dudacek

I’m thinking what’s more likely though is that we trade for a blueline version of Greenway: I’m talking a younger veteran who some team may have to move on from for cap reasons, and our team sees as having some untapped potential. One guy that immediately sticks out is Will Borgen. I mean not sure if he’s available, but he fits the profile of the type of guy I could see them shopping for.

Brawndo has pitched Damon Severson on here before as a UFA, which is someone I’d take a look at, RD, just 28 and he’s a solid top 4 guy who could around a while. It will probably take a big contract though. I don’t like Matt Dumba as much, but he is also available and fits the same profile. More defence-first guys include Carson Soucy, Scott Mayfield and Radko Gudas. One guy I might kick the tires on as more of a stop-gap James Patrick/Teppo pickup is Eric Johnson: Stanley Cup ring, RD, former 1st overall pick - might be a good guy for Power to lean on.

JJ Peterka was fantastic tonight. One of the few times this year I've seen the player I watched close out the season in Rochester last year. Quinn was very good as well. Not often this year you could say Dylan Cozens was the 3rd-best player on his line, but that was the case tonight. Jokiharju was consistently breaking up the plays and getting the puck out. Lyubushkin was a force. Samuelsson was the good Mule. Jost and Mitts were hard on pucks. Lots of good efforts from guys who can be hit and miss tonight.

I guess that's to each his own, but I think in general most of the fanbase will not be forgiving if they miss the playoffs next year.

I wonder what the issue has been for Lindgren — slipped in the draft, requested a trade, has had kind of a disappointing season. Wonder if there's something going on off-ice?

Yes, that's exactly what I said. While you've been trying to define success and failure by some sort of point total since the off-season (which is fine), I've been pretty consistent that I just wanted to see the team get better. Tonight, to my eyes, the team got better.

"A lot" is a relative term. Tuch, Dahlin, Skinner (can't believe I wrote that), Zemgus, Kyle... and now they've added Greenway and Jost. Am I missing anyone? Thompson, Mitts, Jokiharju, Boosh and Vic might be "vets," but they are what 250 games into their NHL careers? And how many of those games have been tough games against good players? And Power, Mule, Quinn, Krebs, Peterka, Cozens — they're NHL babies. Conservatively, at least half of our lineup is still learning and it's games like this week that are teaching them.

I think it was you who posting elsewhere about responding to the previous game and seeing what they are made of? To me, that was a better response than if they had cakewalked their way to 4-1 victory. That was a playoff-style game against a playoff team where absolutely nothing came easy and they had to fight for every square inch of ice for more than 60 minutes. And they did. Might have been the best defensive effort we've seen against a good, engaged team all season. I was kinda pissed at Donnie after the Dallas game, but when he says you have to learn something from nights like that and use it, he's right. I still like this team and I like where we're headed.

I assume this in reference to the stick he put on Zibanejad's hip that didn't impede Zibanejad in the slightest, but he clamped down on in order to draw attention to in the hope of creating a penalty? That sort of "stick foul"that happened 27 other times in the 3rd period but was ignored but was called this time because it's the NHL? You're going to blame the loss on Dahlin because of that? Terrible take.

I think past two games was evidence that the problem with the defence is not so much the ability of the defencemen as it is the structure around them. Jokiharju and Lyubushkin looked outstanding tonight. In my opinion that's largely because the structure and the effort around them was strong and allowed them to succeed. UPL looked good tonight, in part, because of the same reasons. @Marvin has been banging this drum recently and Donnie used to talk about a lot last year: defence can be taught a lot more easily than offence. This year they learned they can score goals and make plays with the best of them. With the proper coaching and dedication, why can't they learn to defend the way they did tonight on a regular basis?

This raises some good questions. Its obvious that Granato and Adams have adopted a pretty steadfast approach in terms of how they want to manage the psychology of the team in order to shake off the malaise of the past decade. Does that approach only take us so far? Will adjustments be needed? When? Was Dallas an example of when they should adjust, or a test of their resolve? Talking strictly people management here, not hockey tactics.

Dahlin is a true one now, but he certainly wasn’t two years ago. I said this before, but this board glosses over the flaws of Samuelsson and Power in their slots in a way it does not with Jokiharju and Lyubushkin. Mule and Owen flash being good 2/3s but they are not yet good, consistent ones.

