dudacek

Rosen pounced on that after Kulich and Novikov hard on pucks

Neuchev's man score there?

Not disagreeing with your general point, but he just turned 22 July 24. He's younger than Jandric and Metsa, both of whom turn 25 in October. Neuchev needs to use his teammates and respect his opponents.

He's so much more assertive than he was a year ago. I thought the best Sabre was Ryan Johnson, heads up and elusive with the puck, alert and closes fast without it.

Marty and Duffer have pumped Thompson’s tires in the past as well

Apparently I pitched Johnson on here as a UFA signing months ago. Idea didn't get a lot of support at the time. 🤷‍♂️

My initial impression when we signed him was "does this guy have anything left?" But, goddamn do I love the concept of what he is supposed to bring. Listening to his Zoom call when he signed, and his session today with Marty and Duffer only reinforces that. If he can bring a measure of that presence to his play on the ice we're going to love him. Fingers crossed.

I'm expecting Clifton to pay similar attacking defensive style to Jokiharju, with a similar level of success. But because he will be checking people with his shoulder as much as his stick, and he will be on a more successful team than we've seen Henri on, and because he will drop the gloves occassionally, he will be more easily forgiven. He'll also be good enough to succeed with either Power or Dahlin, and also good enough to anchor the 3rd pair if that's where he ends up.

Development is hard enough to predict without throwing the goalie factor into the mix. UPL is the last guy from his cohort that we're waiting on, which makes sense since goalies take the longest. He wasn't good enough last year and I honestly don't know if he can be. I guess we're going to find out.

The podcast itself didn’t really seem to reflect the impression I got from the Tweet. I mean, it wasn’t way off or anything, but the meat of the discussion was far-ranging and speculative. “Dahlin wants 5 and is pissed off he hasn’t got it” was a conclusion I might draw from the Tweet that I definitely would not draw from the pod. “Dahlin wants to be here” and “Dahlin is pissed off it isn’t done yet” are 2 direct quotes. Dahlin asked for $11.5 is another thing that was implied. I can tell you one thing if Dahlin is still at $11.5 for 5 and the Sabres are at $10.5 for 8, that’s nowhere near “virtually done” or whatever was stated 2 months ago, nor is this going to be resolved in the next week. I’m sure Peters did have the conversation he says he did, and he tries to be professional, but he just doesn’t really know how to be professional. I.e. what constitutes a usable source, and how you need to verify things before you report them.

It’s very likely that if you told Sabrespace one year ago that UPL was poised to go 17/11/4 for the Sabres, virtually every poster would have happily taken it. That’s exactly what happened, but those who have embraced Luukkonen as a part of the Sabres this year seem few and far between. A save percentage ranking 63rd among the 79 NHL goalies with a minimum 10 games played last year will do that. As will posting a SV% of .875 or worse in nearly 1/3 of his 33 appearances. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=196751 The flip side of the bad games were the 12 appearances with a SV% of .923 or better. The issue is obviously inconsistency. Kevyn Adams has gone out of his way to publicly support UPL, including inviting him over for dinner to reassure him of his value to the organization and what he needs to do to solidify it. It remains to be seen if that support is authentic, a savvy GM trying to salvage an asset, or a bit of both. UPL enters the season with a spot in Buffalo his for the taking, at roughly the time in his development he should be taking it. But it’s a spot that’s also there for the giving away. What do you expect from Luukkonen this year? (Last year’s takes here) This marks the final installment of this year’s expectations threads. Thanks for participating. I’ll give people some time to catch up on their votes and post a results thread in a few days just in time for training camp and some real hockey to talk about.

After a few seasons of hovering on the fringes of the Bruin lineup, Clifton vaulted into an everyday player role last year. He played 20-minutes a night over most of the first 2 months on the first pair with Hampus Lindholm while Charlie McAvoy got healthy, before dropping down into a 3rd-pairing role in the 17-minute range to play out the string. He finished 3rd on the team overall in total even strength minutes played and had a secondary role on their PK. His possession numbers, however, were among the worst on the team. He led the Bruins in hits (23rd in the NHL), and was also among their leaders in blocked shots and giveaways. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=145656 Clifton’s dad says the family is all about loyalty and his son is Sabre in large part to the loyalty Don Granato has shown him. His game is all-out fearlessness and attacking on both sides of the puck, and his willingness to sacrifice his body and go to war for his teammates should add an element the Sabres have been lacking. Two questions need to be answered: is he a late bloomer or the product of the Bruins system? And is he ready for the additional responsibility he seems destined to get in Buffalo? What do you expect from Clifton this year? (*I arbitrarily gave Clifton 4, the number he wore in college. He was 75 in Boston where 4 was not available.)

