for it 8030550 is the phone number we’ll get to paul hamilton in the 8:00 hour lots of phone calls to roll through as well i mean really it’s more a question of how angry are you because we haven’t had much defense for it we had one tweet that we read from somebody that that liked the trade but otherwise i’m getting a few more here and there a couple i am getting a few more here and there but it definitely feels like the majority is definitely not happy this morning waking up to this news this is actually a good i i know we got to go to break i will read this one from paul that came in i i i like this like sentiment from paul thank you paul he says “savers got a good right-handed d with size and toughness which is needed but i think they could have gotten more maybe swap first round picks four for nine.” i like that sentiment which is hey you did improve where you needed to improve but maybe you didn’t get the quite the value what this player should have gotten you in return and and i don’t think that’s a that’s a unfair take at all yeah 8030550 the phone number here on wgr we were talking in the break about like the contract and whether that’s like i said earlier that’s a deal i would have been very happy with to see the sabres sign him to he signs in salt lake city utah he doesn’t go to a big market at all he goes to a team where it’s even really hard to argue like if the winning part of it is what really matters to you i’m not saying they are worse off than the sabres for this and like a belief of winning from a player but they didn’t make the playoffs last year they were fine they 89 points utah did last year 89 points but you didn’t go to florida or tampa you know you didn’t go to some perennial winner you went to a team that was bad when they were in arizona and then they moved and then they were pretty good but they weren’t a playoff team so you didn’t go to a perennial winner you didn’t go to a big market or big you know you didn’t go to a big city was it how much of it was about the money i i think a lot of it was i i believe that if the sabres had offered this contract to jj perk he’d be a buffalo saber today that’s what i believe i don’t know that and to me that means that kevin adams just didn’t feel that that was the value for this player and if that’s if that is true man that would be i would have a lot of feelings about that that are not positive i mean or or he could feel no i i i could have offered him that but i don’t want a guy who just doesn’t want to be here as we listen to him talk the way he talks and said “look i could pay him that just for the money but i’m not what did he i do think it’s a very very telling quote from the press conference the other day.” he said “we could play it.” i think do you have it there could you play it josh can you play the quote you said something about paying a player to is not always going to make a player happy or something like that do you have that can you let’s play this right here all right josh’s going to fire it up here here we go paying someone more money hoping that they’ll make them happy isn’t usually a recipe for success you know you have to have players that buy into and believe what you’re doing and wake up every day in buffalo excited to be a saber i i think that’s important in saying that are there hard conversations with times or players frustrated i i i think it’s important to note here to me like i guess i should say i think what he’s saying is i could pay jj burka what he wants and he’ll sign it i don’t think that helps our team because he’s not going to be happy here and we’re dealing with this man i and and i’m not telling it’s the right approach i think it’s his approach i think he’s got the wrong approach if that’s the case you are buffalo you are the buffalo sabres come on man even if if that were true you only have so many avenues to get talented players and to keep talented players and there would be a lot of players that wouldn’t even take your hey i thought at least from reading elliot freriedman and listening to elliot freriedman over the course of the week it sounded like from him which was a little different sounding than from other insiders was like i think frank saravelli was more plugged in on the agent and that side of it but freriedman had a sentiment for two weeks of the sabres don’t want to do this they don’t want to trade purka they’d like to find a way to keep this relationship going or they would trade him they’ve begun listening but the only way they do it is if they i don’t think he used the word blow your socks off but it was by all intents and purposes what what he said that you’re really going to have to give them a juicy offer to get this player off their team michael kesserling and josh don to me doesn’t strike that cord and it doesn’t mean that those two players cannot help the sabres i think there are some things to like about both of them good morning breaking news from overnight jj purka no longer a buffalo saber the sabres have traded purka to the utah mammoth for defenseman michael kessler and forward josh don shortly after the deal purka signed a new contract with the mammoth for 5 years at $7.7 million per year on top of the perska trade rumors are still swirling around the sabres with bow and byum reportedly on the move no reports on any potential destinations as of yet in other nhl news the nhl and nhlpa are meeting to discuss new terms on the next collective bargaining agreement that will not go into effect until 2026 but one main topic of discussion is increasing to 84 games in a season rather than 82 darren drager also reported yesterday the nhl board of governors is looking to expand once again front runner cities including atlanta and houston but there are other cities involved the nhl draft starts up tomorrow night at 7:00 the sabres still currently hold their ninth overall pick in the first round be sure to stay tuned to our draft coverage all throughout the weekend right here on wgr coverage of the nhl draft is brought to you by outlet liquor when you need to stock up it’s the place to buy a case what’s your outlet by feel car and joyce your border attorneys and by dash’s markets serving western new york for over 100 years shop the family of finer foods the nba draft was last night unsurprisingly the dallas mavericks selected 18-year-old cooper flag with first overall pick flag played one season for duke recording 19 points per game for the blue devils that’s your paddock chevrolet sports update pock chevrolet celebrating 90 years of being your hometown dealership i’m josh schmidt for wgr sports radio 550 with the fifth pick in the 2025 nba draft the utah jazz select aras ace bailey from ruckers university this was not one of his preferred destinations utah he was hoping to get to either washington new orleans or brooklyn the utah jazz selected ace bailey knowing that this is a little of a stunner the nba draft last night good morning jeremy joe jeremy 100 holes of golf this morning sal is in so last night is the nba draft also by the way just want should mention it like every two minutes because everyone’s waking up at different times and maybe you missed it overnight that jj purka got traded to utah so utah in the nba draft the jazz they make that pick right there ace bailey who went i think it was fifth overall in the nba draft and as you heard the breakdown there from espn after the fact they knew he didn’t want to be there he actively avoided them in the pre-draft process i think he canled a workout he wouldn’t do an interview with them he actually looked pretty stoic i think when he got drafted last night like he didn’t look thrilled uh but utah drafted him anyway i mean this is kind of an overall sports debate isn’t it though s like it’s not just you know the sabres it’s not just hockey it’s not just the utah jazz it’s what do you do when cuz sports has a draft and hockey has contract clauses and rfa and there there are teams have rights that are negotiated through cbas i listen i am as pro player as it gets i i don’t think it’s fair in the national hockey league that a guy can play until he’s he has to play until he’s like 27 years old before he’s able to choose where he goes i think that’s bs that the system is set up that way but it is set up that way so what is a team supposed to do when they’re faced with a situation where they have the right to have this really good player but they also know the guy doesn’t want to be there what are you supposed to do yeah i i i’m with you on this i think um it takes a while you know for for the player to have control except in one way which i hate these no movement clauses no trade clauses i think are so ridiculous so many of them they’re included in like every every freaking contract now actually i know that you have to wait a certain amount of years when can you put it in how long how how long you have to be in the league to put that in could jj purka have included that in his new deal i don’t think so no i think i think it’s i think it’s your first deal after your rookie contract you can put in what are we doing here yeah i didn’t see like i i’ll try to find it wouldn’t you bet i bet purk’s got something i mean yeah i understand i this year yeah i think there’s a lot of a lot of uh things that go along with that i mean maybe you know ace bailey is going to be unhappy in utah so they can trade him to buffalo i mean this is what happens right you get unhappy right away and uh you trade him somewhere well that’s the thing like i know buffalo does not have an nba team the jazz last night like they are they are knowingly taking a guy that like they’re they’re taking a risk the risk is he’ll be a problem and he’ll be miserable while he’s there but they’re they’re saying what they’re saying we believe he’ll be more professional than that and that he’ll do his job and you know in four years if he still wants to leave and we haven’t built something then i’m sure he’ll allow scout but for now he’s the best player on the board and i’m taking him and i feel like the sabres don’t operate that way and maybe they take it too far and this was this is my biggest problem with the purka trade last tonight is i don’t feel like the sabres needed to act like they had a gun to their head they had they had leverage and maybe they feel stronger about these two players than than i do but i think they didn’t need to feel like they had to trade him by the way every time i hear ace bailey i actually in my head hear ace freley and i’m wondering how many of you here know who ace freley is do you guys know i’m guessing owen might know the name ace frilly the only person that’s on this show right now that might know do you know who ace freely is every time how many of our how many of our listeners are listening right now and say “okay yeah i get it do you know who ace freely is this is how how i know the the age of the age gap here.” all right you do not know owen do you know owen uh can you turn him up real quick do you know who that is he’s rock guitarist right for the band oh man kiss i know yes ace is a lead guitarist for kiss and every time i hear somebody say ace bailey i think of ace frley anyway i but i didn’t want to bring it up because i had to because i’m like i know i’m the like old guy here now on this show it can happen it’s okay okay all right ace bailey by the way dylan harper got got drafted second overall i believe he’s ron harper’s son do you remember ron harper yes basketball player somewhat is he done playing though by the time i’m probably like when is he done playing i think he i have to take a look um his 15 seasons in the nba ron harper he played his last year was 2001 as a laker okay no i’m i’m too young for that fivetime nba champion ron harper big shot ron yeah let’s get to uh matt o big shot bob was that that wasn’t him was that was big shot bob right that robert ory yeah yeah robert ory sorry ron harper though five-time nba champion yeah matt o on the western hotline is probably like “these guys are late to get to me because what they’re trying to remember what years ron harper played basketball.” who really is morning matt morning guys how are you i’m good did you wake up to the news s gets the breaking text alerts overnight and he wakes up to him i keep my phone off completely uh so i didn’t find out till this morning when did you find out about the uh purka trade i think it was like 1:00 a.m i found out i only found out because my daughter was making some noise in her room and that woke me up on like baby monitor so then i looked at my phone because it’s on my phone and then i have push notifications for a bunch of people who follow the bills and the sabres and i saw them all posting randomly at 1:00 in the morning i was like what is going on so then i opened it and i was like whoa okay that happened out of kind of nowhere cuz i had gone to bed before that initial report around 11:30 that he was going to get moved or it looked like he was going to get moved so it just hit me completely out of left field so i was trying to process it with a crying baby at 1:00 in the morning it was kind of a mess yeah matt o on the western hotline wkbw also it’s always game day in buffalo and um brought him on to talk some sabers of course we’ve got the he’s got the um the series on channel 7 with the stadium and revisiting that in memory