dudacek

So you took the time to look it up and now realize how remarkable Quinn’s season was for this era of hockey?

Lamoureaux doesn’t appeal to me as even a borderline 1st rounder, but Gauthier is also my preferred option at 9 if he’s there and McGroarty would be fine at 16. It would not be unthinkable (and pretty cool) to walk away with the entire line of Lekkeramaki, Ohgren, Ostlund with our 3 1sts, although the one we snagged at 28 would be a huge bargain. Like all 3 of those players.

Who needs a goalie? Definitely: Leafs, Hawks, Avalanche Maybe: Vegas, Oilers, Devils, Coyotes UFAs: Husso, Campbell, Kuemper, Fleury, Koskinen, Griess, Georgiev, Holtby, Jones, Halak, DeSmith, Comrie, Lankinen, Anderson. Of the teams listed, the Avs, Yotes, Hawks and Devils have significant cap space. The Knights, Leaf’s and Oilers have very little. The Sabres have the most cap space in the league, 43 million with only one “important” RFA contract to worry about. Of course other teams might not need a goalie, but they could still want a goalie. On the other hand, some teams may be looking to unload a goalie too. Avs are going to get their pick of the litter. After that, looking at supply and demand, we should get someone as good as Anderson without too much difficulty. And we may have a decent shot at one of the first four if we overpay on a 2- or 3-year deal. Personally, my first choice would be overpaying Fleury outrageously for a year or two. I don’t think we can get Kuemper without offering term. But we may be able to buy a 3-year deal with Husso or Campbell. After that, Portillo for Varlamov works well from my perspective. Finally, simultaneous 1 year, 3 million offers to DeSmith, Georgiev, Holtby, sign the first one to say yes.

Here’s the thing about minor league hockey: Everyone down there is told it’s a merit system: work hard, be a good teammate, produce and you will earn your ticket to the show. Everything we’ve seen and heard about Jack Quinn and JJ Peterka is that their coachability and their work ethic is off the charts. And their production - I’m going to keep saying this - is pretty much unprecedented. I don’t understand how you can look these two in the eye after what they’ve done this year and tell them they have not earned their shot. To me, that’s counterproductive to everything you are trying to build.

This is not my preferred choice to bolster the defence, but it intrigues me. Please bear with me. James Patrick spent his 20s as a first-pairing, offensive Rangers defenceman, peaking with a 71-point season at age 29. The production fell off after that, and when he signed with Buffalo at 35 following seasons of 4 and 17 points, most assumed he might have been better advised to retire. Instead, Patrick used his brains and his fitness to play six more seasons as a steadying influence on some very successful emerging Sabres teams. Teppo Numminen spent his 20s as the #1D of the Winnipeg/Phoenix franchise, putting up 51 points as a 30-year-old. Over the next few seasons his star faded to the point where he followed a 17-point season with a year of not playing at all in the lockout. When play resumed he was 37 and many people assumed he was done. Instead, Numminen signed with Buffalo, and used his brains and his fitness to play 4 more reliable years as a key cog on some very successful emerging Sabres teams. Right now there is another defenceman out there who spent his 20s as a top, 1st-pairing D, putting up his last peak season with 59 points as a 29-year-old. But consecutive seasons of 18, 19 and 22 points have turned him into an afterthought at 33. As he approaches free agency, the expectations and the interest among NHL fandom is scant. Can PK Subban follow in the footsteps of Patrick and Numminen and use his brains and fitness to reinvent himself as an under-the-radar addition to become a steady and reliable elder statesman leader for another emerging Sabres team? As I said earlier, it’s not my first choice. But assuming he’s matured in the same way the previous two did, and the contract is realistic, it’s an option worth considering.

I think a majority of Jokiharju’s mistakes happened in the 1st half of his season with Dahlin. Since then 2 things changed: Power and Samuelsson arrived to push him down a couple notches on the depth chart; and 2) he got better. I am not convinced he is absolutely the best partner for Power next year, but I liked the way he stepped up his assertiveness in that role, and I am convinced he is already a capable 4/5 with upside. The ideal situation is they bring in a veteran who is better right now, Joki looks at that as a challenge, and by the end of the season establishes himself as a clear 2nd pairing guy for the next decade. Those two things together make

With RJ leaving and Dan presumably sliding into the booth full-time, does that leave an opening for Suzie Cool moving up to the host/arena reporter role for the Sabres broadcast? I've enjoyed her professionalism and genuine love for the role with the Amerks this year.

