dudacek

Thompson, and Adams comments in the wake of it, leads me to believe a Dahlin extension will be a priority for him next summer. Dahlin’s conduct leads me to believe it will get done, but if he has the season most of us suspect it won’t be cheap.

I’d say it’s actually based on the overall body of work since Adams got here, including things like off-ice habits and attitude, leadership, character, development, what he’s shown in practice, a deep dive into his analytics and the way his game has trended. It hasn’t been one season of fringe play, followed by one season of 68 points, it’s been 120 games of steady improvement. Otherwise, except for the part about him being overpaid if he doesn’t continue to produce an average of 38 goals and 68 points a season (as spelled out upthread, 25 and 60 are more realistic) over the term of the contract, what you're saying is entirely true. From what Adams has seen of Thompson, he bet the over. We all hope he was right.

I’ll say it again: 1st season 41 NHL games (emergency NHL recall, limited role): .22 points per game 2nd season 65 (NHL spare part, should have been in Rochester): .18 points per game 3rd season 38 (taxi squad under Ralph, regular under Donnie): .37 points per game 4th season 1st half 38 (emerging top 6 usage): .76 points per game 4th season 2nd half 40 (1st line centre): 1.0 points per game The trend line is pretty clear

Pilut battles Fitzgerald for the #7 slot. Not sure who gets it, or if the Sabres keep 8 D

Injuries (his and others) mean it will be the rare night Vinnie is a healthy scratch. He’ll contribute and make the Krebs and the Quinns better players.

Fully on board with optimists here. Dahlin will be a legit 1D for a full season and as the year goes on the league will start to realize it.

Comrie and UPL better be ready. If we get 10 good starts out of Andy, I will be surprised.

Casey will have a career year and establish himself as an NHL player. He will also establish himself as a Holzinger/Plante level NHLer and not a part of the future core. He’ll be gone as soon as Savoie is ready. Pulling for him, but I think he’s the final victim of the dark years.

Based on last year (15 goals, 59 points), Matt Barzal was paid pretty much at exactly market value for points and overpaid for goals. He was 29th among centres in salary, 34th in points and 68th in goals. Not sure about the rest because none of them are centres and I haven’t crunched the numbers for wingers. But given Sam was 26th in the entire league in points and Connor had 47 goals, based on production, I’d say it’s pretty safe to say those two were underpaid.

Wasn’t Casey on the top PP to finish the year, in VO’s place? I remember Cozens/Krebs/VO was a thing late in the year on PP2

Two numbers stand out while considering what Craig Anderson meant to the Sabres last year. The first is .897, a save percentage that ranked Anderson 45th among the 53 NHL goalies who played at least 25 games. The second is .548, Anderson’s winning percentage, good for 18th out of the same pool. This on a team with an overall points percentage of .454. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=130908 The Sabres didn’t ignore the first set of numbers, signing Eric Comrie to compete with Anderson and Ukko-Pekka Lukkonnen for the starter’s job. But not before they doubled down on the latter, re-signing Anderson for another year while giving him a raise from $750,000 to as high as $2 million if he hits incentives. It can’t be ignored that Anderson is 41 and was pulled off the retirement heap last summer after playing just 4 games the previous season. It should also not be forgotten that the last time he played more than 30 games and put up a save percentage over .903 was in 2017. But Kevyn Adams said he also couldn’t ignore the effect the cagey vet — who called last season one of the most fun he’d ever experienced — had on his young team: "He gave us a chance to win when he was in the net. He played well, and he also gave our team confidence. When you look at our young D corps, just that kind of mentorship that he showed I think really went a long way for some of our defensemen." What do you expect from Craig Anderson this year? (Last year’s takes here):

😘

Like @Thorny said, based on statistical trends Miller’s a much safer bet short-term. Long-term, Thompson offers much better up-side. There’s a chance the Miller deal may turn out like the Okposo deal, but a better bet is that he puts up 70 points for a few more seasons before he falls off. When and by how much will determine how good the deal is. It’s the standard gamble one takes with a UFA in his late 20s. Thompson is the standard gamble GMs have to decide whether to take on RFAs on their 3rd contract. The Sabres decided to role the dice with Eichel and Thompson, and not with Reinhart and Olofsson.

I don’t think so. The contract doesn’t kick in until 23/24. If it were in effect this year, it would rank Tage 29th among centres. Last year, Tage ranked 8th among centres in goals, 23rd in points. I’d say good value exists as long as he is statistically producing, say, 25th to 40th among NHL centres. Based on last year’s totals, 27 goals and 64 points is fair value. But the point of this deal for the Sabres is that as salaries rise around the league, Tage’s will not. Many players will pass him. In 3 or 4 years, he may only need to rank 40-50th statistically to be at fair value, and at the end of the deal, assuming the cap behaves like it usually does, that may be 60-75th.

