dudacek

I always get a chuckle over those celebrating the manufactured cutthroat corporate machine of the NFL over the bumbling backyard pond operations of the NHL. Choose your illusion.

Cozens attitude and approach to the game seem beyond reproach. I'm curious about the ceiling on his talent. His U22 season production of 68 points was the 5th-best in franchise history. It's hard to make exact comparisons between eras, but it fits with hall-of-famers Perreault (74), turgeon (79) and Andreychuk (62), as well as stars like Mogilny (64), Martin (73), Gare (73) and Eichel (64). I'm not as confident of him taking the next step as I am about Power, but he's definitely a piece that has that potential.

Lance lysowski tweeting that Levi is skipping rookie camp and prospects challenge and going directly to the main camp.

Mule’s importance to the team — and his reputation with the fan base — was cemented this season with one jaw-dropping statistic: the Sabres played like a 104-point team with him in the lineup and a 64-point team without him. He is not an offensive threat but gets a lot of hard minutes against a lot of tough opponents. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=196144 The fact that he has been around for parts of 3 seasons, and his general presence belies just how inexperienced Samuelson is. This is a player who has played only 109 NHL games. He also has a reputation for defensive excellence that isn’t necessarily reflected in his fancy stats, which generally show a player who has been lifted by his usual partner, Rasmus Dahlin. That said, he passes the eye test as a player who uses his size and his range effectively to snuff opponents. A key for both himself, and the team is his health. He’s been banged up enough to miss significant time in each of his three pro seasons. What do you expect from Samuelson this year? (Last year’s takes here)

Jack Hughes (43 points) and Tim Stutzle (32 points) took tremendous leaps in production last year to become stars and the two highest scoring U22 players in the NHL. Number three on that list was Cozens, who scored 31 goals as part of a 30-point jump that helped him earn a 7-year $50 million contract. Overall, he finished 41st in the league in goals and 61st in points— clear 1st-line numbers — and was a particularly dangerous player in offensive transition. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=197770 Cozens work ethic and physical bent helped disguise some holes defensively; his possession numbers were among the worst of the team’s regular forwards. That said, he was used in a clear 2C role for most of the season, flanked by 2 rookies. He enters this season being challenged to improve his play in his own zone while at the same time pursuing 40 goals and 80 points as viable targets in year 4. What do you expect from Cozens this year? (Last year’s takes here)

Not disagreeing with you, just taking it a step further. Dahlin is beyond the "late addition to the all-star game" tier. He's reached perennial candidate for season-ending all-star team tier. I believe he is paying a penalty in terms of public perception for being on a also-ran team. He doesn't play in a major market, isn't the poster child of a major network property and hasn't been showcased on major stage like the Stanley Cup playoffs. he's also not far removed from the stink of Krueger and how it affected both his play and the perception of the team. it's the flip side of the same coin that at sees Matthews always lumped in with McDavid instead of Pastrnak, and Makar being a Norris finalist despite a season where other players surpassed him in nearly every statistical measurable. His big new contract will put more eyes on him, but the only real way to change it is for the team to be good enough that you force each other into that conversation.

Power strikes me as one of those seemingly chill personalities who is constantly processing and actually 8 steps ahead of everyone else under the surface. He’s someone who lives and breathes hockey. And he has Nik Lidstrom’s IQ in Larry Robinson’s body. I will be very surprised if he doesn't take a big step this year.

Maybe I’m been out in the sun too much this summer, but the kid has become everything we hoped he would be when he was drafted. He’s not just one of the NHL’s best defencemen, he’s one of its best players. The rest of the league hasn’t caught up yet because Buffalo, but barring injury they will by season’s end.

Kevyn Adams certainly isn’t oblivious to the pushback for his goaltending choices. He’s effectively said “I think Levi will be a better #1 and either UPL or Comrie will be a better #2 than whatever our other options are at the moment.” I think it’s interesting how many people seem to disagree with the above, yet (according to the poll) seem to agree with the Levi half of the equation.

I thought being patient with the puck was/is Power’s greatest strength. When he has the puck, he likes to slow the game down, but to me it’s always with purpose. The only area of his game I see any sort of tentativeness is in his one-on-one defence, where he needs to make things harder on opponents by taking time and space away with speed and authority.