so um get a little of that later too but matt i brought you on cuz of your i was reading your mock off season last night and you had a purka trade in there so that part of it i guess is outdated but i like the other stuff in there but how do you feel like they did valuewise compared to like you had him for rasmus anderson which is a trade i thought about too uh defenseman from the flames how do you feel like they did in comparison to what kind of the expectation was of if they trade purka what they would get worse than they should have is how i feel like they did but i feel like this is an very a very important distinction you cannot like the return but also like the pieces that they got back that’s where i feel like i fall this morning i like keserling and don’t but i feel like jj purka should have gotten you more so moving forward obviously the trade is already done now you need to see what happens next i thought that they would get more for purka i thought he was their most valuable asset going into this off season so to see the return for him not as just a bit underwhelming for that specific trade it also makes you wonder about their other assets that they might move and what they can fetch in a return there we already know that free agents are not lining up to come play in buffalo so if you’re not going to ever get the topic of free agents because they don’t want to play here you have to improve your team by getting maximum value back in trades and for them to get this for a 23-year-old player who still has tons of potential is concerning to me i thought they should have gotten more all of that said if they would have gotten those two assets in a different trade i would have been like “yeah i like those pieces.” like i think solidifying your blue line especially finding a partner for owen power is really important especially one that’s cost controlled because it does allow you flexibility but it’s only a good thing if you actually use that flexibility and actually use that money so i feel like we’ve kind of seen the first domino fall but there are more that we need to see to kind of get the whole picture of what they’re going for i i think you put that all it exactly how i’m thinking about the pieces they got because i do want to like the pieces that they acquired i guess my biggest problem then matt and i don’t know how you feel about this is the sabres acting this quickly on it feeling like they traded him because maybe they felt like they had to and where were you on that because i don’t know like how much of you know of a backbone you wanted to have here how you know hard ball you wanted to play with purka but he couldn’t hit ufa status for years and i know he didn’t want to play here but i would have wanted to see them kind of drag it out call his bluff a little bit if you will see sign an offer sheet see what comes about with that i i don’t feel like the sabres needed to rush to make this trade i don’t disagree with that but then i also get to the point and i don’t know the answer to this i don’t know if he’s worth the headache like there’s certain people who i think maybe are worth trying to do that with i don’t think j like i think jj purka is a really nice player but i do not think jj purka was some untouchable can’t miss player that is destined for greatness in the nhl and is going to be the next guy who goes and wins the stanley cup i just never have felt that way about him i like the player i like the upside i think he’s really offensively talented but defensively he’s kind of horrendous and i feel like for what they are trying to do like they needed somebody to be more responsible at that end of the ice the other thing that’s interesting about purka like he certainly is a good player but it’s not like from at least my vantage point purka was elevating a lot of the other guys he was playing with on a consistent basis and he wasn’t a great power play player and his shooting percentage was ridiculously high last year so realistically you know it’s easy to say “oh he’s only 23 what’s stopping him from becoming a 75 or an 80 point player?” i i don’t know if this is his ceiling or if there is that much more that he’s going to be able to get to i like the player i would have tried to make it work but if they got a clear picture that it wasn’t going to work or it was going to get messy i don’t think this is somebody you kind of deal with that i think you move on i think they should have gotten more but i don’t really have an issue with them moving him and then as soon as they trade him he does sign a contract matt it’s $7.7 million a year for the next five years if if we’re living if you get the alert this morning that the sabres sign that contract versus the sabres trading him how are you feeling about that i don’t know because i feel like i still want to see what they get for bum assuming they trade byum and the other interesting thing that this opens up is their forward spots are basically all full now but they have to add another legitimate forward so if they’re going to use one of these assets that they’re getting or an asset that they haven’t moved yet to go get a forward then i feel like i like how the team has overhauled so i think that would have been a fair contract for jj burka if he signed in buffalo totally but to get keserling now i wonder okay maybe can you turn byum into a top six forward can you turn him into an asset that then you can combine to go get a top six forward like what does this mean for players like marco rossy is he available on somebody the sabres were kicking the tires on how about jordan cairo in st louis like that would be an absolute slam dunk brian rust in pittsburgh like that’s somebody who i mentioned in the mockoff season obviously he’s a veteran he’s not a young player but if he’s available he would help you know for sure your middle six on both ends of the ice so yes al i don’t know i think i would have felt okay yeah that’s a good deal for a young player and that’s good value for him but i really kind of want to see where things stand in a week because this move to me and when it happened makes me believe and maybe this is just me blindly giving the sabres more credit than i should but it makes me feel like they’ve got more things to come in the very near future it almost feels like it has to right because if you look at their lineup right now matt i mean good ideas in their top six not just guys that you would put in their top six right now because of you know because of who’s available like tae thompson alex tuck um josh norris yuri koulik right like those are four and even like all those guys aren’t perfect norris has injury problems and koulique looks like he should be that but i think you still would like to see another step and even with that there’s two more holes in the top six unless like because where they’re at in their timeline matt i can’t imagine that they are thinking right now that plan a is well we’re just going to cross our fingers that zack benson is going to be able to score more goals this season than he did last year and that’s going to be our our second line left winger they have to win now and that’s what kind of going back to the point about needing to see the full picture the reason i want to see the full picture is because i have to imagine that the pieces that they plan to acquire with whatever other moves they’re making will help this roster right now or will be assets that they can try and flip to help this roster right now if they trade bow and byum for just like some mid firstround pick and then actually use the pick i’ll pull my hair out that doesn’t make absolutely any sense at all i don’t even want him to pick nine tomorrow night like i understand that it’s a good pick and it’s a valuable pick i’m just at the point like i don’t care like i know that that could turn into something but you need to actually see results in buffalo so i want to see them make moves that help this roster now and it feels like there is a clear piece missing in the top six they have to fill the void of purka and then if they trade byron which i’m expecting they do they have to find a legitimate partner for raasmus delene because if they go into next season and their plan at first pair defense is raasmus dene and matias samuelson this team is destined to once again disappoint we know that they’ve concentrated on getting a little bit faster they have apparently here with this deal they’ve gotten a little bit you know bigger size-wise physicality things like that that they’ve been looking to do they give up some scoring for it the other area that uh is questioning now is goalie and there’s a lot of you know a lot of talk that maybe they should go out and get somebody to be you know over upl or in replace of upl someone who might still block deon levi to get to the nhl where do you stand on how all of that looks matt i love that idea i just don’t know who that is and that’s what i’m struggling with because i think that it would make sense for them to go out and find another goalie and put levi in rochester for at least a little while and kind of make him earn a full-time job in buffalo i just don’t know who’s out there who is a better idea because all of the names that are available in free agency are really underwhelming and the few guys that you like there’s numbers tied to them that don’t make any sense for the sabres like i saw something on jake allen yesterday that he could potentially get $5 million a year and it’s like okay what are we doing like you’re not going to go pay that guy the same amount of money you’re basically paying upl to just be a 1b like it doesn’t feel like there’s the upside there and then the guys who could potentially be available in trades also have a ton of flaws in their games i i think besides the top five or six guys goalies are wildly unpredictable so if they go into next season and upl is their goalie maybe he’s good again i don’t know if he’s what he was last year then they have some serious problems but unless you’re getting like a jakeer which isn’t going to happen or a connor heler connor hella or a player to that caliber like it feels like it’s a bit of a crab shoot anyway i think they probably sign rhymer back don’t they or somebody similar to that like older goalie that might be nearing the end that’s like going to only cost you like a million bucks yeah probably but it felt like like i liked rhymer’s game at times last year especially at the end but it definitely felt like felt like at the end the gas was you know the tank was empty and he was out of gas so you could do that for sure but then you open up the possibility of is there really a chance that they keep three goalies are they content sending levi down and then halfway through the season you know making a flip i i don’t know i mean like it’s not something i would immediately scoff at i think that they need to do better than just go into the year next year with upl and levi i just don’t know how they do it how about tuesday’s press conference matt how adams sounded there was a lot of frustration about his comment about fans being upset about the misinformation of the samuelson buyout and i think he was making a larger point there um did you have that reaction live when that press conference was ongoing and then what did you make of i think a lot of people kind of being upset by it when the press conference was ongoing i think now obviously it’s been a long time since this team has been good it feels like that that entire situation could have been handled much better and much differently if you want to say “i feel bad for the fans because of the misinformation that’s out there,” then go ahead and say it but then afterwards you have to say “but i really feel bad because this team is in a 14-year playoff drought and we need to do everything we possibly can to make this team better as soon as possible because i know this fan base is really really hungry.” and that’s just what i thought of on the spot right there and that would have played a heck of a lot better than him saying “i feel bad for all the misinformation because sabres fans deserve better.” the interesting thing about that is the fact that there’s even people who care enough to know about potential trades and signings with this organization that team should be really really thankful for so i didn’t like that line i don’t really think that you know these press conferences what he said about purka didn’t bother me the samuelson thing is a completely different thing i feel like they should be considering that or they should be looking in to trying to trade him i almost feel like he was getting defensive about samuelson because he’s trying to trade him and then it getting floated out there that they’d consider buying him out kind of plummets the chance of a trade because other teams see that he might not be that valuable of an asset so that to me was kind of what it was maybe he was getting a bit more defensive i i just didn’t like kind of how he presented his frustration and where that frustration was pointed to like it feels like the frustration should be pointed to all of the years of failure not to misinformation that’s out there yeah i like that point like it was it wasn’t just you know i think that there was a misinterpretation maybe from fans or media when he said we we’ve