Adams in the Buffalo News Adams wants the extension to serve as a message the club will reward players who are committed to improving and want to be in Buffalo. “I think one of the things I've talked to our players about, both collectively as a team and individually, is we want to do this the right way and really build this to set ourselves up for sustainable success,” he added. “And to do that, we have to identify who fits and who doesn't, who wants to be here, and who wants to be here for the right reasons. And we made it very clear when players show that and perform, that's how we're going to move forward with this group. “I think for the players, this is just maybe an example to our group of what we've been talking about. To me, it's exciting. And we really want our players to perform and be in a position where we can do this more and more.” We’ve talked a lot about signings, and I've talked to (media) about discipline, and making sure that we're doing things appropriately. And one of the reasons we’re doing that is so we have the ability to sign our key core younger players to deals like this. We're also being strategic a little bit, to be honest, about the timeline knowing that there's other guys potentially next summer where we're going to be in this situation. We want to make sure we're being strategic on when and how we put these deals together. And that's why I felt like it made the most sense for us right now.” https://buffalonews.com/sports/sabres/inside-the-sabres-how-team-navigated-a-unique-marketplace-to-sign-tage-thompson/article_b17a4254-2aba-11ed-b45b-2b1b8ad1f5dd.html

They shoot the other way and are often listed the other way, but Peterka played RW and Quinn LW most of the time in Rochester. I think flipping them in your lineup makes more sense from a chemistry style as well: Peterka’s style is closer to Tuch’s and Quinn’s Skinner.

I'm not sure why you seem very confident of this and much less so about Tage. The 5 full seasons before Miller got to Vancouver, he scored between 43 and 58 points. The 3 seasons before that, he had 33 points total, kinda like Tage's 35 in his first 3 NHL seasons. Miller has had 1 season similar to Tage's 68 points — a 72 — and last season's 99, which was certainly an outlier based on a 10-year sample season. I do not think paying Miller $8 million from age 30 to 36 will turn out to be a smarter investment than paying Thompson $7 million from age 25 to 32.

I mentioned it upthread, but Donnie and Casey each had interviews this week where they said this is going to happen, at least part time. The AHL coaches were pretty adamant about Krebs being a centre and played him there exclusively during the playoffs, so i suspect there's been an organizational decision made that Tage/Cozens/Krebs is currently their preferred centre spine.

Neither do the voters. Quite the sweep here for the optimists

There must have been times during the past year when Casey Mittelstadt looked at his buddy Tage Thompson and said “it coulda been me.” Coming off the best stretch of hockey in his life in the spring of 2021, Casey was the star of last year’s training camp and entered the season firmly slotted as the Sabres 1C. You know the rest: the opening night injury, a recovery fraught with setbacks and spotty production, and a lineup void at centre that Thompson admirably filled to the tune of 38 goals and $50 million. Mittelstadt made some modest gains on his possession numbers, coming in at just under 50%, but never found that 60-point gear he had shown to close out the previous season. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=192483 As training camp looms, he and Thompson may finish the circle. Both Casey and Don Granato have referenced the likelihood that the lifelong centre might see considerable time at wing this year. Rightly or wrongly, early Mittelstadt was pigeonholed as an immature talent who really didn’t have clue about the dedication and the discipline necessary to be a pro. The past year or so, chatter coming out of the organization paints a different picture: a 24/7 hockey nerd and glue guy in the room, who desperately wants to be an impact player and has put in the time to do so, only to have his efforts short-circuited by misfortune. He is poised to turn 24 this season and has reached that time when you stop becoming a projection and simply are what you are. There is a large group of offensively gifted young forwards coming hard for his ice time and he needs to show he can produce at a 2nd line pace in more than fits and starts, or he risks losing his job. What do you expect from Mittelstadt this year? (Last year’s takes here):

No scoffing from me. I think you’re right: most hockey execs run the D the way they do because that’s what’s been shown to work. What you might be hearing is resistance to the automatic assumption that a guy can’t or shouldn’t play his off-hand. I think if Brandon Montour is a #3 on his right side and a #6 on his left side, you’re wasting an asset playing him on his left side and you need to make a move to correct the imbalance But if Jacob Bryson is a #6 on either side, there is no reason not to play him as your 3rd-pairing RHD. I agree that most D are better on their strong side under modern systems and that’s why they are deployed that way.

Wasn’t arguing against any of this. The bold was my entire point. It is the way it is because the hockey world generally believes that’s best way to win hockey games. Doesn’t mean they’re 100 % right in all instances, mind you. I think it’s more like being “big” or “fast” or good at faceoffs. it might be an advantage, but it’s not necessarily a necessity. I will say that the game evolves; I remember a time when this didn’t really matter and a time when CCCP dominated the world with the entire team shooting left. So it may evolve again when coaches and/or players perceive a tactical advantage.

Remember Reinhart’s 3rd year when he was taken off O’Reilly’s wing to start the year and instead was asked to centre the 3rd line? And Phil and Jason gave him Benoit Pouliot and Seth Griffith to play with? What’s Jack’s worst-case scenario right now? 4th line minutes with Girgs and Hinostroza, or Peterka and Krebs?

I wouldn’t say primarily, but GM for the Amerks is among his specific duties.

The athletic with good fuel for the skeptics: a list of 20 times a player was signed following an outlier shooting % year and the contract blew up in the team’s face: https://theathletic.com/3559089/2022/09/02/nhl-contracts-shooting-percentage-tage-thompson/ You’ll recognize the names Leino, Skinner and Stafford. (Sorry, @eleven) IMO most of the players don’t match Tage’s profile in that they weren’t just starting their careers, but the author says it is hard to find examples of players who maintained that kind of leap in their shooting.