A year ago we wondering what kind of deployment OP would get, as in what kind of sheltering might be necessary. No one had the bingo card marked “no sheltering at all”. Power finished 5th in the entire National Hockey League in even-strength ice time. That’s not just among rookies, that’s among all NHL skaters. As far as rookies go, his ES TOI per game was the highest ever recorded. The only appreciable difference between his production and Mortiz Seider’s Calder winning season a year ago were the points Seider put up on the power play. That and being +19 ahead of the Red Wing darling. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=217120 As good and as calm as Power looked last year, there was no mistaking two things: you could tell he was still learning and that he needed to get stronger. It will be interesting to see what he took away over the summer and how he will apply it next year. This was a player who more or less doubled his production in his 2nd USHL and NCAA seasons. What do you expect from Power this year? (Last year’s takes here)

Had Don Granato forced Dahlin to rest and rehabilitate during a 3-week stretch in March he would have finished the season with 71 points and a +28 in 66 games. Playing through an obvious injury for those 12 games (2 points, -16) likely cost Dahlin a Norris trophy nomination. Even with that stretch, his charts ranked among the best of the NHL’s best on both sides of the puck. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=201658 Many expect Rasmus to sign a new long-term deal prior to the start of the season that will cement him as the team’s centrepiece for the remainder of this decade. He is still just 23 years old but has five seasons under his belt and has already forced himself into a small circle of elite NHL defencemen. All that’s left to do is to establish himself and his team as a winner so he gets the same benefit of the doubt the league’s other top defensemen do. What do you expect from Dahlin this year? (Last year’s takes here)

Can’t wait to see him force a turnover late to seal the Sabres first playoff win since April 22, 2011.

Unless Luukkonen craps the bed in camp, Eric will be on an out-of-town flight by October with a late-round pick coming the other way. Nice guy, fringe NHLer.

Devon Levi is the real deal and will show it immediately. Goalie purgatory is over.

Levi topped off a 2nd straight Richter Award as the NCAA’s top goalie with a 5-2 run for the Sabres in the midst of a precarious playoff race where he posted an adjusted save percentage (according to Clear Sight Analytics) that would have put him just inside the top 10 for NHL starting goalies). For 3 straight years he’s been selected to Team Canada (WJC, Olympics, Worlds). He’s played about as well as any goalie could be expected to in whatever situation he’s been placed in and has clearly been the Sabres’ preferred choice in net since he arrived. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=226016 It’s not that a rookie goalie can’t play 50 games; it’s happened 13 times since 2000, and as recently as last year with Calder Trophy finalist Stuart Skinner. Karel Vejmelka and Alex Nedeljkovic each did it 2 years ago, and 28 rookies goalies have played at least 40 over that span. The issue is a 21-year-old rookie doing it. That’s happened exactly once this century: Steve Mason with Columbus in 2008/09. Very, very few goalies step into a prominent NHL role without at least some time apprenticing in the minor leagues. Levi may have a history of doing things his way, but if he starts the year as at least a co-starter, he’ll be treading ice mostly skated by names like Price, Luongo and Fleury. What do you expect from Levi this year?

No one was surprised when Z put up his usual 10 goals and 18 points last year while supplying hard skating, defensively responsible play. The fact he only missed 2 games to injury might have been a bit of a shock. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=130896 A healthy Zemgus will move past Mike Foligno and Rick Martin this year and into 10th place on the all-time Sabres’ games played list. After a decade of wearing the blue and gold, he has yet to play a playoff game. Both the Sabres and Girgensons had options to switch things up this year in free agency, but each signed up for at least one more try. What do you expect from Girgensons this year? (Last year’s takes here)

I think Casey is probably the 2nd most interesting player on the roster, after Levi. And by interesting I mean the player the broadest range of potential outcomes and the greatest chance of influencing where the team ends up, good or bad: it’s like he might be Holzinger, or he might be Roy. After seeing Tuch and Dahlin and Thompson make the steps they did 2 years ago then improve even more last year under Granato, it’s pretty easy to see Casey following in their footsteps. It might feel like he’s been around for as long as they have, but he’s basically a season behind them in terms of development and NHL games played. I tend to think the inconsistencies of last year would chart as growth, rather than a series of peaks and valleys, and he’s won me over with his character. Im optimistic.

I mentioned the same trio a while back with the same mix of intrigue and trepidation. To answer your question, Greenway had 63 assists in 185 games in 3 years on on Minnesota’s checking line with Foligno and Erikson-Ek. He’s not terrible at getting others the puck.