never given it consideration buying up matia samson that doesn’t mean he’s guaranteed to be on the roster in 2025 26 no it doesn’t and that’s why i do think that maybe once that got out there that cuz the other thing is too like a lot of people said on tuesday and rightfully so you’re talking about this misinformation but you didn’t specifically say what misinformation is out there right it feels like purka wasn’t misinformation because that trade already happened it feels like bow and bum isn’t misinformation because we think that trade is going to happen so the only other thing that that brings us to is the questions about samuelson so that’s why yeah you’re right s like maybe people just assume that if a buyout is impossible then that means he’s just going to be back on the team like in the mock offseason exercise i did yesterday on wkbw.com i traded samuelson for a seventh round pick to the seattle kraken quite simply as a way to try and get his salary off the books so if there’s somebody who’s willing to do that then i think you do it i don’t think you’re getting a return that you were excited about for samuelson i think the thing that would be exciting for sabres fans would probably having another four and a half million dollars of cap flexibility to go out and find another player now i think the organization likes samuelson a lot more than most people so i think he’s going to be back but it feels like that is an opportunity to upgrade and i don’t know if they’ll take it yeah he probably starts season on the third pair at this rate and that uh right now it would be him and bernard docker un if they don’t go out and find you know a real top pair defenseman for diene now if they do that if they go and find a legitimate top pair defenseman for diene and then your third pair is all of a sudden samuelson and bernard docker i think you can live with that but if that happens you better have also improved somewhere at forward like you better have also made additions to the forward because if the only thing that happens is you go out and find a new top guy for delin and then that’s kind of it with your draft then it feels like it’s a massive failure of an offseason his mock off seasonason as he mentioned wkbw.com and then uh monday another episode of uh 52 years of fandemonium yeah monday another episode we’ve been rolling along so we’ve still got what five episodes left from now all the way up until the first monday of training camp every week will be a different episode it has been really really wellreceived so it’s been awesome to see kind of all of this excitement surrounding it the episodes are on tv every monday night at 7:30 on channel 7 in buffalo but obviously there’s people who are listening right now who are out of town or who maybe don’t and i understand why you’re saying yes to a purka trade now because someone’s offering you you know a low-end top pair defenseman and maybe kessle ring who they acquire last night becomes that but again he hasn’t played more than 17 minutes a night in a season like he’s going to be playing a bigger role here than he ever has 8030550 is the phone number we’ll check in with paul hamilton um the draft is tomorrow so we’ll talk some prospects a little bit later on this morning as well so stay tuned if you want to get a phone call in if you’re on hold stay there we’ll keep rolling through them on this trade from overnight purka to utah jody bassi salapacio here on wgr we were talking in the break about like the contract and whether that’s like i said earlier that’s a deal i would have been very happy with to see the sabres sign him to he signs in salt lake city utah he doesn’t go to a big market at all he goes to a team where it’s even really hard to argue like if the winning part of it is what really matters to you i’m not saying they are worse off than the sabres for this and like a belief of winning from a player but they didn’t make the playoffs last year they were fine they 89 points the utah did last year 89 points but you didn’t go to florida or tampa you know you didn’t go to some perennial winner you went to a team that was bad when they were in arizona and then they moved and then they were pretty good but they weren’t a playoff team so you didn’t go to a perennial winner you didn’t go to a big market or big you know you didn’t go to a big city was it how much of it was about the money i i think a lot of it was i i believe that if the sabres had offered this contract to jj burka he’d be a buffalo saber today that’s what i believe i don’t know that and to me that means that kevin adams just didn’t feel that that was the value for this player and if that’s if that is true man that would i would have a lot of feelings about that that are not positive or or he could feel no i i i could have offered him that but i don’t want a guy who just doesn’t want to be here as we listen to him talk the way he talks and said look i could pay him that just for the money but i’m not what did he i do think it’s a very very telling quote from the press conference the other day he said we could play it i think do you have it there could you play josh could you play the quote he said something about paying a player to is not always going to make a player the buffalo sabres have traded forward jj purka purka is headed to the utah mammoth for defenseman michael kessler and forward josh don shortly after the deal purka signed a new contract with the mammoth for 5 years at $7.7 million per year on top of the perska trade reports are still swirling that the savers are close to a bow and byum trade as well though no reports on any potential destinations as of yet another lead to multi-year contract extensions with head coach todd bulls and gm jason light that news comes down just a few minutes ago the bucks have won three straight division titles under bulls and light and the the two have helped tampa be the only nfc team to reach the playoffs in the last the two have helped tampa make the two have helped make tampa the only nfc team to reach the playoffs last five years past five years that’s your paddock chevrolet sports headlines paddock chevrolet celebrating 90 years being your hometown dealership this is the best way i would say i don’t think it’s probably productive or beneficial for me to get into specifics on our players right now this is the time of year where there’s so much going on and you know there’s probably a lot of misinformation out there and i guess probably leave it at that we have a plan that we came out of the end of the season with you know after the exit meetings after the coaches meetings and you kind of break down the season and start to forecast like what are we looking to do savers general manager kevin adams from earlier in the week good morning there are a couple of hockey things that one josh has mentioned the update another that chris johnson just reported um the league is considering going to 84 games in the next cba which is the way it was in the early 90s i don’t know about before that but well like yesterday we were talking about alexander mcgillney making the hall of fame and looking back at his stats that’s in an 84 game season i don’t think he played all 84 but in ’92 93 it was 84 so that’s interesting and then chris johnson just reported that the nhl is now taking bids for cities to formally apply to host the 2028 world cup of hockey cities in north america europe and other international destinations um i don’t think buffalo would get chosen for that but i had heard greg washinsky talk about on a podcast recently maybe not really recently like a year ago maybe that he thought that the league could want to do like a a two city world cup toronto and buffalo at some point um or vancouver and seattle to have like one on each side so just something i heard a year ago and thought about when i just saw johnson report that they are doing another international tournament though anyways 8030550 is the phone number purka to utah um he will not be a villain right on his new team for saber fans in the same way that some others when they leave have been like does he get booed when he comes back that’s a good question i mean he wasn’t it didn’t really go on that long i think so he wasn’t here very long right and the trade saga doesn’t really last forever like i do think one thing that hurt michael you know not to say it wasn’t all you know saber’s fault some of it was ecles too of course but that trade saga went on for so long that i think that helps make him more of an enemy when he leaves rather than like when reinhardt leaves and it just bam happened like very quickly um so i don’t know what there’s not really much of a legacy for peter it’s only two it’s three years and it’s two really good years and an idea that he didn’t want to be here that’s pretty much it so i don’t think he’ll be like thought of that much as like some ext like bad guy for saber fans but maybe he’ll get booed when he comes back um cousins didn’t and he shouldn’t have it wasn’t like he he was really upset he left that’s actually funny about this whole thing whereas guys who want to be here guys want to be here dylan cousins wanted to be in buffalo he loved buffalo right by all accounts was very emotional when he left when he was traded th this this feels like no he doesn’t want to be here let’s move him out we only want guys who want to be here dylan cousins wanted to be here i’m not telling you it wasn’t a good idea to trade dylan cousins for hockey reasons i get it but it kind of is mixed messages there yeah 8030550 the phone number mark in buffalo’s next what’s up mark good morning gentlemen hey bear with me here i’m like oh not sell uh howard simon i’m the old almost retired guy i’ve been there with the sabres season tickets from day one i’m done this trade really does it i mean you had all the control of the player 90% you’re right on that but i i look at mr pagoula yes he’s a billionaire was he like jet clamp it and seen a hole in the ground and stuck a hose in and said “oh look oil comes out.” he can’t be dumb they’re running the sabres into the ground they’re an embarrassment in the nhl it’s a joke what they’ve let happen to the buffalo sabres i love the buffalo sabres from day one i can tell you i’ve talked to sal and you guys before i can go back jill perole pat lefonte i understand them all jack leo all my favorite sabers jim shawnfeld it’s so discouraging i woke up this morning and looked at my phone and i thought it was one of those things that really isn’t true you know how they got ai or whatever you got nothing you got nothing for jj purka who’s an upand cominging star he didn’t want to be here fine you can’t you say “hey you don’t want to play go sign an offer sheet we’re going to match you we’re not letting you go anywhere we hold your rights.” i know he may have been a problem he’s not going to sit out and not play or go home to germany they want to win what’s going to happen a year from now with rasimus dalene we already heard what six months ago he said “hey i don’t want to be here no more i want to be out of here.” and then he said he didn’t well obviously adams is wrong these things that are being leaked are true because they are coming true jj purka wants out oh no it’s not we’ve got a plan well it came to fert ticket holder four tickets i’ve seen sally i sit up at the table behind you guys over there i’m done i really am i know i’m upset i’m not getting over it i’m done they’ve taken my team and made a disgrace and run it into the ground hey guys have a great day thanks mark for the call i will just offer a long time for people very upset that as the morning has gone on i’m with you i’m with you look i got i i came out here today and said “hey i said yesterday there’s no way you’re winning a trade you’re not winning a jj trade right you’re getting rid of a top six forward a 23-year-old ascending player to me you’re not winning the trade.” i don’t think they won the trade that’s fine if you’re going to eventually be better i will say though if you’re in the same boat as me and you think the same as me which is hey i don’t think they’re going to win a trade for jj and they didn’t win a trade for jj at least read people who are smart in hockey about some of these players and numbers and what they do and you can find your way to you know what they got some nice pieces here things they needed that’s great i still think they still need to replace jj perko though and that’s the part of the problem he’s a top six forward they have to replace him i like what i’ve read about the guys they got especially kess uh kessle ring that’s the guy that i think really helps here he’s going to help them he makes their def their blue line is better today okay for everything we said joe their blue line’s better today than it was 24 hours ago and they needed help there there’s no doubt but in a lot of ways to me it’s robbing peter to pay paul you’re getting a better you’re you’re better in the blue line you still now you took somebody off your top six which is a very vitally important piece only 23 to me i’m kind of also afraid of ascending to a guy who could be better in his own end and helping you the things you want to help him that’s where i still get but you can for the caller just called who’s very upset and i get it you can get to look they got something they really