dudacek

Best Mitts comparable might be the 4x4.4 Filip Chytil signed a few months back with the Rangers - similar age career numbers and utility Id be happy to sign Casey to something in that range

That’s not a new take rom Marty and it didn’t waver despite the results this year. Marty knows a helluvalot more about goaltending than me, but he generally seems more enamoured with how a goalie approaches his craft than how many pucks he stops. He’s not the only “goalie guru” I’ve seen praising Comrie’s technical approach.

Any insight coming out of the combine? @Brawndo or anyone else involved this year?

I have been perhaps the biggest Levi booster on this board for a long time now. The presence of Devon Levi should in no way discourage the Buffalo Sabres from acquiring any competent goalie. You need two of them. Play the new guy until Levi takes his job then trade him. If Levi doesn’t take his job, trade Levi.

Goalie valuations more so than any other position seem to be all over the map. It seems to be an emotional combination of your first impression of a guy, what you saw the last time you watched him, whatever you want to make of his numbers, and your interpretation of his situation, filtered through a lack of context in what goalies actually get paid, or traded for. I put less faith in what the internet says about goalies than on any other position, because I don’t think fans really understand the position well, myself included. I look at Carter Hart as a talent who lost his game for a bit but has bounced back to be a legitimate 2nd-tier NHL starter and who is still young enough that he can be “your guy”. I wouldn’t give up 13 for him, but I would be happy to trade pick 39 and 45 for him. You’ve got him under contract for 1 year and under team control for 2. There’s a decent chance they could decide he is their guy, and a good chance they can trade him for a decent return if they don’t. Short term he is a better fit than most and long term we keep our options open. For the right price this would be a savvy move, but I imagine there will be plenty of suitors. A lot of teams are looking for “their guy” and not a lot of 24-year-olds have his resume.

Dahlin has earned it, IMO, he’s the centrepiece. But ideally I’d avoid them. I just think the idea that Östlund is “easier to sacrifice” at this stage of their careers is short-sighted. Jason Pominville was “easier to sacrifice” than Jiri Novotny in 2002. Let’s see a little more of what they have to offer before deciding who is core and who isn’t.

My initial reaction to the above string of posts was “there we go, minimizing Krebs again” but that would be my own bias talking. The fact if the matter is none of the forwards who are Sabre property are safe from being trade bait, not even Tuch and Thompson. Right now, Cozens might be the cream of the crop of the kids. Two years from now, maybe he’s stalled as a 60 point scorer while Krebs and Östlund have hit the same level at cheaper prices and Cozens has become our most marketable trade piece. Right now, Kulich might be the apple of Sabrespace. Two years from now, maybe he’s struggling to make the jump while Rosen is coming off a 22-goal rookie season and he, Quinn and Peterka have made re-signing Tuch poor cap management. The story has played out to the point Thompson and Cozens and Samuelsson have earned term, but that’s about it. They don’t have trade protection, and they do have marketable contracts. Their full stories have yet to be told. The stories of the Savoies and the Poltapovs haven’t even started yet. We will need to trade people, but we don’t need to trade them yet. The buyers will determine who goes nearly as much as the sellers.

I’d tend to agree given the choices I see being available. Kid is generally underrated around here.

So I was trying to think of the last team that built a champion the way the Sabres are trying to, assembling a young core and chucking them into the deep end together. The best match seems to be the Blackhawks, who miss the playoffs in 2007/08, then won the cup 2 years later. In between they went to final 4 with an inexperienced lineup almost totally bereft of veterans. They literally did not even have an Okposo or a Girgensons, adding vet Sami Pahlsson at the deadline for the closest comparable. Here’s how the career NHL games played stack up between 2023/24 Sabres vs the 2008/09 Blackhawks for players being asked to play similar roles. Okposo 984- Skinner 939- Havlat 470 Girgensons 625- Tuch 379 Ladd 157 Dahlin 355 Keith 322 Greenway 334 Eager 195 Thompson 301 Kane 162 Lyubushkin 279 Byfuglien 178 Mittelstadt 277 Sharp 334 Jokiharju 273 Campbell 493 Cozens 201 Toews 146 Krebs 135 Bolland 121 Samuelsson 109 Hjalmarsson 34 Power 87 Seabrook 314 Peterka 79 Versteeg 91 Quinn 77 Brouwer 81 The next year they added Hossa and John Madden as the missing pieces and won it all.

