LGR4GM

They won't be singing McLeod https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/hockey/news/michael-mcleod-effectively-released/

Idc. I know what's on the Rochester page is incorrect so I used correct information. Here's the Sabres training camp roster from 2023. Rosen is 6' and Kulich is 6'1" which is reflected everywhere else. https://www.nhl.com/sabres/news/buffalo-sabres-announce-2023-training-camp-roster-tage-thompson-zach-benson-jeff-skinner-devon-levi

Pretty sure we have immunity now to post anything anywhere

Yes. Kevyn Adams has never once traded picks and prospects for a top 6 player. He's a failure at it.

I'm sorry, no. Rogue One is a fantastic war movie dealing with sacrifice for the greater good. The forces awakens is fan service

Nov 4, 2021 was the Eichel trade

Haha we're so f'd

Meanwhile in Detroit

Yup, exactly this.

Now that I dealt with that let us talk about this. This is complete and utter bullhockey. It is patently false. Let's start with Zach Benson, he is only going to get harder and harder to play against. He won more puck battles than he lost last year. He is a pain in the ass already to play against. Dogged, smart with his body, keeps his feet moving, smart beyond his years. He is mini-marchand right now and I am most excited for him moving forward. Helenius is not fun to play against at all. He is very much in the mold of Benson with less of the stick work that Benson has and I would say less manipulation than Benson. Helenius is very much a checking center who uses his smarts and body to get the puck and transition to offense. He is not simply a skill player and will be hard to play against. Brodie Ziemer is a pain in the ass to play against. He was primarily used to protect Hagens and get the puck to Eiserman along with Teddy Stiga. They were the hard checking forwards of the USDP. Brodie is very much in the mold of Benson or a Tuch where he uses his body and checks and is always motoring. That's 3 players in 2 drafts where they used a majority of their high end picks on defense that are hard to play against. Poltapov is that as well but idk if he will ever come to NA. I think Kulich has been learning how to apply that part of his game more but I will leave him out for now. Sabres have recognized the finesse v hard to play against deficiency in their pool and actually get credit for working on addressing it. Do they need to do more? yes. I will also add Jack Quinn in here even though everyone seems to view him as soft. He isn't, he uses his body quite often to leverage position and shield the puck. On the backcheck he uses the same skills to separate players from the back and move back up ice. If he adds the muscle and is healthy all year, he is going to be a pain to play against because he has all the skills with the puck and willingness to engage physically to protect or retrieve it. Buffalo doesn't just draft skilled forwards. They definitely have an abundance of them but they seemed to understand that which is good. If we switch to defense... holy hell do they love big physical defenders. Novikov, Komarov, Kleber, Strbak all make their livings being physical in their own ends.

Man, you don't know puck if you think the 6 first rounders Buffalo has drafted are all similar players. Fun fact, Zach Benson is one of the best checkers and inside drivers of play in the history of the WHL. He is closer to Bedard than he is the 3rd person. Helenius is 4th in points for Liiga players who are in their draft year and he didn't do it being a perimeter player. FTR. Savoie didn't play in the AHL playoffs last year. Wahlberg and Östlund did but had barely 11 games of AHL game experience between them. Krebs also wasn't in the AHL playoffs. Zach Benson, not in the AHL playoffs. So you are mad that Rosen and Kulich were not better in the AHL playoffs.

What? Ralph Krueger was terrible. I have no idea what you are talking about here now. You asked me who outproduced Eichel, i said Tage. you said Nobody. I don't get it.

Isn't that what we just added in: Sam Lafferty, 6'2" 205lbs - 191 hits in 79games Nicolas Aubé-Kubel, 5'11" 187lbs - 159 hits in 60games Beck Malenstyn, 6'2" 194lbs - 241 hits in 81games All 3 guys have more hits than the top forward on Buffalo in 2023 and only Clifton and Dahlin (204 and 195) are in the ballpark of Laffferty and Malenstyn

