dudacek

I think you have to differentiate between the first half of his time here when he was playing pretty well and not producing goals and the second half when he was lost and/or had given up.

You guys are thinking too hard based on an outdated set of premises. The obvious 2C solution is right there in front of you. https://buffalonews.com/sports/sabres/sam-reinharts-successful-transition-to-center-strengthens-sabres-depth/article_4adf77ba-a82c-11eb-8f1f-2bf1703a4b5e.html Moving Reinhart off the right wing equates to taking the restrictor plate off a sports car. Playing down the middle has given him more room to distribute the puck to his teammates. “What I really like about him, Sam is not only a great goal scorer, he has more room to find different pockets because he’s not wedged against the wall half the game,” Granato said. “He can move east-west, left-right, and he has a creative side to him as well, very deceptive and creative player. He has more opportunity offensively in that position. I feel we’ve seen that and we’ve been able to take advantage of that. As he’s re-acclimated to that position, he shows signs of continuing to get better and more dangerous.”

Forgive me for using pace, which I know can frequently be misleading, but I think this discussion needs some context. I think the first numbers are generally an indication of what we could reasonably expect next year. The 2nd show what each player has accomplished in their current role under the current system. Over 82, based on this season's pace: Mittelstadt 21/21/42/-20 Cozens 9/21/30/-17 Over 82, based on this month's pace: Mittelstadt 40/26/66/+31 Cozens 0/56/56/-7 (*Edited from original post for math) Given the upheaval this season and the youth of each player I don't think we can use this season to effectively predict next, but Cozens has shown nothing to indicate he is capable of being a 2nd-line centre next season. Mittelstadt maybe but the sample size is very small.

We can ice this team (minus whoever goes to Seattle) in September: Skinner Eichel Reinhart Olofsson Cozens Ruotsalainen Asplund Mittelstadt Thompson Bjork Girgensons Eakin Okposo Dahlin Jokiharju Samuelsson Ristolainen Bryson Borgen Miller with approximately $8-15 million in cap space to sign two goalies and make any upgrades. Actual cap space is $31.5 million. I'd project ~ $20 million of that to RFAs Reinhart and Dahlin (a lot), Jokiharju and Mitts (affordable bridges), Asplund and Borgen (dirt cheap)

At the start of this season, I considered Cozens, Ruotsalainen, Mitts, Asplund, Thompson, Samuelsson, Borgen, Bryson and UPL prospects. That's now literally half our lineup. Since January we've lost or benched 11 veteran regulars — Eichel, Hall, Staal, Montour, Miller, Eakin, Lazar, McCabe, Okposo, Hutton and Ullmark — and added one, Bjork. It's really hard to compare what is happening now to the Krueger era. This is simply not the same team.

Im a little surprised that your preference is to go into next year with Cozens and Mitts as 2/3. This is given your strongly expressed feelings about the foolishness of crossing your fingers with Casey/Mojo as the 2C last year and Hutton as your 2G this year. Have you really seen enough good things from Dylan and Casey to feel comfortable with that?

I think you have to start Skinner with Jack and cross your fingers, even though I personally don't believe Skinner can rekindle the magic. The RW will ideally be a new acquisition with enough smarts to play on the first line and bring a physical edge. I really like the concept of Sam and Dylan on line two. I'm OK with Victor there with them at LW in pencil, but certainly open to other ideas. Casey and Little Rasmus seem to make each other better, so I start with that and probably Tage as well, although Tage shouldn't get too comfortable. Girgensons and Okposo anchor line 4. I'm not adverse to moving either up the line-up as needed. I quite like R2. Because of his smarts and his shot, he defaults into being on Jack's right to start until we get a better 1RW and looks to push Skinner down the lineup and/or make Victor or Tage expendable when we do. He defaults to 4C if he doesn't. Bjork is behind R2 in my pecking order. He's my 13th forward if we make a move, but otherwise on Zemgus flank as 4LW to start

I go: Jack Sam Casey I think Casey is better with options on either side than playing along the boards and is holding his weight at centre defensively. He is proving right now that he might be capable of being a 2C, and as Roy-style 3C I think he's ready to shine. Next step for Dylan is to add offence to his game and think that can happen best short-term in a top-6 RW role, even though I eventually want him at centre. It's tempting to put his speed and muscle with Jack, but I think he'd have better chemistry with Sam, plus they can kinda alternate in the centre role.

I noticed Caggiula getting more attention in the 2nd half last night. I wonder if this is part of the ongoing "let's see what we have," a commentary on Thompson's play, or an attempt to rebalance the lines. The bottom 3 RWs are certainly different players. The Cozens line was not good last night, IMO

It's an interesting question. There is no doubt the Sam we've seen over the past month is the best option for 2C on the franchise. He's about to finish the most productive month by a Sabre centre not named Jack Eichel in a decade. Yes, better than any month recorded by O'Reilly. Dylan Cozens has gone 14 straight games without a goal and has 1 in his past 23. He will get better, but over the year, he's produced at under a 30-point pace. Casey Mittelstadt's numbers are damn good this past month — ROR level, but are we really OK starting next year with him as our 2C given what he did prior to April? Sam's track record at centre is short too, but he's a proven NHL first-liner who has played some of his best hockey since being moved to centre. My personal opinion is 2C is probably the 4th-most important role on the team after 1C, 1D and starting goalie. Sam is our 2nd-best forward. Pending other line-up changes, he starts next year at 2C for me.

