dudacek

The 19 million in space next fall includes Okposo, Girgensons, Hinostroza, Anderson and Jost’s contracts coming off the books. Re-signing or replacing them eats into that 19 million, even if it is just with ELC contracts and/or minimum wage guys. The bold is exactly what I am talking about: the five young guys I listed are all going to get paid by someone. The question facing the Sabres is will the Sabres pay them, or will they spend that money on somebody else? I think they already made the decision with Olofsson that they are going to pay somebody else. Personally, I see room for a $4 or $5 million defenceman with term, but anybody else they add will on an expiring contract or a very cheap one until they know what Dahlin and Power are going to cost because those guys are definitely core. And I doubt they will be close to the cap. But they won’t be at the floor. They’re already over it and they still have at least 4 or 5 players to sign.

I think things are starting to become clearer on that front. Next fall adding the raises of Tage, Mule and Cozens puts them at $19 million under the cap with 5 rosters spots open, so they can easily afford upgrades, but also will easily be over the floor. The issue is the fall of 2024, when they will have to give raises to Krebs, Mittelstadt, Jokiharju, Power and Dahlin. It’s not unreasonable to think they will have to keep maybe $15 million ish open to re-sign or replace them. So they can add to their cap this summer, but it will have to be judiciously - either not too much, or short-term. They’ll be cap team in 24-25 whether they make big moves or not, so they will have to make calls on who they extend, and making some of those calls this summer (read Dahlin, Power) will certainly give them better clarity on what else they can do.

The year-end Mitts with the concept of Savoie and the concept of Greenway is a very intriguing trio.

Where are you going with this? Bryson?

This is another thing I’ve observed and I don’t quite understand: Why do people seem to give JJ and Quinn way more slack for their inexperience than they give Krebs? You know Peyton is only 8 months older than Jack right? And that he had only 6 fewer points than JJ? And that he was playing a tougher position, often against tougher opponents and in tougher circumstances with less skilled linemates. I also think the coaching staff has asked him to change his game more than maybe any other player on the team. This shouldn’t be perceived as me liking Krebs over the other two - on the contrary, I’ve been pretty vocal about how high I am on Quinn, and his ceiling. I just think there seems to be a double standard as to how these three are rated and perceived.

Back to the point of this thread, I should add to here what I wrote earlier in the “next year” thread. When push came to shove down the stretch and the Sabres were fighting for their lives and winning, Krebs was 6th among the forwards in ice time. More than Quinn, more than Girgs and Kyle, a notable amount more than Greenway and Peterka, and a full 5 minutes a night more than Jost, who was healthy scratched twice. This is not a guy with a questionable future in the eyes of the Sabres, it’s a guy they are investing a considerable amount of time and effort to develop and expect to have a significant role moving forward.

I was going to agree with post until the last sentence. Completely agree that Granato is going to go with the lines that best serve the team, and it that means 2 “1st” lines or 3 balanced lines, I see no reason why he wouldn’t do that over an 1-2-3 rotation. But I disagree on Tage. Guy scored at a 40-goal 60-point pace to finish the year injured on the wing. As a healthy centre he was the deadliest threat this team has had since Pat Lafontaine. Centre has to be your starting point.

Yes, this all makes sense. I tend to read into what the coach does more than anything else, especially when he and the GM seem to be on the same page. On the 12-game run to end the season with the playoffs on the line: Mittelstadt and Cozens played 17:30 per night, 2nd only to Tuch Krebs played more than 15 minutes a night, 6th among forwards. Okposo and Girgensons each played more than 14 minutes a night Upon returning from injury, Greenway played mostly on lines with skilled players. Olofsson was healthy scratched 5 times Jost was healthy scratched twice and played only 10 minutes a night Jokiharju played 21 minutes a night Lyubushkin played 15, and less when Mule was healthy Stillman was healthy scratched 3 times and played less than 12 minutes a night Bryson was healthy scratched 6 times and played less than 10 minutes a night Clague played just 2 games Levi started 7 of the 9 games he was available UPL started just twice and only once after Levi arrived Comrie started just twice and not at all after Levi arrived. This should inform a lot of how we perceive where certain players stand.

It may mean absolutely nothing, but I couldn’t help but notice that we got every regular on locker room cleanout day except the bottom (edit) 4 5 on defence - Stillman, Lyubushkin, Clague, Bryson and Jokiharju. Seemed oddly specific to me; four of the five have contracts for next year. Adams has kinda conditioned us to expect warm and fuzzy, rather than coldly accountable. But part of a “development year” is seeing what pieces fit moving forward, and which ones didn’t measure up. Changes to the blueline, the crease and portions of the coaching staff responsible for particular areas can certainly be justified. It will be interesting to see what they have in store for us.

If Kyle Okposo retires, he will be one. I’ve previously shared my feelings the Ryan Miller may be another. Role TBA, but I’d imagine it would be less about filling a hole and more about adding what they have to offer in terms of relationships and understanding the game and it’s players: good, thoughtful people, passionate about the club and its direction, adding their voices to the pool. Hockey is no different than any other industry: people start in a department with a particular area of expertise and expand their knowledge and understanding of other areas through experience until they gain a broad understanding of how things work and are qualified for senior positions overseeing broad departments. Ventura has spent 2 years in the Sabres inner circle and has certainly acquired a lot of knowledge about ownership, contracts, administration, scouting, coaching and player development in the process. And that is on top of whatever he picked up in PIttsburgh. Whether he’s ready is up for debate, but he’s certainly advanced to a place where he can start entering the conversation. I suspect the Ventura to PIttsburgh chatter has more to do about where he comes from and from Fenway Sports affection for analytics than anything else. But I’m kinda comforted by the idea that other organizations might actually be considering raiding our organization for off-ice talent, which was apparently also the case with Karmanos. When was the last time that has happened?

