dudacek

Don speaks highly of everyone. You’ve got parse through the attitude stuff and the talent stuff and focus in on what he says about a player’s actual play. That said, I’m still not clear why a 30-point scorer with the best defensive numbers on the team in his first full NHL season would be in danger of being pushed out.

Mitts and Krebs are a work in progress in their current roles. Wish each was showing at least a bit of a threat as a shooter.

Sabrespace feels worried about his numbers, his size and where he played this year. Sabrespace also knows he was a long-term project given his physical immaturity and is willing to give the current regime the benefit of the doubt this early.

Our 2nd unit is almost as dangerous as the 1st lately and that’s new territory for this team. I’m a little surprised about how much Tuch and Thompson have not handled zone entries well on the PP, because at even strength they seem pretty good.

From the Buffalo News: Since March 1, Buffalo’s power play ranks fifth in the NHL with a conversion rate of 28.6% across 24 games. What do you think about what you are seeing? Does anything need to change?

Interesting quote from Granato when applied to our most high-profile free agent. “Kevyn (Adams) did an amazing job with setting us up for this as a coaching staff, to have guys that we know will return. Not a lot of activity as far as re-signing guys for the summer. There is some, but we know the guys want to be back and we know we’ll be able to get it done."

Because he doesn't have Reinhart, Skinner and VO finishing for him? 🤔

Only from people with no information other than the fact he hasn't signed yet. Most recent quotes from late January: The Sabres development staff has also maintained solid communication with one of their top prospects in the system. He says the development coaches frequently check in and always contact him before they come to see him play. "Whether it's Tim [Kennedy], Nate [Paetsch], or even GM Kevyn Adams, they've all put a lot of effort into me," he said. "It's really cool to see and makes me very confident in the future." Johnson feels confident that he will be able to take the next step in his career sooner rather than later. He's paid attention to the Sabres throughout the season and is thrilled to be a part of what is being built for the future. "I really do see lots of positives within the organization right now," he said. "They have continued to draft skilled players and develop them. It's just a matter of time before things really start to click in Buffalo." https://www.nhl.com/sabres/news/buffalo-sabres-prospects-update-ryan-johnson-university-of-minnesota-gophers/c-330249152

Tage hatty and an assist on Power's 1st.

Sorry i didn't mean NHL lottery picks. I meant three shots at adding a good player. Generally speaking, that means a pick in the 1st 2 rounds, or a prospect who was picked, or should have been picked in that range. And obviously that's a sliding scale. Tage, as a prospect, was way higher on that scale than Josh Bloom In my view, ROR's market value should have been the equivalent of 2 mid-firsts and 2 high seconds — you know, the price we paid to get him. They got the equivalent of 2 late 1sts and a 2nd. They were hell-bent on trading him and got a bad return. I just don't think it's the all-time bad trade it's made out to be. It's no Hasek for a pouting Kozlov and the last pick in the 1st. In terms of assets, we got more for ROR than we got for Reinhart. It's just that people quickly convinced themselves Tage sucked and Levi is a god. We'll see.

Tage a 1st and a 2nd. And the bold is a myth. They had an excellent pool. Their best prospect was Robert Thomas, who was probably ranked similarly to Krebs and they refused to trade him. They had 4 other highly-ranked guys generally considered on the next tier. We picked Tage over Jordan Kyrou, Domink Bokk and Klim Kostin.

That’s an interesting open question for sure. I know I would tell myself that to justify the trade at the time. But you can’t forget that the Blues had to shovel $7 million into a reworked trade at the the last minute in order to make the cap work. The original deal fell apart and they had gone out and signed Bozak instead to fill their centre hole.

I see it as the current top 4 plus a veteran Jay McKee type added on the right side as the core. Bryson ahead of Fitz and a Pysyk type in the final 3 spots.

Because arguably the best “2C” in hockey is the same as arguably the best defenceman? Because a 95th ranked prospect is the same as a 26th? Or because a 1st and 2nd rounder is the same as “a pick”? The ROR trade was for 3 lottery tickets, not 3 raffle tickets for the fruit basket at the church bazaar. At the time it was more like trading Peca, Wilson and a 1st for Mogilny. It’s unlikely Thompson and Johnson become Peca and McKee, but it was also unlikely Peca and McKee became Peca and McKee.