Which of Tuch, Thompson, Skinner, Cozens, Mitts, Quinn, Krebs and Peterka should have their roles cut back from last year?

I am a big fan of Demko, advocated for the Sabres to buy low on him after his slow start (to little or no support here) Personally I don’t believe he’s available given what the Canucks say they are trying to do, but if he were, I think Robin Lehner (pick 21) and Corey Schneider (pick 9) aren’t bad comparables - youngish and touted - although Demko is more proven than either. He is better and more highly regarded than this board thinks. (Keep in mind the Schneider trade is an outlier and kinda marks the last time a team has paid big for a goalie.) My Canuck fan friends think the return should be Dylan Cozens, but they are as ill-informed about Cozens as Sabrespace is about Demko. 13 might be too much, but not by much in my opinion. If I don’t have a goalie and I do have picks and prospects, like Chicago or Columbus, I’d trade pick 19 or 22 for him. He’s a legit #1 on a reasonable contract, who could be around for a while.

Not about the player himself, but Willander has a far better chance of being the pick at 13 than 39. He, Simashev, Reinbacher and Sandin-Pellika will be the first 4 D taken and from what I’m reading any of them could go top 15

Vegas had the league’s 11th best defence, Florida its 21st. Florida was 6th in the league in goals for. They knocked off the league’s 1st, 7th and 2nd best defences to get to the final. The 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 9th and 10th best defences lost in the 1st round The 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 9th best offences won in the 1st round Not seeing any evidence that defence is more important than offence in this year’s playoffs.

Maybe you don’t consider Matt Murray’s 2 years at $6.2 to be a match, but that was a veteran with term and a high AAV. Adams agreed to a trade for for him with the Senators.

From Seravalli: John Gibson, the man who may have nixed a trade to the Sabres last summer, has apparently told the Ducks he’s now OK with being moved. 29 with 4 years left at $6.4. Excellent his first few seasons. Hasn’t performed to his rep for a few years now.

To the bold, you are renting Hellebuyck for an entire season, not just a playoff run. You’re also acquiring him to get you into the playoffs. I haven’t seen a single fan or analyst advocating acquiring Hellebuyck for the equivalent of two top 13 picks and a young goalie, or signing him to an $80 million contract. I will bet good money the actual price = acquisition or contract - is nowhere near this, It is a horrible exaggeration of his market value and a false argument.

I disagree with your 1st point: not that some will wash out, just with the math. NHL players on ELCs or long-term deals take up 10 roster spots, while Mittelstadt, Dahlin, Jokiharju and UPL remain under team control when their contracts expire and increase that total to 14. There is not enough room for the 6 1st rounders (Savoie, Östlund, Kulich, Rosen, Johnson and 13) to graduate in the next 2 or 3 years, never mind the 5 recent 2nds, and tthe deeper cuts like Novikov and Rousek. Your 2nd point is mostly correct; very few goalies have garnered that return, period, regardless of coontract. Goalies of Hellebuyck calibre rarely reach free agency or get moved, making comparables, or recent ones at least, tough.

I’m not sure there is a team out there willing and able to give a goalie $8 million. At least that’s how things are trending. Only Bobrovsky, Vasilevkiy, Murray, Gibson and Hellebuyck make more than $6, and 3 of those guys are considered bad contracts. Murray was the most recent and that was 3 years ago. Markstrom and Binnington got 6 2 years ago and that was probably bad value too. Would Helle take 7.5 over 6 from Chicago or Detroit over 6.5 over 5 from an emerging Buffalo team he just took to the 2nd round? Probably, but there is a window of possibility for the Sabres. More to the point though is whether the Sabres close enough to contention, and rich enough in prospects to “rent” him for a year to fuel a real run at a special season and all the development opportunities that may bring for the core that is already here, not to mention the business and the fanbase? As opposed to the negative repercussions on same if Levi and whatever stopgap he plays with fail to deliver? I agree it is counterintuitive to our perception of Adams, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a lost opportunity.