needed here and you don’t have to be beholden to jj purka as a piece that walked out the door you traded to be super upset about that i am internally trying to i i’m trying to get to a place where i feel good about the two pieces they brought back because again i do think there are there are things to like about both players but if mark or any other fan wants to throw their hands up and say i just traded one of my how how good was purka was he one of their four best players really asking thompson dalene and is it then purka after that or is it power first is it tuck first one of their five best players just make it easy they traded one of their five best players and one of their three best forwards for a guy that on the utah hockey club that didn’t exist a year ago ranked fifth on their team in ice time and a forward who ranked 11th on their team in ice time if that’s all you need to make your judgment on how you feel about this trade i think you’re completely fair to do that you’re completely right to do that there might be other arguments there but that is really at the core what they did and that is why i think the takeaway of these players might be nice but they didn’t get the value they should have because at the end of the day the sabres traded one of their three best forwards for utah’s number five defenseman and their number 11 forward and when you put it that way it sounds like a joke a complete and utter joke when i don’t think they needed to trade him here they’ll rank higher castle castle ring was fifth on the utah defense group in ice time what’s he going to be here he’s just going to be one spot higher maybe he’ll just be fourth or maybe he’ll be third what will what will josh don be here he was 11th on utah will he be eighth here not neither of these guys are playing a role as important as what purka played so it does kind of ramp up the pressure on byum i thought purka is your number if you if you are committed to trading him this off seasonason he’s your number one trade chip he’s your most valuable thing that you’re going to deal he is 23 years old he is ascending offensively he doesn’t have a contract yet the team can negotiate that they can work that out and that team acquiring will have his rights for years he is valuable in a big way to not get the full amount you should get on that player so now i’m supposed to believe well it’s okay because they’re going to get more for the defenseman who’s a little older has a little less control on the contract and i don’t think anybody would say is as is as good at what he does some people like byum and there’s a lot of numbers that point to he’s not nearly as good i i was starting to resign myself to you wouldn’t get much for byum that the big change this offseason your big addition was going to be via a purka trade if you made it byum now i feel like you kind of have to get more than you should for that player to make this all feel good 8030550 is the phone number they traded one of their three best forwards for utah’s number five defenseman and number 11 forward i i mean at the at the core that’s what they did if you’re on hold stay there we’ll keep rolling through phone calls paul hamilton we’ll talk to him in the 9:00 hour and we’ll talk to nhl draft with stephen ellis a little bit later in the show as well so we got time for your phone calls before that you’re on wgr sneaky joe here for signals in irving and no i thought at least from reading elliot freriedman and listening to elliot freriedman over the course of the week it sounded like from him which was a little different sounding than from other insiders there’s like i think frank saravelli was more plugged in on the agent and that side of it but freriedman had a sentiment for two weeks of the sabres don’t want to do this they don’t want to trade purka they’d like to find a way to keep this relationship going or they would trade him they’ve begun listening but the only way they do it is if they i don’t think he used the word blow your socks off but it was by all intents and purposes what what he said that you’re really going to have to give them a juicy offer to get this player off their team michael kesserling and josh don to me doesn’t strike that cord and it doesn’t mean that those two players cannot help the sabres i think there are some things to like about both of them they absolutely want to be tougher to play against and i think they did that with this trade they got a good defensive defenseman who i’ve seen described even though he’s 6’5 as physical but he’s not like the meanest defenseman he will drop the gloves if he needs to but he’s not going to be a bone crushing hitter out there so that helps you and then josh don looks like he’s a player that makes a really solid defensive impact but what did i give up to get tougher to play against you know like i gave up my second best five on five yeah we all know all the stuff all the smoke about purka is real so that goes back to november when we started to kind of talk about that adams would not answer about purka and that’s you know he doesn’t want to lie okay so he didn’t he said i don’t want to talk about it and and in that he basically told the truth without really telling the truth because he clear i mean did not do a great job of hiding it at all no if there was and maybe he doesn’t care if there was a goal in that press conference to not confirm to everybody that purka has asked for a trade they absolutely did not do that yesterday right under no circumstance did they do that i mean they it might be tough because they did talk the way about alex tuck the way you might have hoped they would talk about purka right time for frank’s mr plumber plunger toss with the buffalo bisons be caller 5 right now at 71646 excuse me 4 7162214 wgr score four tickets to the buffalo bison’s game june 29th at 105 try your luck tossing a plunger into hank the tank the giant sixfoot toilet for a chance to win a frank’s t-shirt signed by a bison’s player make sure you’re ready to throw because you must participate in the plunger toss to win these tickets courtesy of frank’s mr plumber uh jeremy’s doing 100 holes right now you can still donate he’s a couple of birdies in over under seven and a half what i said if you just search 100 holes on twi on uh google and then you hit the link there’s the search bar right there you can find jeremy there and you can donate um courage of carly fund live like luca is where the proceeds go to 8030550 is the phone number squeak one call in here before we get to the top of the hour let’s go to jason in south carolina which by the way jason i don’t know if you knew this but that’s where um michael castle ring is from and i don’t know how many nhl players have ever been from south carolina personally wow that’s pretty cool i did not know that i can’t imagine there’s many but he’s one yeah i mean yeah i have uh there’s definitely some hockey down here there’s a lot of uh northerners that that uh have transported down here so there is some hockey um but yeah i mean it was a late night for us in buffalo hearing uh this around 11:30 and then taking about an hour to to to get the news on the players and the trade and you know going through their pedia players and looking at who who was potentially being traded you know certainly the return seems low um i think for me right now i have to rationalize this in my head that he’s going and i called earlier in the week that he’s going after eblad or gabricov has to be if he’s not then this this is a really bad trade right i understand that the peter money was a lot and so i’m rationalizing in my head that he’s using that money to go and get one of these guys and overpay for them right we we just we just know that that’s how that happens for us i think he’s then trading byron for a top six forward that involves our top pick to acquire a player like a jordan kyu i i i just think that those things have to be happening to help us or to make this make sense right because if those things are not happening this is not a great trade i mean you needed to swap the the the ninth for the fourth something like it just i don’t know so i i’m trying to have hope that there’s something there’s a shoe to fall here something is going to fall where i think this will make more sense for us at least that’s what i’m hoping for yeah we went through it earlier on who’s their top six right now and there’s just nobody who really kind of fits in that spot that you’re super comfortable with right you know i mean jason and i think that’s where it is right now and you gota you got to bring that player in from the outside yeah yeah yeah has to be and then again like i think that the defending thing is a big thing for this this this management group which i think it has to be because we’ve seen it power denim they struggle with taking a stick in front or taking a body in front so you got to go and get one of these guys that can do that because we know they can’t at least right now in their career they’ve struggled to do that so it’s got to be it’s got to be somebody big has to be guys i don’t know that’s just my thoughts on how i how i rationalize everything going on right now yeah thank thanks jason i i do think dene is very capable of that um power as much as it’s the big part of it it’s the stay-at-home part and i don’t know what it looks like from kessle ring is that he is good defensively and you would hope he will free up power to play a little looser and he can control the game more and jump up into the rush and really take a big step as a player because he’s got a reliable partner that that is if that happens that is very valuable but right now their top line going into the year is what what is it if thompson’s going to play on the right wing i don’t think him and tucker are on the same line because they’re both playing on the right so ta is one of my guys on the top line and then my center is josh norris who could get hurt at any moment and who is my left wing right now who is their topline left winger to replace purka who is it it’s tough it’s a guy that’s probably not on the team yet and that’s why for that you don’t want to rush to judgment on the whole plan the whole off season yet but on this trade individually it leaves them with a hole and i don’t think you can argue that they got proper value back for a player that they didn’t need to trade it is funny you bring up joshua norris and you’re right you said earlier you forget sometimes he’s even on the team yeah like i know he’s had trouble staying healthy but if he were to stay healthy he it is a like he’s a very very talented offensive player sure and he should help the power play too which i think that that is we’ll talk about this with paul maybe a little bit i think their power play has been one of the biggest things that has sunk them for two years and norris if healthy could should help that i don’t think you really lose anything with purka because he wasn’t doing much on the on the man advantage so maybe whatever that forward addition will end up being will be someone that is helping them on the power play as much as anything paul hamilton more of your phone calls um some prospect talk in the 9:00 hour as well big hockey day after the trade overnight purka to utah stay tuned this is wgr or something like that do you have that can you let’s play this right here all right josh’s going to fire it up here here we go we were talking in the break about like the contract and whether that’s like i said earlier that’s a deal i would have been very happy with to see the saber sign him to he signs in salt lake city utah he doesn’t go to a big market at all he goes to a team where it’s even really hard to argue like if the winning part of it is what really matters to you i’m not saying they are worse off than the sabres for this and like a belief of winning from a player but they didn’t make the playoffs last year they were fine they have 89 points the utah did last year 89 points but you didn’t go to florida or tampa you know you didn’t go to some perennial winner you went to a team that was bad when they were in arizona and then they moved and then they were pretty good but they weren’t a playoff team so you didn’t go to a perennial winner you didn’t go to a big market or big you know you didn’t go to a big city was it how much of it was about the money i i think a lot of it was i i believe that if the sabres had offered this contract to jj purka he’d be a buffalo saber today that’s what i believe i don’t know that and to me that means that kevin adams just didn’t feel that that was the value for this player and if that’s if that is true man that would be i would have a lot of feelings about that that are not positive or or he could feel “no i i i could have offered him that but i don’t want a guy who just doesn’t want to be here as we listen to him talk the way he talks and said “look i could pay him that just for the money but i’m not what did he i do think it’s a very very telling quote from the press conference the other day he said we could play it.” i think do you have it there could you play that josh do you play the quote he said something about paying a player to is not always going to make a player happy or something like that do you have that can you let’s play this right here all right josh’s gonna fire it up here here we