dudacek

Are people convinced UPL is the answer moving forward?

The bulk of Bryson’s minuses were compiled during November when he was being asked to cover for Boosh, Mule and Jokiharju being injured. He was -11 in the 15 games he was playing 20+ minutes a night against top players, -5 the rest of the season. Because of injury, Bryson/Lyubushkin have only really been a thing for an extended run recently. In January, when they’ve regularly been the 3rd pair, Bryson is -1, Boosh +1.

I don’t know what went wrong this year, but he was a fantastic goalie on a bad team each of the 3 years prior. He thrived despite all the high-danger chances the Canucks gave up. And, in my view, disguised a lot of their issues that have been exposed this year. He’s just 27 And Demko put up better numbers over 3 seasons on a worse team. To my way of thinking, not interested because UPL is like saying not interested in Meier because Quinn and Peterka. But I guess I am a lot higher than on Demko than most appear to be here. I think over the next 5 years he is a good bet to be among the top 10 goalies.

i think my edit is the more pertinent question. 3 months ago, most of you would have said “yes”. There’s no doubt that prior to this year Demko has been better than what we have.

I don’t think we have. Previous talk was about getting a generic goalie and the comeback was “who has been available, fits our window and wants to be here?” To my mind, Demko is the first goalie who fits. He’s of the right age, is under contract for 3 years at an acceptable price and has proven himself to a much greater degree than the Comries and the Vaneceks and the Hussos that were available in the summer. The blocking question comes down to: “who does Adams believe is going to be a better asset for the Sabres as their window opens?” We know he had no issues bringing Matt Murray (or some suggest John Gibson) ahead of UPL this year. I would imagine the same logic would apply to Demko, unless the past 2 months has convinced him UPL is the guy. Do we believe those concerns from the fall have vanished and UPL is going to be “the guy”, at least until Levi forces his way in? If Demko was coming in, I would suspect UPL or Comrie would be going back.

This doesn’t mean it wasn’t sincere from Ras, but they pretty clearly had a role. Okie, Mule, Donnie and Cozens were all asked questions about fan support during yesterday’s practice. The clips were spliced together for an item on their website yesterday and this pops today. All this just after great road trip, the Bills are out, and ticket sales are meh for the league’s #2 team coming on. Its definitely been a more sophisticated approach this year from what we’ve seen in the past, but just because it’s based on things that are “real” doesn’t mean it’s not also marketing. They are trying to build a buzz that they can ride until the end of the season with a big win before a packed house over a good team. Especially if they follow that up with Tage doing something to get them talking at the all-star game. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with this. I hope it works.

Elliotte Freidman on today's Marek show said Demko is someone the Canucks are also open to trading as they continue to retool. He mentioned the Penguins, Kings and Sabres as three teams that make sense as destinations. Thoughts? In my opinion he is one of the better young goalies in the league and had this option been on the table in the summer, i would have been all over it. Since then, we started winning and growing more comfortable with the idea of UPL as #1, and Demko has played poorly, got hurt and has quietly been identified as being unhappy in Vancouver. I'm definitely at least making the call. He's 27 and was with the USNDTP around the same time as Donnie, although I don't know if he played for him. He's signed three more years at a $5 million cap hit. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=146146

Gretzky is #1. They revealed that before the countdown started, basically said it was no-brainer. Lindros was #38 Lafluer 14, Bossy 12

Orr

Counting down the top 100 players post-expansion, I believe.

After that, I can't seeing him signing for a dollar more than $8 million per. 😉

https://theathletic.com/4109675/2023/01/31/nhl99-dominik-hasek/ Roy was 11, Brodeur 21 and Dryden 25. Lidsrom Esposito and Bourque were 8, 9, 10

They aren’t burning a year with Östlund and Kulich playing in pro leagues this year, so I doubt it.

Nope. Austin Matthews did it in his draft year. Don’t remember another North American teenager doing it. Lots of Euros do it.

These are the D1 numbers of our top recent WHLers: Reinhart 65 points, 47 games Cozens 85 points, 51 games Krebs 60 points, 38 games Savoie 51 points 38 games What were your expectations? It’s interesting that he’s pretty much on pace with Reinhart, who put up 40 points in the NHL the following year, but also behind Krebs, who was still 2 years away from the NHL. Cozens was more productive than any of them, but was just borderline NHL in his D2 year. Krebs went back to junior in his D2 year and put up 43 in just 24 games. A big difference between Krebs and Savoie is that Krebs was on a terrible team and Savoie a stacked one.

I think they should explore Savoie getting loaned to a Euro men’s league: play in the SEL or the Swiss league against men. He’s definitely looking like he gains nothing in the Dub, and I don’t think he’s ready to contribute much in the NHL given the guys in front of him.

Quinn down low over Skinner might be future of the PP. He’s still too fast or too slow with a lot of his playmaking, but no one on the team has his hands from within 25 feet of the goal - shot or pass. He was so good on the PP for the Amerks last year. Played Tage’s slot on the left half-wall mostly, but was usually lower in the zone. Scored his first NHL goal on the PP from the right half-wall.

He did, didn’t he? Guy has this weird habit of actually doing what he says he will.

I’d certainly pull the trigger for our (lottery protected) first and our 2 best seconds. I’d throw Rosen in instead of one of those elements as well. And they can have the rights to Portillo who would love the Bay Area and it’s lack of goalies. If they want Kulich, Savoie or Östlund, it gets harder. The 1st definitely comes out and the sweeteners get less.

Great trivia Hajt, Rob Ray, Zhitnik, Andreychuk (traded in his 11th, came back for a 12th), Rico got traded in his 10th, as did Don Luce, Lindy Ruff and Mike Foligno. And Zemgus would be in number 10 this year, if he hadn’t have missed the entire season 2 years ago.

The injury situation this year really has been remarkable.

Cozens can’t shoot the puck as well as VO, but he can shoot it pretty good. He can also pass the puck better, retrieve it better, enter the zone better and win faceoffs. I wish they could take better advantage of Tuch and Skinner down low. We don’t score many back door tap-ins like Vic got last game, and we rarely bury anything from the bumper slot like how Bergeron seems to score every game against us.

I hope people aren’t thinking McCabe is an upgrade on Jokiharju.

He’s a one-dimensional goal-scoring middle-six winger who isn’t that fast, gritty or defensively strong. Good player, good guy, good buy-low candidate, but he doesn’t bring us anything we don’t already have and basically pushes Quinn or Peterka off the roster. Like him, not interested in acquiring him.

I didn’t like them as a line in Rochester: weren’t enough pucks to go around. That said Krebs is not playing the same style of game right now, so who knows?