The bitterness toward the ROR trade is much more fuelled by the relative fortunes of the franchise in its immediate wake than an actual weighing of the trade. It was always a futures deal and the futures are just starting to play out. It’s like people here still think we ripped off Nashville in the Paul Gaustad trade. You know, the one where we flipped a good bottom six forward, along with the pick they used to take Jusse Saros, along with a 2nd rounder Calgary used to take Patrick Sieloff in order to grab Zemgus Girgensons. You know, a good bottom six forward? Genius! If Thompson reels off another 4 or 5 years of 25 goal seasons for a good Sabres team, the Sabres made out fine in the trade, no matter Colin Miller or Ryan Johnson, or ROR’s Conn Smythe. There was no universe where he was winning a Conn Smythe here on Jason Botterill’s team. If Tage goes back to being an 8 goal man who’s out of hockey in a few years, they didn’t.

If the Blues offered Ryan O’Reilly today for Tage and the rights to Johnson, you would accept?

Do you mean why push one of that group out of the top 4? I wouldn't really get hung up on the pairing or the "top 4" label. I want at least one third-pairing guy who can play harder minutes. I want to add an experienced, defensively strong, right-handed shot who can kill penalties and add some physical strength and reliability to the overall unit. Those are factors our overall defence corps needs.

I also think the culture change started the second Donnie took over, and continued with Adams' purge. And the way Thompson, Dahlin, Jokiharju, Mitts and other key youngsters embraced it played a bigger role than has been aknowledged. I'm not diminishing what Tuch brought, but I don't think the transition started when he arrived, more like he cemented it.

No, I believe culture is a factor. I just think it would be silly to ignore the difference in results when the team has had a healthy Anderson, Joki, Tuch, Mitts and Olofsson in the lineup compared to without. For example, with Anderson, the team is 16/12/2 compared to 13/26/9 without. Anderson's health has also largely coincided with the health of the other 4 I listed.

I am not against signing Manson. I think its weird to be OK with giving Manson $5 over for and not being OK to buck up a similar amount to VO (No idea what @sweetlou thinks we should be paying Victor, I just remember people being adamantly opposed to giving him $5 million.) I'm OK with overpaying for a 2RD, just so long as we don't give him term. I thinking anyone giving Manson more than 3 years ends up regretting it.

You must have missed the reports that the Sabres were leading the league in games lost to injury prior to getting healthy a month or two ago. https://theathletic.com/3083587/2022/01/20/sabres-have-struggled-to-stay-healthy-during-the-first-half-of-the-season/ https://www.audacy.com/wgr550/sports/sabres/kevyn-adams-will-talk-to-brandon-beane-about-injuries They were without their top 2 goalies for 2 months or more, and the third stringer they traded for got hurt almost immediately. Their projected 1C going into camp missed almost the entire 1st half and took a long time to recover once he returned. Their best shooter couldn’t shoot for half a season because of his arm. Their best power forward was unavailable until Christmas time. Their best RHD and their co-captain and best checking forward missed more than 20 each. The goalie situation alone would have devastated any team, but you are also handwaving 1/2 of their top 6 up front, and their 2D, as well as a glue guy in their bottom 6. And expected depth guys behind them like Hinostroza, Miller, Butcher, Caggiula, Quinn and Samuelsson were all unavailable for significant chunks of time. Of the top of my head, the only good comparable was Montreal and look what happened to them. “All teams get injuries” is a gross misrepresentation of what happened in the first half of this year.

This is well worth a listen. Tage comes across as focused, self-aware, self-assured and fully bought in to what this team is trying to build. He sounds like a leader.

Samson Good to see Sam getting the credit he didn't get enough of while he was here. Too bad people still aren't seeing how good a healthy Victor can be.

Full agreement with the bolded change

Agreed. There is no world where I want to hand UPL the number one slot. If he steals the job because he outplayed a real NHL goalie, fine. But anointing him the starter would be folly.