It kinda goes back to our "core" conversation. Investing key assets and $7 million (more to re-sign him) in Nylander makes him a key part of the core. Nylander's a good player, but he doesn't really fit what I think (hope?) we are trying to build here. Strikes me as more of a mercenary than a guy who will go through the wall for his teammates or wholeheartedly embrace being in Buffalo. I'd rather save the picks and prospects and see what Mitts can do in that role for $2.5 million next year while Cozens and Krebs grow behind him. I'd consider this type of move, but not for this type of player.

NHL teams typically trade up when there is a player they love who falls out of the tier they were ranked, like Peterka did, and the GM can buy him for less than he would have paid. The NFL-style moving up to take a targeted position player before another team can seems to happen far less often in the NHL. So I can certainly see the Sabres trying to make this move if they had a D ranked in the top 3 still available at 7. But I don't see them doing it just to ensure they get a defenceman if they have other players on the same tier.

I think that with Tage, Cozens, Mitts, and Krebs as options at centre they won’t lack for talent to play with. I also think nearly 10 years of having basically 1 or 2 lines has skewed our views about what a 4-line rotation should look like. Playing in the bottom 6 in 2005/06 worked just fine for Vanek, Roy and Pominville. Just because they probably won’t be among the team’s top wingers doesn’t mean they will be playing only 9 minutes a game or forced into a checking role. Produce. Jack Quinn just had one of the 10 most productive AHL rookie seasons on a points per game basis of all-time, and the best in about in 30 years.

Is it because doing more than any other AHL rookie Sabre prospect in history to earn a recall isn’t good enough, or because the big club is just so stacked there just isn’t any room for him?

Said it before: sign him to a one-way contract, which guarantees him an NHL wage, and tell him/show him how there is a spot available if he earns it.

Looks to me like there is no chance for Wright, Cooley, Slavkovsky or Nemec at 9, a slim chance of Jiricek, Kemell, Savoie or Gauthier at 9 and a good chance of Nazar, Kaspar, Yurov, Geekie, Miroshnechenko, Lekkerimaki, Lambert, Mintyukov, or Korchinski at 9. But the scouts seem so divided that one of my first 8 should almost certainly be there at 9 and some in that top 17 might even slip to 28. Before you get too excited though, that also means you should be bracing for the Sabres to ignore the "top 8" player that drops to them at 9, or the "top 17" at 16 in favour of someone like Ostlund, Ohgren, Howard, Snuggerud, McGroarty, Mateychuk, Del Bell Belluz, Beck, Chesley, Bischel, Kulich, Trikozov and more. You can find most, if not all these names in the top 20 on one of the many lists out there. It smells like a draft where one scout's 5 is another's 15, and one's 15 will be another's 35. You shouldn't be counting on the Sabres list to match yours.

It's amazing how the Pegula era failures have transformed fan base attitudes. Any other era of Sabres fandom watching the type of seasons Quinn and Peterka had as Amerks would have been incessantly demanding call-ups since Christmas.

Be interesting to see what Quinn takes from that experience. He was more noticeable against Laval but I agree with what was said up-thread: he was squeezing the stick so hard it was a surprise it didn’t snap in his hands. For me it certainly doesn’t erase the dominant player I watched all year, but it can’t not affect him. The question is how. Peterka and Krebs on the other hand have to be brimming with confidence after that run. Krebs battled through the rough stuff extremely well and was our most creative forward. Peterka was our best player. Looking forward to seeing what they do in Buffalo next year. Also happy that R2 may have put himself back into the picture. I still question whether his AHL game can translate to the next level, and whether the roster will give him the opportunity to shine. But mad respect for his competitiveness. He was a stone cold warrior. And, of course, we hopefully get the silver lining of being able to wave goodbye to Aaron Dell.

This is based on who I’d pick today to play on my expansion franchise moving forward. It’s pretty hard to ignore the production of Marner and Rantanen. And, despite the smaller sample size, Kaprizov is right there with those two. But they are wingers and each has feasted as the sidekick to one of the top centres in the game. You gotta go with the franchise centre, if there is one. Barzal has that rep, but I don’t think he is that guy; great talent, but more interested in style points than winning. Eichel checks all the boxes and should be the guy based on his toolbox, but the past 2 seasons have raised serious questions. That leaves one other choice: 1) McDavid 2) Aho 3) Eichel 4) Marner 5) Kaprizov 6) Rantanen 7) Werenski 8 Barzal 9) Chabot 10) Connor 11) Meier 12) Hintz 13) Hanifin 14) Provorov 15) Cirelli Great question, tough list. Could easily look different on another day.