Of course. We rarely have enough information to ever really know about the off-ice decision-making.

I don't think there is any mystery to the bold. Johansson was traded because he was poised to become a UFA and the Sabres don't see him in their future plans. They are going with UPL in Rochester next year and Tokarski is under contract and more than capable of being his battery mate down there. And, after this year, there is no way the Sabres should be going into next season with Johansson as the back-up. As to the rest, I think it is very evident the Sabres have been using the finish of this season to observe and develop their youngsters by using them in as many situations as possible.

What do you think is Bjork's upside?

I think it's less to do with Olofsson playing on one of our top two lines and more to do with how he ranks among our forwards in ability and ice time. At the moment, he's being used as our top winger — averaging around 18 minutes a game the past month — and maybe our #3F after Sam and Casey. That needs to be closer to 15 minutes and #6-7F.

I just want to love and be loved. (And be entertained by my hockey team) 😘

Faceoffs: 50% last night, 89% the game before, 50% the one before that, 55% before that... And he fell down twice in the process of scoring goals recently. 😁

It's possible Adams targeted Bjork as a guy he could see himself protecting. I would hope he instead targeted him more as a player who could be taken, or slide into the roster spot of a player who is.

Sarcasm warning system failed again. I don't think anyone watching with an ounce of hockey sense could say Sam has checked out. He's scoring goals at a rate not seen here since the first months of Jeff Skinner and is in charge out there. It might be the best stretch of hockey of his career. I've always wanted to see him away from Eichel for a while to force him to be the focus of the line instead of the foil. We're seeing that now and it's working. 10/5/15/-1 in his past 16 games.

Bjork the Sabre is starting to look a lot like Bjork the Bruin: 0/1/1/-6 in his past 7 games. He can skate, plays with pace and works hard, but he doesn't pass the puck well and twists himself into dead ends carrying it. I question his hockey IQ and haven't budged from my initial impression of Girgensons, although he seems less developed. He looks a lot like a AAAA offensive player who isn't skilled enough to play that game in the NHL and hasn't quite figured out the game he does need to play to be an effective NHL 3rd or 4th liner. Adams would be foolish to bet on him over the more savvy Asplund or the more gifted Thompson. Bjork is the kind of guy you expect to lose in an expansion draft. And if you are a good team you shrug your shoulders because he is eminently replaceable.

I understand we haven't seen a ton to base this on, but to me, Beniers is the epitome of what Adams wants the Sabres to be: fast, skilled and relentless. I fully expect to draft him if he is available where we pick.

Jeez, not a lot of game talk in the thread. Seems like most of you were doing the dishes with it on the background. I thought it was fast and exciting. We played hard, and mostly well. I underestimated the Rangers this year. They are a deep talented team that will stay good for a while. I don't remember a pair of Sabres defencemen routinely snuffing plays the way Borgen and Samuelsson did tonight. I'm not talking the big hustle play to catch someone from behind, or the gutty shot block. I'm talking plain old competent ending an attack. Kakko is big guy and Will ragdolled him on the wall. And Samuelsson's play on Panarin of all people was gold. It's not bashing a guy for the sake of bashing. It was real defence, with competence, authority and purpose, from two guys who have combined for 15 NHL games. Loved it. Offensively, it's so weird. When Jack first went down it felt like there was no point even even watching because no one on the roster would do anything remotely entertaining. Now it seems like someone is capable of doing something interesting every shift. Cozens was out-of-sync tonight but managed to make an impact with his will and courage. Casey's got those jittery feet and hands. And Dahlin's puckhandling continues to be ridiculous. Bryson and Joki will do risky things with the puck and get away with it. Even Skinner or Thompson will pull me up in my seat at times. (Sam continues to suck donkey balls. He's clearly given up on the season.) I've enjoyed the past month more than any season closure in a while, even if the bar was pretty much resting on the floor. They aren't "good" but they are worth watching. Six games left. I'm going to be sad when it's over.

No disrespect intended, but lock this thread and burn it in napalm. This should be not be the focus of an ongoing thread. And apologize to this man. He was right all along. By not listening to him you helped put us where we are right now.

While this exceedingly cynical viewpoint undoubtedly applies in multiple cases, as a blanket statement it is false. I would say that a majority of players are not purely mercenary and consistently factor in things like job/life/workplace satisfaction when making their decisions and to go beyond their contractual obligations in order to have their organization succeed. Certainly to a higher degree than what the average person would in the average workplace.

I can't confirm, but I have read Ullmark has the best shootout save percentage in league history.

Nope. We're only 2 back of Anaheim and New Jersey and Seattle gets the 3rd seed. We'd enter the lottery picking 4th.