go paying someone more money hoping that they’ll make them happy isn’t usually a recipe for success you know you have to have players that buy into and believe what you’re doing and wake up every day in buffalo excited to be a saber i i think that’s important in saying that are there hard conversations with times or players that frustrated i i i think it’s important to note here to me like i guess i should say i think what he’s saying is i could pay jj burka what he wants and he’ll sign it i don’t think that helps our team because he’s not going to be happy here and we’re dealing with this man i and and i’m not telling you it’s the right approach i think it’s his approach i think he’s got the wrong approach if that’s the case you are buffalo you are the buffalo sabres come on man even if if that were true you only have so many avenues to get talented players and to keep talented players and there would be a lot of players that wouldn’t even take your money really what this trade does for me is it confirms a lot of priors about the sabres that you might have had one the players that want to be here mentality right again no fighting no what do you mean you want out okay you have you have four years of of we have four years of leverage of contract control before you can hit unrestricted free agent status so okay i respect your um wanting out but no i’m not doing that i’ve got you for four more years i’m at least playing you for one more of the four and he’s got a sign to the not spending to the cap you you would have been had that confirmed yesterday at this time they could go and use it like owen i woke up to your tweet of like well now the sabres do have all this cap space to use and i’d love for that to be true how confident are we though that the sabres are going to turn around and they’re now viewing this as man look at we got $21 million in cap space now after trading purka we didn’t have to pay him $7.7 million which is what he signed with utah so we can go use that that’s not how i approach that that’s not how i think about it on the surface it’s oh they’re not going to spend at the cap again because they traded a player that cost almost $8 million and they replaced him with a couple of players that make less than $2 million total so that prior would be confirmed and the other one which this isn’t necessarily a negative one this is something i think we’ve known about them for two years which is they want to be tougher to play against they absolutely want to be tougher to play against and i think they did that with this trade they got a good defensive defenseman who i’ve seen described even though he’s 6’5 as physical but he’s not like the meanest defenseman he will drop the gloves if he needs to but he’s not going to be a bone crushing hitter out there so that helps you and then josh don looks like he’s a player that makes a really solid defensive impact but what did i give up to get tougher to play against you know like i gave up my second best five on five hey in other nhl news the nhl and nhlpa are meeting to discuss new terms on the next collective bargaining agreement the current bargaining the current cba does not expire until september of 2026 but one main topic of discussion is increasing to an 84 game season rather than an 82game season darren dreger also reported yesterday the nhl is looking to expand once again with front runner cities being atlanta and houston among other cities the nhl draft starts up tomorrow night at 7:00 sabres still hold the ninth overall pick be sure to stay tuned to all our draft coverage throughout the weekend right here on wgr coverage of the nhl draft on wgr is brought to you by outlet liquor when you need to stock up it’s the place to buy a case what’s your outlet by feel carar and joyce your border attorneys and by dash’s market serving western new york’s for over 100 years shopped the family of finer foods the nba draft was last night the dallas mavericks selected 18-year-old cooper flag with the first overall pick flag played one season for duke recording 19 points per game for the blue devils and some nfl news from this morning tampa bay buccaneers extend both head coach todd bulls and gm jason light to multi-year contract extensions the duo have helped the bucks win three straight division titles that’s your paddock chevrolet sports update paddock chevrolet celebrating 90 years of being your hometown dealership i’m josh schmidt for wgr sports radio 550 all right we let him sleep in a little bit because it was a it was a late trade a late trade paul hamilton on the wester hotline good morning jeremy and joe jeremy at wanuka country club right now for the 100 holes if you’d like to donate search 100 holes and then there’s a search bar right there for jeremy’s page if you want to donate to his individually paul was that uh the late trade it’s not uncommon it’s happened in the league right where you get a trade at like 1:00 in the morning i’ve had it happen yes and where were you i was trying to call you at 1:00 in the morning saying “all right what time am i on?” my i do not have my ringer on at 1:00 s woke up to it you could have called me i would have woke up i would have been mad at you for calling me but i would have woke up oh i knew i’d be hearing from you folks before i when i went to bed i go “yep they’ll they’ll be calling.” although actually this time i actually was up by now since it’s 9:00 all right um yeah uh it’s i had well when reinhardt and it wasn’t even announced then we were down at the arena that was 1 in the morning when we knew reinhardt had been traded but we didn’t get the official word until the next day um when danny breier became a buffalo saber i got a call from the sabres at 12:45 which was the same time they announced this trade um on twitter uh so i had gotten at the same time a 12:45 call i believe brier played for the coyotes that night and that’s one of the reasons why they they waited on it so uh it’s not the first time i’ve gotten notification like that but it certainly does not happen very often i remember being on the air that night for for for it was the nhl draft right for draft coverage when reinhardt gets traded and thinking why because there was a long period of time between when it was reported and when it was announced and we were i mean you’re you know you know how it is paul like you’re in day two of draft coverage you only know so much about the prospect instead we went off on a scavenger hunt to figure out why the trade wasn’t announced and we were looking up like finnish players from florida that might not be awake yet like oh they haven’t announced it cuz this guy’s still asleep in finland i think lendell was actually the player that might have ended up being pretty nice but speaking of nhl draft coverage we will have all that for you starting friday night 700 p.m brian kio and brighton wilson will anchor our coverage paul will obviously be on site down at one bills drive we’ll have zack jones uh anchoring coverage from back here as well um with making sure that you have any news breaking news things like that that’s going on on digital and social uh zack paul evan dasquali everybody on hand here at wgr all right paul you’ve said many times hey listen it’s not scoring it’s defense this team needs uh they have to be better there they got a what we think is a guy that’s going to help on the blue line but they did it by giving up a top six forward who’s a goal scorer a 23-year-old and we know everything that’s been surrounding jj burka so how do you evaluate this trade well i you know what i what i think the basic problem is here and it’s still a problem here is that the sabres are still in this position six years into a regime that players want out and then they they are forced to trade players you’re not really in a position of great power when you’re trying when you’re forced to trade somebody and it just keeps happening and keeps happening that players want out and that to me is the problem that we’re still the buffalo sabres are still in a position where players want out and then they’re forced to trade them uh i think kesserling is a good defenseman and and i saw every game he played for team usa that won the gold medal uh teammates with taage thompson i thought he was excellent in that tournament he is what they need he’s big he’s strong he’s not afraid to get mix it up i don’t think he needs a team meeting to tell him to arrive when one of his players gets laid out um you know i i i i think he and and what i as i learned more about him and read more about him last and you know i’ve seen him play also he was developed the right way he’s 23 years old he has spent time in the american hockey league to get his development and uh now now is starting at 23 years old to become a good nhl defenseman of course a right-handed shooting defenseman and remember when rasmus wristan was traded and i was floored that the sabres got a number one pick out of it and it was simply because right-handed defensemen in the nhl are hugely valued hugely overvalued you might say in raspusan’s case um and teams covet them it’s something the sabres need this fills a need that the sabres have um don i basically envision him riding shotgun with beck malenstein um i am certainly you you you now have two holes in my opinion in your top six forwards um i thought you had one anyway because i just don’t think zack benson should be in the top six he doesn’t produce as a top six um and and i thought you needed one there now you need a second one but i think you’ve also filled a hole on your defense because i think keserling is to a point now in his career where he can play in your top four for and be a right-handed shot defenseman and maybe be that guy that can grow up with owen power and help him uh you know so i i don’t object to them getting kessler but you know where where the real problem is it’s not well they got a horrible return if that’s how people feel about it it’s that they’re even having to trade a player like burka at all that a young player like that already wants out to go with eel to go with reinhardt to go with you know uh the the list goes on and on uh uh you know all these people that want out and you shouldn’t be six years into trying to rebuild a team and having guys still like i went out here paul you you mentioned a couple of times there talking like the sabres had to trade purka do you feel like they cuz listening to like freriedman a couple of times in the last week has been saying the sabres do not want to trade purka but they’re listening and if it would take an offer that i forgot the exact wording he used i keep using blow your socks off i don’t think it was that strong but basically that the sabres they won’t do it unless there is an offer that really c like forces them to does that feel like what happened here to you do you feel like they traded purka because they felt like they just had to move him or do you think these two players was oh for cerling that that’s why i got to do it i think they like kerling they i think they should like kerling but i i don’t think it’s like oh wait a minute that’s the trade right there we you know i think it got to a point of no return i think they wanted to keep him i think they were holding out hope that he would change his mind or his agent would change his mind and that they could convince him that this is the place to be but it it sometimes gets to a point where you’re like well it’s not happening he’s not going to change his mind and we’re going to we’re going to have to get rid of him do you want a pouting jj purka on your team all all year long i mean because you didn’t you didn’t trade him this year um how how much does that help and let’s let’s be honest too i’ve been reading you know people some are disappointed the sabres didn’t get the fourth or pick are you kidding me they didn’t get the fourth overall pick for eel or reinhardt jj purka is not getting you the fourth overall pick i think there’s a sentiment that maybe people thought they could have swapped picks four and five picks right maybe but um you you still have to remember that jj purka is not a complete player in the nhl he he’s not just well he’s not very good in his own end he’s horrendous in his own end and numbers will bear that out i mean he he he does not have good numbers at all and i’ve had folks tell me uh who are heavy into analytics that the sabres are better off without him with as bad as he is defensively but but this is part of it’s hard it’s hard to ignore 55 goals in two years but you know when you’re how many if you know you’re you’re not holding your weight at the other end now that sal is also something he can fix right if he wants to that’s part of the issue i have he’s 23 paul like we’ve seen guys what do we hear about mitch marner forever and yet he’s getting sulky votes right whether it’s justified or not to some people he is we’ve heard this about and look i’m feeling better about this trade as the morning goes on i’ll be honest with you i really am i’m liking a lot of the things i’m hearing about kessle ring and what he can do no doubt about it but it’s he’s 23 is an ascending player and all these things that about not being good in his own end guys mature i’m watching sam bennett run around the ice with the cup and i’m thinking “oh my god this guy’s been in league 