Lot of negative assumptions here. ”Goalies”might be fickle, “Hellebuyck” has been anything but. Dude has had 7 seasons as an NHL starter and never had a year worse than .907 (his 1st year as a starter) or 24 wins (a COVID season). His career averages are 32 wins and .916. A significant regression to a career worst year is still a significant upgrade on UPL or Comrie. This is what I mean about looking past his talent. Pick 13, UPL and Kisakov or something similar is not “a king’s ransom”. It’s the type of price one pays for a first liner but not a star player. It’s possible one or more of those pieces are good. But it is highly less likely any of those pieces are part of the Sabres core 3 years from now - or even beyond - than Hellebuyck would be. But the biggest negative assumption is that we would sign Hellebuyck to a Bob contract. In order to earn such a contract Hellebuyck would have to have an impact season with the Sabres, the type of season that would justify the trade price. The Sabres would be in a position to either sign him to a deal that makes sense under their cap, or walk and pass the baton to Levi, who would be in a much better position to take it. Hellebuyck, coming off a bad year would be in no position to ask for such a contract. Coming off a good year, he would be more likely to take a team-friendly deal in Buffalo because things here “worked” and he has his desired “chance to win”. Sure there’s a chance he doesn’t provide contender -calibre goaltending next year, he walks and the Sabres give up the next Matt Savoie plus for nothing. But there’s a better chance they give up the next Drew Stafford to be a contender next year while giving Levi a buffer and exploring the potential of something longer term with Hellebuyck. Thanks, I think you’ve convinced me that I’m on board with trading 13 for Hellebuyck. He’s the closest thing we’re going to get to a playoff guarantee at a cost we can afford.

Very interesting proposal. As a rule, trading top 20 picks for a rental is poor asset management, but @Thorny makes a very cogent argument as to why this situation dictates an exception: the Sabres have an excess of young “top 20” talent; trading from this pool is inevitable, and selling high (meaning flipping for an obvious roster upgrade as opposed to depth pieces or more futures) is wise the Sabres are on the brink of something special with a very obvious question mark in net as a potential impediment. Conner Hellebuyck is really ***** good, as in as good at his position as Dahlin is at his - the type of player who rarely comes on the market. I’m kinda surprised at the number of people looking past this. My initial push would be make the deal based around the 2024 1st and up the value of the rest of the package to compensate: 1st, their choice of Leinonen or UPL, and Rosen perhaps? Adding a 4th piece? But I suspect 13 will be necessary in order to outbid other suitors. If I trade 13 for Hellebuyck I’m going to be trying to extend him. If the season goes the way I suspect it will, the fit here may be such for him that his cost may not be exhorbitant.

The kid is not big on specificity, but ultimately says he took his time, considered his options, listened to what others had to say, and decided this is where he wants to be. https://www.buffalohockeybeat.com/sabres-and-city-helped-ryan-johnson-choose-buffalo-right-in-my-heart/ “There’s something special here with the staff and the culture this team has,” said Johnson, who was drafted by the team’s previous regime. “It’s definitely trending on the upward, it’s noticeable. And also it’s cool even what’s happened in the city. Buffalo, I know it’s a major sports city and it’s cool seeing that they rallied behind Damar Hamlin, seeing the support of all the fan base. I definitely want to be a part of something like that where’s it’s bigger than the game.”

The amount of posting about the Ryan Johnson “situation” is a textbook example of how the internet abhors a vacuum. We know he could have walked as a free agent in August like any college player could and few do. We know the Sabres offered him a contract last summer that he mulled for a long time then turned down to finish college. We know he did an interview last summer at development camp where he said he liked the Sabres and he planned on signing eventually. We know he was offered another contract in April that he eventually accepted nearly 2 months later. Everything else posted about his character and his thought process is complete and utter speculation based only on the above facts. Nobody knew anything else and in the absence of knowledge leapt to all kinds of wild conclusions. Perception became reality, when really we didn’t have a clue.

Was there any doubt?

This thread has a real loudmouth at the end of the bar vibe. Kyle is still a decent hockey player who supplies a physical strength, cycle game and savvy the team could use more of. His defence was good, his offence can only come in spurts, but those spurts seemed to come at times they were needed. He can help on special teams or move up the lineup in a pinch. Best, most-respected human being on the hockey team. Multiple players called him the best captain they’ve ever played with. The improvement we’ve seen in guys like Krebs and Mitts has his stamp on it. Probably a year where the torch passes and the contract reflects that, but he sets a bar that the kids will have to meet and is the type of player good teams have in their bottom 6. He makes them better. Most people besides Tim Murray understand that matters.

Always thought the return in Montour was odd. Whatever you thought of his play here, he was a top-4 RHD rental at the deadline. That market typically warrants a 2nd.