After a long run of being a 25-point man, Johnson’s counting stats fell to negligible last year. He played a lot of minutes in the middle of the season as the Avs fought through a raft of injuries, but his ice time dropped at season’s end and into the playoffs to finish at 17:15 for the year, heavily tilted toward defensive zone starts. After 13 years of being a good soldier in Denver, he was essentially squeezed off the team by the salary cap and the $27 million dedicated to the 5 D they already had under contract. He said in free agency he very quickly targeted Buffalo as the type of organization he wanted to be a part of, encouraged in part by old friend Kyle Okposo https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=95359 It would be unfair to say Johnson’s counting stats and analytics last year played no role in the Sabres decision to pursue him this summer. But it would be fair to say they meant less than 6’4”, 225 (his height and weight) 920 (his career games played), 1 (his draft slot, and number of Stanley Cups won) and the fact that he added plenty of PK expertise, hits, blocked shots, safe puck management, and the type of veteran experience and leadership Buffalo needed, especially to fellow 1st overall picks Owen Power and Rasmus Dahlin. What do you expect from Johnson this year? (*the team hasn’t officially announced it, but Johnson has always worn 6 and has flashed it in Sabres colours.)

Wish @qwksndmonster and @darksabre were talking hockey on here rather than being drawn back in by more important things.

He was with Mitts and VO for that one.

Defence is not hard to learn or to execute, the issue is self-discipline not ability. Offence tends to be the opposite.

Good post. It is sorta weird how Clifton/Johnson/Greenway/Levi seem to have perfectly targeted last year’s weak spots (goals against, PK, physical presence) at the required positions and Sabrespace has collectively kinda overlooked that.

Does the AHL exemption just given Shane Wright give us any reason to hope for the same for Savoie? Wright is 4 days younger Wright played 141 CHL games over 4 seasons. One of those was the COVID season where he played 0 games Savoie played 149 CHL games over 4 seasons. Savoie played 34 game in the USHL during the COVID season. You'd have to think the only reason not to exempt Savoie is to punish him for playing in the US during COVID

As it was the previous 2 seasons, Jokiharju’s year was marred by injury and his counting stats remained relatively static. The lack of obvious progress from his early years and the addition of shinier, newer toys on the roster led to many fans growing tired of him. His coach, however, should not be counted among that number, skating him for more than 21 minutes a night for the second consecutive year. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=196298 Two Jokiharju stats didn’t spark much attention, but were notable nonetheless. For the first time in his professional career, he finished above 50% in his 5-on-5 shot share. And he did that despite his D-zone starts increasing from 42.9% to 49.3%, and being unstapled from the hip of Rasmus Dahlin. Henri Is entering his 6th NHL season but has never topped 69 games played. He just turned 24 and has played 273 games. What do you expect from Jokiharju this year? (Last year’s takes here)

The season started badly for Greenway and got worse. He missed training camp due to an off-season shoulder injury, came back too early and relapsed, then came back again and played poorly. He followed that up by sleeping in and missing a team meeting in late January in what appeared to be the last straw for the Wild. He was acquired by the Sabres at the trade deadline for a late 2nd-round pick, failed to make much of an impression early, missed some time, and played a little better in a middle 6 role when he got back. His production for the season was easily his worst in 5 pro seasons, less than half of his usual per/game rate. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=170297 It wasn’t a huge stretch to conclude neither Greenway, nor Wild coach Dean Evason were huge fans of the other. Don Granato and Greenway on the other hand clearly appreciated what the other brings. Granato seemed pretty clear that Jordan needed to have a big off-season where he got focused and in shape, and Greenway pledged to do exactly that during locker clean-out. Some Buffalo fans were disappointed to discover that Greenway was no Milan Lucic, but he does very much offer the big body and responsible middle six play that everyone thought the Sabres needed last year. At least he did the 3 previous seasons in Minnesota where he averaged 39 points per 82 games as part of their elite checking line. What do you expect from Greenway this year?

Not aware of anything about tweaking the system and I’m not really expecting that; he’s made no bones about his team playing fearless, attacking hockey on offence and defence. What I have heard is talk about holding the players more accountable for playing good defence within the system. The emphasis was on inexperience no longer being a crutch, that by and large the roster has played enough NHL games to know what they need to do. Basically, it’s now about winning over development. If I have time to look up Granato’s quote from early in the off-season, I’ll post it. If you’re talking show-me, I think we were already shown a glimpse down the stretch. The goals against over the last 11 games was a respectable 2.91, down from the overall 3.62 and guys who were struggling within the system like Bryson, Clague, VO, Peterka, Jost, Stillman and Lyubushkin had their ice time cut back, or were nailed to the bench

I count 12 of those guys as 1st contract Amerks. There’s going to be a lot of prospects down there this season, which has got to be some sort of recent record. It will be interesting to see who sinks and swims.

Some very intriguing names on that roster. Can't wait. Rosen Kulich Cedarqvist Benson Savoie Nadeau Neuchev Kozak Kisakov Fiddler-Schultz and assorted scrubs Johnson Novikov Metsa Jandric Lindgren Komarov Ratzlaff

Prospect challenge roster has Kulich now sporting #20, so i adjusted the thread title accordingly