11 years look how long it took him to get to the player that everyone thought that maybe he could be someday.” well sally the sabres i’ve obviously felt that way cuz they wanted to keep him yeah what do you think about the contract i ask you that what do you think about the contract he signed if if if you woke up this morning if you got the alert that said the sabres signed jj burka to 5year 7.7 paul what would have been your reaction i would have been fine with that i was thinking low sevens maybe you know uh so the that it had it gotten to the high sevens would not have shocked me he would be making more than tage thompson but tage thompson signed a contract a couple of years ago and and contract values go up you know when you sign a contract i mean look at what alex tuck is making well at the time it probably didn’t seem like well you’re getting screwed here but you know with the with the production that they’ve gotten from alex tuck it’s been a bargain for the last couple of years because contracts change as go up so no i i wouldn’t have said that was ridiculous i i was kind of thinking that’s about where it would land not quite there but about where that would land and uh goal scorers do get paid i mean jeff skinner got 9 million jeff skinner never did figure out the defensive zone you know but he did score 40 goals one year so if you’re getting a guy who scores 40 goals maybe you can forget about you know the the other the other part of it so no you’re absolutely right and i think the sabres agree with you also that’s why they wanted to keep him that you know that he they felt that he’s going to be able to figure it out but when you’re looking at what you got coming back you got to talk about what is not what could be maybe and what is right now is he is is a liability in his own end but you’re right that can change and that’s up to him he he can change it yeah as we figure out too paul like how this happened you you tell me like where i should land on this because i like the the 5year 7.7 million i woke up this morning after seeing the trade and seeing the destination wondering more if money was at all a part of the adam’s talking the other day about how you can’t make a guy happy just by paying him so thinking about like oh i wonder were the sabres willing to go there was was there a contract where purka would have said “okay i’m in with the sabres because and again my the the source of that for me is where he ended up going he didn’t go to a big market he didn’t go to la he didn’t go to new york he didn’t go to a perennial winner he didn’t go to carolina he didn’t go to tampa he went to salt lake city and a and a team a group of players that’s missed the playoffs 11 of 12 years.” so like or is it just that it’s that bad here that utah is now like a a much better destination than buffalo is i think that’s an accurate statement um but you know his agent anytime you heard or a lot of the time when you heard where he might land it’s all you know new york rangers even the incorrect report at the trade deadline new york rangers you know and that to me is the agent feeding it you know that that’s but the agent or anybody else he has no trade protection so they sabers could trade him wherever they wanted to trade him and uh utah is looking to improve in their goal scoring and there you know they have salary cap space that they can do it so you know that’s that’s where it wound up uh as far as that went so it it didn’t surprise me where it went but again you know utah wasn’t a heavy rumored place for him to go uh that’s again why you know me i just don’t you know like to pay a lot of attention to rumors but uh you know it was that’s where he wound up and yeah they were never on they were never on the uh on the on the rumor card that’s what i mean like all i guess i’m i’m trying to figure out is like how did it end up being utah for him like what ended up being purka’s real motivation when he didn’t choose like one of the top like cuz again the sabres could have traded him wherever they wanted but he didn’t have to sign wherever he like he chose to be there for 5 years so was it the money was it the city was it you know is it just that that team is it well that’s that’s another good question is it coaching is it i just feel i feel is it anywhere but it could have been i’ll just go anywhere but here lindy ruff publicly talked talked about how you know peter’s poor defensive play and players a lot of players don’t like that to be publicly called out um and and you know and we had talked about this i don’t know within the last week i think i i talked to you both about it is it possible that peter and his agent don’t want to deal with the sabres anymore because they’re at an impass in the contract negotiation is that the reason he wants to be traded we don’t know is it lindy ruff is it he doesn’t believe in the organization is it the losing um we we just don’t know what his problem is and we’ll have to see at some point if he ever addresses it i i but you’re right i mean it it’s certainly right to speculate it’s possible but then my thought is why were they trying so desperately to convince him that he wants to be a saber knowing how much it was going to cost them to keep him right i i’m with joe where it’s like um not not there’s a disagreement type with joe but i i agree like when joe’s wondering we hear all this stuff about big market big market and then he gets moved to utah no to me it was money this is money like i that’s what i come down to i think it’s money i don’t think the sabres wanted to pay him that kind of money we all say we would have done it and and i have a theory paul i have a theory here this this this contract he signs very much screams like an offer sheet type of contract i think the sabres knew an offer sheet was coming maybe utah told him “hey we’re going to give him an offer sheet.” and the sabres like “well guess what we’re not we don’t want to pay him that but we don’t want a first second and third round pick.” so you know what let’s just make a deal and i think that this is what this feels like to me it doesn’t to me just because i just think offer sheets don’t happen all that often and uh you know first of all you have to have your own picks like you have to have your own number one you have to have your own number two and you have to have your own number three you know to to be able to make that you know that type of an offer and i’m just checking right now and utah does not have or do they the picks that needed for the i’m looking right now where the money yes they do yes they do it just feels to me like something like that i mean remember back in the day when the bills put the franchise tag on peerless price but they did it only because they knew hey we’ll just instead of going through this process we’ll do that and then we’ll make a deal with somebody right that happens i just feel like it sounds to me it feels to me like maybe hey they kind of knew this was coming maybe utah made it known and said like we’ve been saying paul we don’t want prospects back for the sabres i don’t think that’s what they want they want to get better hey you know what instead of having him go somewhere we don’t want to pay him the money but we don’t want the prospects we don’t want the picks let’s make a deal here you want them give us a couple players that we can use yeah but there is there’s a difference though between a team telling you they’re going to do it and then them actually doing it you know what i mean like correct it’s a little bit of okay you’re going to offer sheet i’ll wait let’s see if you actually offer sheen that’s right you could do that and and and freriedman saying you know that the sabres definitely don’t want to trade him and doing everything they can to try to make sure that that doesn’t happen um you know wouldn’t say that the sabres weren’t willing to pay that i don’t know and as i said we we’ve already speculated within the last week that is that the problem is there an impass in in uh what we’re talking about that you know they decided that well you know we have to trade him because there’s not or that i’m sorry the turkish decides decided that well he needs to be traded because um you know it’s it’s it’s just not going to happen by the way utah does not have their own first round pick okay so that they could not overfeed them i guess there goes my theory because the bruins would have been it would have been if you if you invert the standing it’s san jose chicago nashville boston and utah has the fourth pick okay that’s not their pick paul does um now that purka is traded and you mentioned earlier and we actually talked about this the other day that now it feels like there are two holes in the sabres top six do you feel like whatever they trade bo byum for assuming they do make that deal eventually it’s more imperative now than it was before that like they got to get a forward back in that deal yeah i mean i mean we already thought that they needed a top six forward zack benson i like his game it’s not that i don’t like his game the way he plays but he if you’re in the top six you have to produce and right now at his age and you know his the way his body is right now he doesn’t produce you need guys in the top six that produce so to me you already had a hole there and now you’ve got a second hole there you have filled the hole maybe you were looking for on defense but you know now you’ve need a couple of top six forwards you in my mind you need two you need more than more than one so uh you have other assets i mean you could maybe take your ninth pick and with uh a couple of prospects or whatever you can get one that way mhm um you can maybe get one in the buy room trade um so there are other ways they can go about to get what they need there they felt like they got what they needed on defense a right i mean it he’s exactly what they’ve been talking about that they want you know a right-handed shooting defenseman who’s big who’s strong who brings something to the table nobody else on that defense brings and that’s you know what they got there so all right you’ve filled that but you’ve left a hole here so i mean now you’ve got to go fill that hole because you know if you’re going to make the playoffs you can’t have all these holes uh that uh that you have and uh so that’s i i think what you know what they’re still going to have to do and of course free agency could maybe you know come into that picture too but then you run into what you ran into here well the sabres keep losing and they keep losing badly and here we are again where the buffalo sabres have to you know uh trade one of their best players to a team that didn’t exist like 5 years ago i’m an idiot i said utah doesn’t have their pick yes they do they win the lottery oh the lottery and by the way i didn’t i’m such an idiot that i just it just hit me i’m sorry that we’re sitting here talking off the cuff and and i also want to make up want to make a point josh is smiling for potential open use in the future i i also want to make a point here of the offer sheet thing if if you do sign a player with an offer sheet the picks wouldn’t come until the following year you can’t because it’s after the draft right july 1st would be you know offer sheet season right so it’s not this year your first round pick next year next year and by the way utah does have that and they do have they do have their first second and third for the next several years so they could that that’s independent it doesn’t matter anyway just a theory i had but go ahead all right yeah i just wanted to correct that you got it all right draft tomorrow we haven’t really talked about the draft much at all paul but uh well there’s been things that have caused us to you know push that off to tomorrow so we’ll we’ll talk about the draft tomorrow so thanks for uh being on and we’ll talk tomorrow well maybe we can talk about trade tomorrow too who knows or there’ll be a trade tomorrow we’ll talk about it yeah there you go thanks paul yep paul hamilton on the western highline speaking of the draft well we we have time for your phone calls but we’ll have a few minutes coming back to talk with steven ellis from daily faceoff to get a quick scoop on kind of the draft early on tomorrow and also what the sabres are looking at at number nine so that plus your phone call so if you hang on hold we’ll get to you coming up in the next segment stay tuned jody vio sal kapacio here on wgr we were talking in the break about like the contract and whether that’s like i said earlier that’s a deal i would have been very happy with to see the saber sign him to he signs in salt lake city utah he doesn’t go to a big market at all he goes to a team where it’s even really hard to argue like if the winning part of it is what really matters to you i’m not saying they are worse off than the sabres for this and like a belief of winning from a player but they didn’t make the playoffs last year they were fine they 89 points the utah did last year 89 points but you didn’t go to florida or tampa you know you didn’t go to some perennial winner you went to a team that was bad when they were in arizona and then they moved and then they were pretty good but they weren’t a playoff team so you didn’t go to a perennial winner you didn’t go to a big market or big you know you didn’t go