I gotta disagree with this. I find Team Storm Cloud, such as it is, is largely populated with thoughtful people who can articulate the “why” behind their views and bring pertinent ideas to the discussion that are worth exploring, no matter where my level of agreement ultimately lands. We have plenty of stubborn and passionate posters, but very few who represent the “drunk loudmouth at the end of the bar” element of ill-informed obnoxiousness. Those that pop up generally don’t stick around. Spend 10 minutes on the site he’s referring to and the difference is strikingly obvious.

This. I’d go as far as to say that the family’s plan 7 years ago was to play out the contract and retire back home to Minnesota. Now that the time has arrived, the family has to decide if they want to stick with the plan. I hope he comes back. I’ll be very curious who they target his important skill set if he doesn’t. It won’t be Jiri Kulich.

I don’t buy the popular narrative that Ullmark wasn’t all that with the Sabres. He had 3 seasons as a regular, more wins than losses in each and save percentages of .905, .915, and .917. He was not great, but he was good.

It definitely ties into previous quotes we’ve heard about players being afraid to be themselves and may tie into quotes about guys being genuinely happy for each other’s successes and becoming comfortable in their own skins. Kinda sounds like the team had kind of a culture fraught with bullying and jealousy. As for the who, you know people are going to point fingers at Jack, but Kyle and Jack have been publicly supportive of each other and Kyle has been here a long time and through a lot of leadership groups: Botterill, Krueger, Housley, Murray, Bylsma, O’Reilly, Kane, Bogosian, McCabe, Reinhart, Ristolainen, Larsson, Gionta, Gorges, Ullmark, Lehner, and whole litany of transitory people like the Montours and the Shearys, and the hockey department staff that was purged a few years back… it was almost certainly as much the product of a mix of personalities as a single person or two. But this is the part that gets forgotten when we are playing video game GM around here: these are people and how they interact matters. The reason Adams gets my full support regardless of the trades he has or hasn’t made, is that he recognized this was a problem and he has fixed it.

The 3rd-line centre role is his unless he sucks in camp, or someone like Savoie blows up. I think it’s what they are training him for long-term. I get the “but Mitts looks good at centre” thing, but to me that’s more of a “between Tuch and Skinner” thing. I also wouldn’t get too caught up on positions, linemates or roles; Donnie and Kevyn have designed this team with the idea of having multiple guys who play centre and they can and will be shifted as circumstances demand. So when I say 3C for Krebs, I mean he will mostly play centre and get middle-of-the-pack ice time.

Is sub planting sorta like sub tweeting? Im not real good with you kids and all that social media stuff.

Fair enough. We have different views of his worth. I look at the Avs winning the cup last year with Logan O’Connor and Daren Helm playing regularly and the Lightning with Pat Maroon and Pierre Bellemare and I think Girgs measures up fine.

I have no idea what you are talking about. I think that as of this moment Mittelstadt is our 5th best forward. I don’t believe that necessarily means he has to be on the 2nd line. Coaches deploy players based on chemistry and matchups, not heirarchy and are constantly reshuffling the deck throughout the year based on the above.

For me, he does most of the things you want a “4th-liner” to do: Slot into multiple roles or positions Forecheck hard to keep the puck pinned in the other team’s zone and wear down their D Backcheck hard to limit scoring chances and hold better players off the score sheet Set an example by showing up to work every day, being a good teammate and pro Protect the puck and limit turnovers Win puck battles Kill penalties Add some strength and speed to the lineup Chip in 10 goals Now he doesn’t fight or win faceoffs, but he does check most of the boxes. I guess my question to you would be what’s your definition of “much better”? I’d say very few of the guys you could name tick as many boxes as Zemgus does,or if they do, they aren’t really 4th liners.

Weird, I always thought the 4th line was exactly where 1-dimensional players stayed. Jost is not better than Krebs right now and has less potential to develop. And this idea that Krebs isn’t fast enough is absolutely bizarre.

My point being that I didn’t give up on Casey after 100 games, and I’m not going to give up on Krebs.

I think you need to re-read that chain of posts. My position was basically that Casey and Krebs had similar production over their first 2 pro seasons. Pretty sure I specifically said Casey has reached a level that Krebs may never reach.

Some interesting reasoning going on here. Krebs scores a point per game in the minors last year, puts up 25 points in his first full NHL season and is “done”. To make room for Kulich, who (checks notes) produced at a lesser rate in the minors this year, than Krebs did last year? And this comes in the same post you admit you were wrong about Mittelstadt, OK.

Fit, of course - roster and cap. We just traded for Jordan Greenway because the Wild have a lot of players offering a similar skill set and we don’t. It’s not that Victor is a borderline NHLer, it’s just that the Sabres have Tuch, Skinner and Mittelstadt who can play that role better, Quinn and Peterka we’re trying to develop, and Savoie and Kulich coming. The Calgary Flames, for example, have one winger who scored more than 18 goals. Same with the Nashville Predators. There will be teams interested in Victor’s 27 goals and his shot on the PP. The only question is what will they give up.

Good take. A bit of context to that is that 5 of Levi’s starts were must-wins against playoff teams. And in those 5 games he allowed 13 goals, with a 2.6 GAA and a .918 sv%