Great post. For the fans and the coach it's essentially the players you rely on most on the ice and , to a lesser extent, in the room. But to a GM it's simply group you have committed — or plan to commit — significant dollars and term to. Commit just enough to the right ones (Bergeron and Marchand) and you are going to be good for a long time. Commit too much to the wrong ones: (Parise and Suter) (Marner and Tavares?), you get stuck in the mushy middle. Adams has already inherited the Skinner overcommitment and acquired what appears to be a good value in Tuch Dahlin, Thompson, Power, Cozens, Krebs, Mittelstadt, Jokiharju, Quinn, Peterka, Olofsson, Samuelsson: Are enough of these guys core? How many? Which ones? If not enough of them are, where do we get the others? Tearing down a team is easy, making it competitive again isn't much harder. But making it a real contender is going to require some hard choices. Never mind boxing players out the roster, Adams also has to worry about boxing himself out of choices. He has collected a ton of assets, but has selected very little of his core.

Do you think adding the type of player that you could get for pick 28 or 41 will put butts in the seats? I don’t. Certainly not directly through star power, but also not indirectly by improving the team significantly more than Quinn or Peterka or whoever gets bumped out of the top 9 to accommodate the new guy will. Also you do recognize that acquiring a significant piece now means increasing the likelihood of being forced to trade one or more of Thompson/Tuch/Mitts/Dahlin/Power/Cozens/Samuelsson and/or others in a few years due to cap restraints, while also removing a chip, or chips from the pipeline that could instead be developed to augment or replace them? It’s not mortgaging the future, but it will likely force you to predict the future sooner, and with less evidence.

We’re talking about average getting the Sabres in the playoffs. Median is 16/17th place. Caps finished 13th. Im not going to calculate the actual average point totals, or get too hung up on the precise terminology, but to me 101 points represents a good team, not an average one.

Average was not good enough to make the playoffs in the east last year.

I don't see then winning 3 in a row with Dell in goal and I don't see Dell leaving the crease if he wins. Winning this game however is entirely possible. Go Amerks.

To me this points to the "cultural differences" argument. My perception is a significant number of Americans feel there is a reasonable chance they might be threatened by someone with a gun. My perception is very few Canadians feel there is a reasonable chance they might be threatened by someone with a gun. I don't know if my perceptions are accurate, but if they are they certainly raise an important question as to why such a difference exists.

Yes. I think it goes without saying that he'll make moves to get a goalie and a defenceman. This is more about trading potential core pieces for an actual core piece. Actual core pieces involve a level of long-term cap commitment I'm not sure Kevyn is ready to make. Thus far he has only made that type of commitment to one player: Tuch. He has some big decisions pending in the relatively near future on Olofsson, Tage, Asplund, Mittelstadt, Jokiharju, Dahlin and, to a lesser extent Cozens. I get the sense he'd rather spend this season seeing what he has in those players and the ones coming behind them before making most of those decisions. (Although I do suspect we will see a Tage extension this summer)

I'm OK with the principle of moving a younger piece of the future for a Tuch type, but I get Adams caution. The cap demands smart decisions and, at the moment, there are too many question marks about what we have. Retaining the flexibility of cap space and a full pipeline seems prudent, unless that Tuch-type comes with the same kind of attitude and contract Tuch has.

Players we know are good NHLers, even if we’re still not sure how good: * Tuch, Tage, Olofsson, Dahlin Players who appear to have the ability to be good NHLers but still need to play and establish themselves: * Mitts, Cozens, Krebs, Asplund, Quinn, Peterka, Power, Samuelsson, Jokiharju, UPL Assets that could represent significant pieces emerging from the Sabres pipeline over the next 5 years: * Levi, Rosen, Poltapov, Kisakov, Johnson, Portillo, 9, 16, 28, 41, 2023 1st and 3 2nds To me @JohnC Is advocating moving assets from the 2nd or, more likely, 3rd groups this summer in order to add to the 1st group next season. Im curious who agrees and who would rather see who emerges from within, organically?