to a big city was it how much of it was about the money i i think a lot of it was i i believe that if the sabres had offered this contract to jj purka he’d be a buffalo saber today that’s what i believe i don’t know that and to me that means that kevin adams just didn’t feel that that was the value for this player and if that’s if that is true man that would be i would have a lot of feelings about that that are not positive or or he could feel “no i i i could have offered him that but i don’t want a guy who just doesn’t want to be here as we listen to him talk the way he talks and said “look i could pay him that just for the money but i’m not.” what did he i do think it’s a very very telling quote from the press conference the other day he said we could play it i think do you have it there could you play that josh do you play the quote he said something about paying a player to is not always going to make a player happy or something like that do you have that can you let’s play this right here all right josh’s gonna fire it up here here we go paying someone more money hoping that they’ll make them happy isn’t usually a recipe for success you know you have to have players that buy into and believe what you’re doing and wake up every day in buffalo excited to be a saber i i think that’s important in saying that are there hard conversations with times or players frustrated i i i think it’s important to note here to me like i guess i should say i think what he’s saying is i could pay jj burka what he wants and he’ll sign it i don’t think that helps our team because he’s not going to be happy here and we’re dealing with this man i and and i’m not telling you it’s the right approach i think it’s his approach i think he’s got the wrong approach if that’s the case you are buffalo you are the buffalo sabres come on man even if if that were true you only have so many avenues to get talented players and to keep talented players and there would be a lot of players that wouldn’t even take your money i am internally trying to i’m trying to get to a place where i feel good about the two pieces they brought back because again i do think there are there are things to like about both players but if mark or any other fan wants to throw their hands up and say i just traded one of my how how good was purka was he one of their four best players really asking thompson dalene and is it then purka after that or is it power first is it tuck first one of their five best players just make it easy they traded one of their five best players and one of their three best forwards for a guy that on the utah hockey club that didn’t exist a year ago ranked fifth on their team in ice time and a forward who ranked 11th on their team in icime if that’s all you need to make your judgment on how you feel about this trade i think you’re completely fair to do that you’re completely right to do that there might be other arguments there but that is really at the core what they did and that is why i think the takeaway of these players might be nice but they didn’t get the value they should have because at the end of the day the sabres traded one of their three best forwards for utah’s number five defenseman and their number 11 forward and when you put it that way it sounds like a joke a complete and utter joke when i don’t think they needed to trade him for me it’s krill capersov and cutrov those two guys i do know they are both wingers but you know i think what they do on the ice i can relate to in a lot of ways the way they drive themselves offensively their playmaking ability just stuff when i when i watch them i can hopefully see myself like in the future michael misa who’s expected to be the second pick tomorrow he said with a question mark i i’m sorry i gotta click my draft brain back on because uh we’ve been talking so much purka this morning anyways good morning it’s jeremy and joe jeremy’s off today s is in to the western hotline steven ellis of daily face off i mean this is why we have stephen on second pick right stephen for uh for misa yeah i would be shocked if it wasn’t there’s been a lot of talk about fun too but misa number two is i i would be solely expecting that gotcha so before we get into some some of the draft talk the trade from overnight purka to utah for michael kessler and um and josh don your immediate takeaway stephen when you saw that trade did you feel like sabres didn’t get enough value back for a player because it’s kind of been our reaction here the whole morning i i was sitting with the other reporters and we’re all sitting there like jaws through the floor like seriously that was it like great i like kessle rang a lot i think he’s a pretty underrated defenseman he he when he was in arizona and then utah he just continued to get better like he reminded me almost of like kind of how mckenzie weaguer started his career where he was more of just a shut down defenseman let’s give him more opportunities with the puck and then he kind of started to figure out with josh stone i’ve never been a josh jones fan so that’s where that thing kind of falls off for me so uh tough one to see the pura tenure end that way but uh i’m i’m surprised that’s all it took stephen ellis with us on the western hotline weaguer if he becomes weaguer i’d be happy but right well that’s that’s a pretty high bar to set ellis covering the nhl draft tomorrow in la it’s decentralized so we’ll have coverage from one bill’s drive where the sabres will be set up so the top of the draft stephen as we start to preview it a little bit here what level of number one pick are we talking about with matthew schaefer and how unique is he because of him not really playing many games leading into this draft i fully expect schaefer to be in the long-term norris conversation because you watch him play there’s so much meliskin in him and i think he might be better than melis the way that he thinks the game so you know it’s is he not going to celebrate obviously not is connor no so he hasn’t received that type of hype and defenseman never do but i think when people start to see what he’s capable of against nhl players they’re going to be so impressed with his talent level um so he’s good and you like overall in this draft class it’s like it’s a it’s a it’s not a great draft class this is i’d say a little better than maybe 22 but like if you’re drafting in the top 10 there’s some decent talent there but this also feels like the year where if a team is going to trade a pick in the top 10 it’s going to happen and i wouldn’t be surprised if it’s multiple teams what about the sabres for that so pick number nine what where the tear breaks might be for a team that wants to move into that spot maybe for a veteran i mean we we kind of know i mean kevin adams said it matterof factly earlier in the week that he’d like to trade that number nine pick so where do you see the list of prospects around that spot and maybe how valuable it could be for the sabres if they are trying to get something that’ll help them right now it feels like if they’re going to hit number nine they’re probably going to take one of the defenseman whether it be vad murka the the 6’6 check 6’6 defenseman who had a very good end of the season with the seattle thunderbirds jack the smith he’s more of the all-around bigger defenseman who at six foot three can also skate well but he’s got a bit more offensive flare to him i also like k desawn histen i know that’s a guy that feels like the sabres would probably want to have in the system he just he wants to hit everyone he’s kind of a throwback defenseman so those guys for sure there’s also victor ecklund uh the swedish winger who’s got a great shot his brother uh obviously plays for the sharks jake o’brien uh the stunnman out of brford another one who’s kind of maybe more of a smarter player not super flashy but he has the ability to pull off some some moves if he needs to so if is they hold off the pick there’s still some really good talent but something just kind of makes me think they’ll take one of the defenseman stephen is this a is this a good draft um how does it compare to other drafts especially maybe in the top 10 because the sabres are picking ninth yeah like i i like the top 10 i think it’s a like it’s it’s not as good as last year and it’s not as good as the year before but i’d say it’s probably on par with what we saw in 22 the year with logan culie and suovski shane wright so i’d say it’s about there i think there’s more star power in this draft but it’s it’s after that top 10 where things really start to go quiet like after like pick 24 25 it’s it’s kind of hard trying to figure out who should go next because the talent level starts to fall off drastically so yeah i think teams that are later in the first round and have some mass physical that could move into the top 10 it’s totally worth it this year but otherwise it uh if it’s this if you’re going to be trading this year you’re not or if you’re going to trade your pick this year you’re not going to get the same value you would last year or even next year stephen ellis with us on the western hotline daily faceoff covering all things nhl draft it two years ago i remember when the sabres picked zack benson everybody was “oh i had this guy ranked you know sixth or seventh or eighth and he seemed to fall a little bit.” is there somebody that is expected to go higher than nine that you could see dropping and then that’s kind of the the sentiment after if the sabres make a pick where it’s oh this guy was supposed to go fifth or sixth and ends up falling i think a big one for that is james haggins and he’s kind of a little bit like a logan [ __ ] a little bit like a jack hughes the way he really kind of just thinks the game and moves around the ice and does things like that and i i think he’s a top five prospect i think that he’s almost underrated because he entered the season as a top prospect but then he just didn’t have an explosive year by any means like if you compare his numbers in his first year of college to cabbrini it’s not even remotely close celerrini was that much better so with hagens you know i don’t think i don’t know if nashville takes them i think cale wants to take a bigger centerman would the bruins trade their pick seattle doesn’t need another centerman so there is a possibility that haggin could fall there and if he’s available it would it would take a lot for me if i’m the savers to not be interested in him yeah he’s not a big centerman but he’s still going to go for best player available and i think james haggin is i i think he’s going to have one heck of an nhl career as a potential first line center nhl draft tomorrow night 7:00 is the start of our coverage here on wgr where exiting the draft just for a moment here before we let you go stephen how do you see the sabres prospect pool at this point in time like feel like often we’ll mention like oh they’ve got all these prospects all these prospects is that still true like do they are they still viewed around the league as a deep or even just a topheavy prospect pool or is that starting to is that starting to fade at all well i’d say they’re definitely not as as good as it was even two years ago like you look at the fact that like yuri kik is obviously now not really a prospect i like constant hellenius i think i think the role of him i think he’s so smart and i think he could be more of a anton lindell style player like if you’re hoping that type of guy he could be especially after watching him play really well in the playoffs this year i’m i would have been on deon levi if we’re still considering him a prospect but i i don’t want to give up on him uh i like isaac rosine so there are some good players in this pipeline but some players have obviously moved up to the nhl so that’s weakened it a bit and it’s definitely not as strong as it was a year or two ago especially when you trade matthew seavoy so uh that’s why i i would love to see them keep that pick this year but at a certain point they got to stop focusing on the future and and start working on actually moving forward sure and then finally before we let you go how how do you like it being a decentralized draft to cover is it is it better from your standpoint is it there won’t be any tweets of this gm got up to go talk to this gm at a different table i guess but how do you like the decentralized draft uh it it’s it’s funny he doesn’t really feel like one right now considering how many nhl gms i’ve been seeing walking around the city here in la so really you guys could have just stayed well because the uh the board of governors meeting like oh well you guys could have just you know stayed here what a crazy concept but um yeah so it’s that and then i it i think we might lack some of the chaos that we would hope for which kind of sucks and it’s it’s just on a personal note like not seeing all the the media around the league here which is kind of like the one chance to see everyone that kind of sucks so i’m very confident next year we’re going to go back to a regular format and i hope so cuz it’s uh this doesn’t feel as special this year yeah okay that i think i think i’ve seen that too that they might go back to it like this might be a one-off um i’ve never understood it though stephen like i cover football i’m the beat reporter for the buffalo bills here and i