I don't lie. I take great pains around here to make sure I deal in facts as often as possible or provide context that is based in fact when giving my opinion. Between 1991 and 2000 is a worthless sample. It pre-dates the modern NHL by years and is completely devoid of the type of training and prep jr leagues provide to their players. 2010-2020 would be far more accurate (and maybe it stayed the same, idk because I don't have that info). It however is not relevant to this either because again, NHL players typically hit their stride in the 23/24yr range or in the 3-5 NHL season range. The percent of 1st rounders making the NHL isn't particularly relevant to that. top 3 picks in the modern NHL are almost guaranteed to get 100 NHL games. Teams invest too heavily to not do that and make sure they won't work. As to my final line which you seem to either making fun of or riffing on, I don't think it is reasonable to assume any of the listed rookies are able to come into the NHL and put up much more than 30ish points. That is specifically in their first NHL season. Jack Quinn was a ppg AHL player and 21 and he couldn't do it in year 1. Zach Benson was an outlier and he couldn't do it. Conor Bedard did because of lots of PP time. I simply saying that 20yr Kulich might be able to get you 30pts but that doesn't make us a playoff team on its own and we shouldn't count on anyone from Helenius to Savoie outdoing that. Again, I playing the averages because that applies most, outliers are rare. It is why you don't compare all QBs to Josh Allen or you don't compare all 18yr prospects to Benson.

Kevyn is not proactive, he is reactive. He lacks creative problem solving and it is very evident to me personally that he has a major inability to shift quickly when opportunity arises.

I included all players that Kevyn Adams has overseen drafting for so 2020-2024. I excluded players that had no chance in hell of NHL games and left anyone on the fringes.

The average height of an NHL forward is 6'1" and the average weight is 198 I think. I think it is entirely probably that Helenius can hand a big a scoring winger when he is 22yrs old entering his prime, why shouldn't he? Benson routinely shut down bigger forwards than him at 5'10" 180lbs as an 18yr old. The one thing you seem to be forgetting is speed. The NHL plays fast and most guys hit the balance of size and speed around 195-205lbs. McDavid is 194, Barkov is 214, Mackinnon 201, Bergeron 196, etc... there is a reason for that. There has to be a balance between your weight and your speed/agility. It is why NHL players often talk about losing weight to be faster or more nimble. It is all a balance but Sabrespace has made some arbitrary decision that anyone under 200lbs is too small and anyone under 6' is too small and it is just a fake cutoff. The Sabres issue is not that they don't have a forward core of 215lb 6'3" guys, it is that they don't have a forward core that wins puck battles and forechecks hard. They play soft not because of size but because of character, they have a character issue that hopefully coaching helps correct.

It has been almost 1000 days since he added a top 6 forward to this team via trade or free agency. I'll give him this summer, that's it.

And I quoted a link directly from AHL.com and I checked EP.

I decline. Kulich's weight here is incorrect, so I view all the rest as suspect as well. I know that EP pulled his height and weight from his WJC measures which I feel good about. Idk what you are looking at but here is the Rochester roster which shows Rosen as as 6' 173. https://theahl.com/stats/roster/323/81 I pull all height and weights from EP, Benson being the exception.

2022 and 2023 we went small with Savoie and Benson, that said Benson plays far above his size.

The Sabres and their defensive pool... here if you think Buffalo is small, GTFO. Defense: Even here, there is whispers and suggestions that Buffalo is small and needs to get bigger! They only go after small pivots with high end skating and don't understand they need big gritty guys. I mean... okay, let's test this theory. First off we have to start in 2021 because they basically didn't take any defense in 2020. 2021 draft: Owen Power, 6'6" 218lbs Nikita Novikov, 6'4" 198lbs 2022 draft: Vsevolod Komarov, 6'3" 187lbs 2023 draft: Maxim Strbak, 6'2" 190lbs Gavin McCarthy, 6'2" 185lbs 2024 draft: Adam Kleber, 6'6" 214lbs Luke Osburn, 6'1" 172lbs Simon-Pier Brunet, 6'2" 196lbs Patrick Geary, 6'1" 185lbs What is most interesting is how for 2 years the Sabres really didn't draft much in the way of defense. Since then, they have spent far more on defense in terms of quality picks. Their last 2 drafts they have used 2nd round picks (45 and 42) on defense and this past draft they went very hard on defense. Oddly enough they might have lucked out in 2021 because Nikita Novikov has all the makings of a solid #5 defender and he was 188 overall. They might have done the same with their 2022 pick of Komarov who was 134 overall. Both of these guys will be in Rochester this season and I am excited. I think it also shows that you can find good defenders later in the draft as they tend to slide a bit compared to forwards. All in all, there is no size issue here. The smallest guy is not yet 18yr old Luke Osburn (won't be 18 until Sept) so plenty of time for him to get bigger. Outside of that we have a ton of 6'2" and up types in the pool and most of them are at or above 200lbs. Our defensive drafting has not been small. We actively seemed to have joined the trend of not drafting sub 6ft defenders that has swept the league. Overall, our D pool seems to be looking solid. I think at least Novikov and Strbak see NHL games in the next few years with Komarov and Kleber likely too as well. Note that Strbak, Kleber, and Komarov are all RHD so that is helpful as Joker and Clifton rotate away from the team in a few years. Should be fun. I think I like the defensive prospects depth we have and actually like how we use 2nd and 3rds here as I think you are finding value that way.