See others have addressed the space issue, so I’ll add that with space come opportunity, which is what young goalies need more that anything. These guys not only need a team, they need to play regularly for that team in order to develop. What teams tend to try to do is a version of this: the 24-year-old moves up to the big club, the 22-year-old moves into a prominent role with the minor league team, the 20-year-old plays in college or Europe and you pick another one to move in behind them. If you’ve got 3 20-year-olds it’s going to be hard to to sign and develop them all. Doesnt mean you can’t pick them and only sign the best of them 2 years later though. Another thing is the quality of goalies available in the draft. The Sabres hinted the reason they reached on Leinonen last year was the lack of goalies available who had NHL potential. In the 4th and 5th rounds you want to be picking a guy with some NHL potential and you literally might think the best goalies left do not have that potential. This will slowly gain momentum until it is fixed. The Sabres play the way they do by choice. They also have a history of overreaction: have they overreacted to the extreme defend mode of Ralph by adopting an extreme attack mode under Donnie. Will that ultimately prove his downfall, or is it part of a process and a slow course correction is coming?

Agree with the size bias, but this isn’t the only chart Levi ranks well-down on. He seems to have as many skeptics as fans. And these aren’t reporters, what I like about the Hockey News list is it comes from polling hockey executives and scouts. As usual, the polling is done around the WJC and gets coloured through that lens. Levi is going to prove a lot of hockey people wrong.

The other thing is that it’s been a long time - 2015 - since a goalie was moved for even as much as a first. NHL GMs seem very untrusting and gunshy these days when it comes to trading for goalies.

Been having the goalie conversation with a Canuck fan buddy, who is buying in to the current hype in this market that the Canucks could get 2 1sts and a top prospect for Thatcher Demko. Was trying to burst his bubble so I looked up the best-ever returns in a goalie trade in the last decade or more: Roberto Luongo for Jacob Markstrom and Shawn Matthias Ryan Miller for the 25th pick and Will Carrier (roughly) Martin Jones (!) for the 13th pick and Sean Kuraly Robin Lehner for the 21st pick Corey Schneider for the 9th pick Could not find another deal that netted a 1st-round value. So goalies rarely cost too much - just once have they ever netted a Savoie quality prospect, and that was straight across, Schnieder for Bo Horvat Luongo and Miller were elite Saros-quality goalies when they moved. The other three were younger and generally considered emerging studs.

Hockey News Future Watch is out. Sabres are ranked as the 4th best pool behind New Jersey, Anaheim and Detroit. Our top 5 prospects are: Kulich (15th overall) Savoie (28) Östlund (55) Rosen (73) Luukkonen (NR) Levi was our 7th-ranked prospect and also failed to crack the top 100 overall. I counted 6 goalies in the top 100, with Wallstedt as the highest-ranked at #8 overall. Johnson was 6, Poltapov 8, Kisakov 9 and Portillo 10

Levi does have something special, but that doesn’t preclude adding a real goalie. All it precludes is adding a real goalie with a huge amount of term. If you have to dump the vet at a loss because Levi pushed past him, no one around here is going to be crying about that. Same goes with UPL and or Comrie. This isn’t like a David Perron blocking a JJ Peterka from a middle-six role, this is about the starting goalie: the best man wins.

I don’t know for sure, but your point is a good one, there aren’t many and it’s been awhile. This is Levi’s 3rd post-draft season. Carter Hart played 31 games in his D3 year. Spencer Knight played 32 in his, after playing 4 in his D2 year. They’re the most recent comparables to Levi that I can think of.

He’s not ready to be a #1 and I’m not sure he ever will be. Developed properly, I haven’t written him off as an NHLer though. Hope Levi gets a good look down the stretch. Failing that, I hope UPL gets 2/3rds of the starts left and gives us a good sense of what he might be for next year. Comrie and Anderson aren’t the answer now, nor will they be in the future.

i think it's more like they were too emotionally invested in the Islanders game and too emotionally immature to put it past them.

I'm not sure what you're arguing? That Comrie should have been pulled with 10 minutes left when it was 7-3? Because he would have been less embarrassed? And/or because the team would have been more embarrassed? To be clear, I don't really care that he did or he didn't. I was just curious if anyone had seen it happen that late in the game. It probably has, I just don't remember it.

It is interesting that this is how the team has responded to Adams emotional declaration of faith last Friday: an inspired win over Tampa a well-played tight loss to Edmonton where they got goalied. a frustrating 1-goal loss where they seem to be tight and struggled with adversity tonight where they completely fell apart It's funny, I more or less felt like Tuesday blew our chances. After being able to shake off adversity more often than not, they played tonight like they agreed

The bold wasn't my question. As for your other point, I agree entirely.

Personally, I'm done with Comrie. Not because of tonight, but because of the body of work. 17 games played and just 5 starts where he's had a SV% above the bare-minimum Mendoza line of .900. The guy's had 10 starts - well over half his games - where he's had a SV% under .880! Has that ever happened in the past 25 years? We've had far better performances from goalies on far worse teams. Sure there are plenty of other issues to fix, but that one is blindingly obvious and it is fixable. He ain't it. It's beyond debatable.