like the way football does it i understand it’s what i know right i get it but because all of your draft stuff is in this room is in this facility where you are like the they don’t go to the they don’t sit at a small table and have their notes like we’re put doing a fantasy football draft in someone’s living room and it’s always felt weird to me so this kind of feels like the way it should be done if that makes sense well yeah and i get it i think honestly the the sentiment when i ask like scouts from the league like what what do you like why would you want to go back to the normal format and it’s it’s mostly so everyone could just see each other and and teams like like scouts that work against each other can meet up again it’s more of a social aspect really because that’s like the one thing that the nhl is really special with was everybody from the league no matter what was there and it felt like a big event and i think that’s like the nhl just doesn’t have that right now so like not everyone’s going to the cup final not everyone’s the four nations face off so this was the event where everyone comes together again i think like that’s something where the teams are going to look at this and say “okay we we’ll we’ll reverse this.” yeah you know you know what i’m think i’m thinking of is the difference here as you’re talking like stephen what the draft is for the nhl like s that is the owners meetings and the combine exactly the owner meetings and the combine everybody is at that’s your big reunion for everybody whereas like we we host the combine here in buffalo and that is not everybody in the hockey world showing up descending upon i mean some people do i think that’s right so that’s the difference yeah we if the nfl didn’t have the owners meetings and the combine and you might want you might have people who say no no we need to get to the draft yeah that makes sense all right anyway stephen ellis the draft hub at daily faceoffs a good follow heading into tomorrow to keep track of everything that’s going on so appreciate you getting up with us stephen and enjoy la yeah thanks so much thanks for coming on all right we have a couple calls that we want to get in here that have been waiting patiently on hold before we get to extendo sports jj purka traded to utah if you’re most pe what percentage of people are awake by now 90% 95% 99% i’m not sure alex in orchard park what’s up alex hey guys thanks for uh thanks for taking my call so um i know there are a lot of people who are really frustrated with the trade last night and be honest i’m not a huge fan of it either um it really does feel like they didn’t get enough return for the player that did post 55 goals over two seasons um where i hesitate to react is that a similar discourse actually occurred last summer when the savers traded matt davoy arguably one of their top prospects for ryan mloud who at the time was on a fourth line role with edmonton and we look at it a year later and it appears to be pretty even since mloud posted 53 points stayed healthy for most of the season and has shown that he can actually you know perform across all four lines and seo we don’t know his true potential yet but he has solar in the ahl but we have yet to see what he does with edmonton i’ll go a step further on that and say i actually think it’s been a good trade for the sabres because i think seavoy every chance he’s kind of gotten in the nhl there’s a lot of question about you know his you know his also his defensive play but you’re right it that as i will stay consistent here and say you know alex that you know that you can get better in that regard but i like the trade right now for the mloud trade and i’m with you on what i thought about at the time so yeah and then i i know i’ve been listening all morning to you guys and listening to the other callers um and you guys mentioned that kessle ring is going to be taking on a larger role on the blue line well he is i know you guys were saying he’s 23 i looked it up he’s 25 um but i don’t think he’ll be garnering first pairing minutes which will leave him at best being owen p’s line and i remember during the course of the season uh a lot of discussion was around we need to find owen power a linemate we need to find him a linemate and is is kessler going to be that guy um i personally don’t think so and i fear that the sabers will roll with castle ring on the same pairing as power won’t necessarily perform and then he’ll be thrown under the bus which will lead which i think should lead to the question to whether owen power is truly the problem yeah thanks alex i would bet against that though because i i like power as a player a lot and if you look back on his most common partners over his career i think by a very wide margin the most minutes played with power is henry yoki haru so the bar is not necessarily very high to clear for being his partner i do expect that that is who kesser ling will play with and that’ll be 19 to 20 minutes a night which is a two plus minute increase over what he did in utah so sure if it went poorly then maybe we could have a power conversation but i wouldn’t really expect that to happen um the one key difference i do want to mention i’m glad you mentioned the mloud trade cuz i saw that a little bit on twitter and you’re right there’s one similarity which is at the time everybody said “wow you overpaid to get that player.” that is a similarity there’s one key key difference everyone at least here everyone understood the motivation for why you did that that’s right the the reason we all knew they overpaid they overpaid for ryan mloud matt seavoy was worth more than that but we knew why they did it they did it because you needed to win right now and you didn’t have a third line center and this dude was going to be that and they had a backlog of prospects and you had that somebody had to go like you didn’t have room so yes you overpaid the motivation was understandable this one you overpaid to get ryan kesserling and josh don what’s the motivation and do we understand it i do not think it’s the same in that regard at all because the more i look at it the more we’ve talked this morning the more that i think they might have just traded him because they didn’t want to pay him right that’s the conclusion i kind of arrived at pretty early i am sorry i that is i’m not i’m not understanding of that at all the same way i would have been last year for why they would have traded for ryan mloud totally different just on that part of it totally different 8030550 is the phone number extendo sports mark if you hang on hold we’ll get you in before we run out of time here in wgr stay tuned i thought at least from reading elliot freriedman and listening to elliot freriedman over the course of the week it sounded like from him which was a little different sounding than from other insiders like i think frank saravelli was more plugged in on the agent and that side of it but freriedman had a sentiment for two weeks of the sabres don’t want to do this they don’t want to trade purka they’d like to find a way to keep this relationship going or they would trade him they’ve begun listening but the only way they do it is if they i don’t think he used the word blow your socks off but it was by all intents and purposes what what he said that you’re really going to have to give them a juicy offer to get this player off their team michael kesserling and josh don to me doesn’t strike that chord and it doesn’t mean that those two players cannot help the sabres i think there are some things to like about both of them really what this trade does for me is it confirms a lot of priors about the sabres that you might have had one the players that want to be here mentality right again no fighting no what do you mean you want out okay you have you have four years of of we have four years of leverage of contract control before you can hit unrestricted free agent status so okay i respect your um wanting out but no i’m not doing that i’ve got you for four more years i’m at least playing you for one more of the four and he’s got a sign to the not spending to the cap you you would have been had that confirmed yesterday at this time they could go and use it like owen i woke up to your tweet of like well now the sabres do have all this cap space to use and i’d love for that to be true how confident are we though that the sabres are going to turn around and they’re now viewing this as man look at we got $21 million in cap space now after trading purka we didn’t have to pay him 7.7 million which is what he signed with utah so we can go use that that’s not how i approach that that’s not how i think about it on the surface it’s oh they’re not going to spend at the cap again because they traded a player that cost almost $8 million and they replaced him with a couple of players that make less than $2 million total so that prior would be confirmed and the other one which this isn’t necessarily a negative one this is something i think we’ve known about them for two years which is they want to be tougher to play against they absolutely want to be tougher to play against and i think they did that with this trade they got a good defensive defenseman who i’ve seen described even though he’s 6’5 as physical but he’s not like the meanest defenseman he will drop the gloves if he needs to but he’s not going to be a bone crushing hitter out there so that helps you and then josh don looks like he’s a player that makes a really solid defensive impact but what did i give up to get tougher to play against you know like i gave up my second best five on five yeah 23 and is a point per game producer and they trade him to st louis for rob ramage and he and warmley i believe was the goalie they traded him yeah he only played 57 games though you know rick wormsley 57 games yeah but i mean it’s crazy like he yeah he was a 23-year-old secondyear player 50 points in 52 games like i was going to trade you over to st louis and then he scored 86 goals a couple of years later it’s exactly right all right jj purka scores 86 goals in a couple years sorry i didn’t need to universe by the way he scored 72 then 86 then 70 in three consecutive years that’s incredible so we were talking offer sheets in the break and you mentioned to me that joe sack had signed an offer sheet in 97 i’m like boy i didn’t i don’t remember that but let me go look that up with the rangers i learned i there were players in the past that had been offer sheetated i didn’t know about like sergey federov got offer sheetated by carolina keith kachchuck by chicago team u salani was offer sheeted by calgary again they signed with these teams and sack with the rangers how about that sack after winning the cup i think signed an offer sheet with the rangers so i ran across this this is an incredible story that we’re going to end today’s show on pretty funny story amazing i don’t know weird uh the avalanche i think should be sending thank you notes to harrison ford that’s right the actor harrison ford because here’s the story this is according to wikipedia as a free agent during the summer of 97 joe sack signed a three-year $21 million offer sheet with the rangers as an rfa now under the cba at the time the abs had one week to match that offer or let sack go in exchange for five first round picks while it seemed as if the avalanche could not afford to keep sackic as they had already committed large amounts of salary to peter forsber and patrick wah an unlikely lifeline would appear in the form of a summer blockbuster movie air force one produced by avalanche owners comat its profits enabled the avalanche to match the offer and instigated salary rise for many nhl players that’s unbelievable so air for air force one yes really they they should have sent harrison ford to stanley cup ring yeah i know cuz a couple years later they win their second cup with sackic leading the playoffs in points and he was only still there because of air force one air force one home of the uh one of the most iconic lines in movie history which is harrison forms harrison ford with a big boot kicking the guy off the plane get off my plane yes great quote all time movie quote top five some have said i’m just kidding not really it’s a good draft someday in the middle of summer movie quote draft movie quote draft idea mike show movie quote draft yeah movie quote draft they were flirting with uh what was the draft they were talking about maybe doing in the summer i don’t know this might be better i don’t know uh mark and wheatfield if you stay on hold you’ll be the first up when it comes to the extra point show derek and zach and josh all hanging out talking jj purka who’s been traded to the utah mammoth and signed an extension be back to talk about it tomorrow morning jeremy is on the golf course right now for 100 holes at wanuka you can still donate go to give.roswwellpark.org and you can search jeremy’s name there and you can donate 11-day power play tonight see you boys on the ice going to get owen a shutout and hopefully i won’t be sore when i come in tomorrow morning from a 4-hour hockey game it’s you know should be fine i mean i’m still young enough it’s only three you’ll be fine or three right sorry three hour games that’s nothing that’s nothing all right talk to you tomorrow
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