Gather round Sabrespace while we go through the Sabres prospect pool since everyone thinks the pool is filled with 5'10" 165lb softees. Forwards: The Sabres are rumored to have all these small tiny little forwards, yet do they? Do they really? Let's take a look and go from there. Buffalo has a stigma of drafting small guys. Why? Well in 2022 the Sabres drafted Savoie (5'10" 179lbs), Noah Östlund (5'11" 163lbs) and Jiri Kulich who at the time was also 5'11" but is 6'1" currently. This belief was heavily reinforced when Zach Benson (5'10" 180lbs) fell into the Sabres lap the following draft. It has supposedly been reinforced again when 5'11" 190lb Helenius fell to Buffalo in 2024. So the question is, is this true? Do we only draft small guys? No. Buffalo's Forwards drafted since 2020 (I have excluded players I feel have no NHL shot) 2020 draft: Jack Quinn, 6'1" 185lbs JJ Peterka, 6' 190lbs 2021 draft: Covid is weird but here Isak Rosen, 6' 174lbs Prokhor Poltapov, 6' 176lbs Alek Kisakov, 5'11" 183lbs Olivier Nadeau, 6'2" 205lbs 2022 draft: Matt Savoie, 5'10" 179lbs Noah Östlund, 5'11" 163lbs Juri Kulich, 6'1" 185lbs Viktor Neuchev, 5'11" 172lbs 2023 draft: here I think Buffalo shifted Zach Benson, 5'10" roughly 180ish lbs Anton Wahlberg, 6'3" 194lbs Ethan Miedema, 6'4" 203lbs 2024 draft: Konsta Helenius, 5'11" 190lbs Brodie Ziemer, 5'11" 196lbs Vasili Zelenov, 6' 181lbs I think what happened is that in the 2021 and 2022 draft, Buffalo ended up selecting players that were certainly lighter and in some cases shorter. The narrative really starts there. 2022 in particular with 3 first round picks all under 6ft at the time of the draft being a big part as to why. Since then though Buffalo has not really followed that path. Zach Benson had to be the 2023 pick, he's great. But after him they specifically targeted 2 guys that were big and skated well. In 2024 the narrative is total trash, predicated on the belief that Corey Pronman barfs out constantly, that 6' is some magical cutoff and below it you are small and above it you are big. Konsta Helenius is not small, Brodie Ziemer is not small. Both players are probably going to play at or close to 6' and both are built already like a brick shithouse. I would note that neither Jack Quinn or JJ Peterka are small as both are 6' or taller and I would love to see updated weights on both because I bet they are pushing the 190s pretty well at this point. When it comes to forwards, I think we do see 1 draft in particular where Buffalo selected smaller speedy guys and that stigma has stuck and stuck hard. It seems the scouting and analytics department is aware of that and has used picks in the last 2 drafts to address that deficiency. Since Zach Benson, not a single small forward of note has been taken. The prospect pool has about 6-7 players that are under 6' and light (under 180lbs). It has 6 or 7 depending on the count, players that are over 6', over 180lbs or both. Do I want Buffalo to continue to find bigger players with talent? Yes I do but talent is talent. Konsta Helenius is not somehow deficient because he is 5'11" 190lbs just like Nygard is not guaranteed to be better because he is 6'1" 205lbs. The world isn't that simple. Next up, defense.