Remember Eric Comrie’s October trip through Alberta? The one where he stopped 86 of the 91 shots thrown at him and led the Sabres in their theft of 4 points? Eric probably does because it was pretty much the only highlight of what was a terribly disappointing season. Signed to be half of a 1A/1B tandem, Comrie instead played just 19 games, and finished with a horrendous .886 SV% — 71st out of the 79 NHL goalies who played at least 10 games. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=132742 A good portion of Comrie’s struggles could be chalked up to injuries: both his own, and the ones that plagued the Sabres defence corps in the fall. Some have argued that he deserves another chance to prove his excellent numbers from 2021/22 with Winnipeg were not a mirage. Others point to the fact that he is 10 years past his draft and has yet play 50 career NHL games and wonder why we should consider his .897 career SV% to be a mirage. It seem unlikely that the Sabres will carry three goalies into next season and more unlikely that Comrie will be one of the remaining two without clearly outplaying one of his younger rivals in training camp. What do you expect from Comrie this year? (Last year’s takes here)

It has been a long, hard slog, but last year Mittelstadt finally gave Buffalo fans a taste of what made their imaginations soar in the 2018 WJC. After an at-times painful start, Casey took off in the New Year. His 40 points in 2023 ranked him tied for 42nd among NHL forwards with Jake Guentzel and Joe Pavelski, just ahead of Sebastian Aho and Jesper Bratt. His 32 assists tied him for 15th with Tim Stutzle. Over the full season he finished 4th in the entire league in primary assists per 60, sandwiched between Draisaitl and Matt Tkachuk. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=192483 It was interesting to see the number of people backpedaling this spring with weak statements like “I thought he was a bust, but I’ll admit he’s a good 3rd-liner”. In terms of ice time, Mittelstadt was the Sabres clear #5 forward. In terms of point production, he was actually a fringe 1st-liner, finishing 84th among all NHL forwards in scoring. For the 1st time in his career, he was also a positive possession player 5-on-5. One open question is how much those numbers were a mirage boosted by a mad streak of 17 points in his final 11 games, much of that time spent centring the first line. Another open question is ‘do the Sabres have the depth to properly support repeats from each of Mitts, Tage and Cozens?’ Finally, is he actually even going to play centre this season? What do you expect from Mittelstadt this year? (Last year’s takes here) https://www.sabrespace.com/community/topic/33397-annual-expectations-thread-202223-37-casey-mittelstadt/#comment-1520503

Sweet, I’d forgotten that one. Kotkaniemi is such a bitch too. I look at Stillman as an interesting test of our scouting and analytics department. Meaning, I think Adams asked them to find a hard-nosed depth defenceman who’d fit nicely into our system that he could buy cheap. The early returns were pretty good, especially compared to what he showed in Vancouver. I like the Weber comparison as a best-case scenario (I liked Weber) and see Stillman as the guy who goes into the lineup when Mule and EJ suffer their inevitable nicks. I think both he and Bryson make the cutdown day roster, but won’t play opening night as the Sabres go 13F/8D/2G. Both might play more than we’d like unless we’re unusually healthy.

Can’t remember a veteran Sabre who has changed my mind as much as Skinner has under Granato. He used to be such a me-first player but he seems to be so much more on board with the team concept and confident with his place in it. He was very good last season, fun to watch and hardly overpaid. Unlike Tuch, I do think last year was more of a statistical outlier simply because of the larger body of work, so I picked “good Skinner”. But the chemistry on that line was marvellous and wouldn’t surprise me if he does more.

After two miserable years toiling in the Ralph Krueger cemetery, very few people saw Skinner rebounding with 33 goals and 63 points two seasons ago. Nobody saw him celebrate turning 30 last season with a career year — nearly 20 points better than his previous high. He also may have been the team’s most consistent player with just 2 3-game pointless streaks marking his season-worst droughts. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=116085 The most remarkable stat on the Skinner scorecard was his 47 assists, which was 17 more than his previous high and basically double this career average. And the eye test showed those assists were earned, as he consistently found Thompson and Tuch with slick passes. The selfish penalties and lazy backchecks have dried up. He’s clearly found a niche and chemistry with two other players who are also being trusted to carry the load in a way none had been asked to before. He has reached the age where decline could appear at any time, but his skating and his health appear intact. What do you expect from Skinner this year? (Last year’s takes here)

It was a roller coaster year for Stillman, who was acquired by the Canucks to play on their 3rd pair as part of an odd trade where the Canucks gave up a 2nd, but also dumped a bad contract, trimming $1.5 in cap space. He quickly fell out of favour during the Canucks rough start. Vancouver fans had already had enough after just 32 games and mocked the Sabres for paying anything to acquire him. In Buffalo, he put up a shockingly good 58% 5-on-5 corsi over a limited 18-game sample size, thumped some bodies and got his face caved in by Tanner Jeannot. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=171449 After acquiring Stillman, the Sabres made it clear they thought he would be a much better fit for their attacking defence than the system in Vancouver, where he was frequently exposed in his aggressive risk-taking. He added a physical presence to the Sabres corps and was a full-time player down the stretch run, but frequently for less than 10 minutes a game. He has spent the past 3 years being a full-time NHLer, but not a full-time NHL regular and will be trying to earn a spot in the Sabres starting six. What do you expect from Stillman this year?