LGR4GM

TBH, as a fan I absolutely hate this. Why should I lose my draft picks to sign a guy that wasn't worthy of a draft picks 3 years ago?

These guys are all basically to be viewed as at best, late 2nd round picks. Most of them should be considered in the value range of 3-5th round picks, meaning they won't make it for the most part. Just another talent pool and lottery ticket.

7 of 8 captains are no longer on the team from what WGR was saying. Allen is the only returning captain.

If I were the Sabres, I would give Jax Dubois a look this summer. Physical 6'4" center that is AHL eligible and has the defensive game to become a 4th line center down the road. Would give the prospect pool another physical guy with size who could slot right into Rochester next year. Would be a bit of a project but all the guys are in this realm.

Mattias Samuelsson has absolutely no offense to his game. He is next to useless once you get into the neutral zone and certainly an afterthought in the offensive zone. He may shutdown plays at a good clip, although I do have some questions based on that model, but without showing us the average and then telling us what standard deviation away from that Samuelsson is, idk how to take the stats other than he might be good defensively but not leaps and bounds better than the league. That would be what my eye test says, he is solid defensively, above average, and can be trusted to deal with opposing top lines. I want him no where near the offensive zone though, all he can do is pass the puck to his partner or send it down low, there is almost no other skill or manipulation to that side of his game. I actually think quite a bit of Muel's defensive game, but the rest I don't. It is that duality that has me down on the guy overall, coupled with his complete inability to ever be healthy for more than 60% of a season.

wins and losses do not quantify future success or current performance 100%. I have seen total garbage teams beat the best teams in the league. Wins/Losses don't quantify current performance of individual players that's for sure and they certainly don't tell you about future success of a player. That is why NO ONE uses them to quantify if a player is good or bad except sometimes with goalies.

Because I love you all, so so much, Komarov (2022) had a 1.15ppg this year putting him first in the Q. That would make him 4th in the WHL behind Mateychuk 1.44ppg (2022), Cagnoni 1.38ppg (2023), and Sward 1.23ppg (2022). That would make him 4th in the OHL behind Parekh 1.45ppg (2024), Brzustewicz 1.37ppg (2023), and Dionicio 1.22ppg (2023).

Strbak is interesting, needs another couple years in college for sure. Komarov is really interesting. QMJHL isn't great defensively and compared to the other CHL leagues Komarov didn't blow the doors off for a defender but as someone with 1 more year of Q eligibility and already tops in the league, I think he is another guy that in 2-3 years might be really interesting for the Sabres. He's another reason you don't sign guys like Samuelsson to 7 year deals, you sign them to 5 year deals because they can be replaced most likely and if not, you just sign them again. They made their top 4 D trade already. This team is going to roll out Power, Byram, Dahlin and Muel next year as the top 4 and think nothing of it, even though Muel is a 5/6 and will get injured.

Some of them will, yes. Some of them won't and I don't trust this organization to tell the difference.

Novikov quietly leading the Amerks in +/- while also dropping 21pts in 58games. He's 3rd in points for defenders all while being 20 (won't be 21 until end of July) and this is his first season in NA. He is not our top prospect, but he is one of the most intriguing. oh and for the "we aren't big enough crowd" or the "we aren't physical enough crowd", Novikov is 6'4" 198lbs and has a mean side.

I agree. Dahlin is a top 5 defender in the league that we don't appreciate enough. He can do things that only 2-3 other guys in the league can do. He also has greatly increased his defensive skill over the years and if you watch him live in particular, he does a ton of little things to shut plays down before anything exciting happens. Rasmus Dahlin deserves a better team. His teammates owe him more than they gave this season. For all the talk around here of Tuch being captain, Dahlin is the leader IMO. Guy has 20 less assists than last year because his team can't score for *****. Still leads the team in points and is 5th in goals, as a defender. Rasmus Dahlin is probably the best defender to ever wear blue and gold.

To both of these points, I think Power can be a good defender without being a exceedingly physical one but he needs to be more physical than what he currently is. He should learn from Benson and Quinn on to use your body to create space and shield the puck because Power kinda sucks at it. The problem with his skating ability is that his quickness has not improved. Hedman spent years working on his quickness because he knew that was what matters. Power has slow feet at times and it limits his abilities. I am less interested in him adding 20lbs of muscle and more interested in seeing him increase his foot speed. Rasmus Dahlin was basically and instantly very good. PPL seem to forget his rookie year where he was 18 as compared to Power at 19. Dahlin then hit a wall when Barf Krueger became the coach. I will give Granato credit for helping to bring Dahlin back but this myth that Dahlin was bad and then had some glow up is false. He was good and then a truly horrendous coach ruined him for 2 years. That said, I agree that Power is still very young and has probably another 2 years of maturing to do but it won't happen with Marty Wilford coaching the defense. He needs a new voice and that if no other reason, is why the coaching assistants at a minimum all need to go (Bales excluded).

Novikov is going to be better than Samuelsson long before samuelsson's contract ends.

Owen Power is never going to be a physical guy. I tried to tell ppl that in his draft year and was basically told to zip it. He's a mostly finesse and I doubt very much even a new coach can get him to change his game to use his body more.

That reminds me, I put olofsson's goal total at 22.5 and said I'd take the under. A large contingent around here said no, he's got the potential to get 30 and 22 was his floor. He's got 7g on the season, you don't score without opportunity and he's bad at getting opportunity. Was a good 7th round pick and I wish him the best.

I think they'll have a down year by their standards.

Just because you're 6'4" doesn't mean you're a prototypical 4th liner. He's an extreme long shot to play nhl games.

Nah, Josh Allen is the important part of the Bills. This year is gonna be a down year due to cap cleanup and the need to get younger and faster. I'm sure it will be used to claim Allen isn't good without Diggs while ignoring the 10 games where Diggs was irrelevant.

Donny is 100% coming back. All signs from the organization have pointed to that. Question is will all the assistants come back.

LW Zemgus Girgensons- UFA but Terry loves him C Tyson Jost- UFA C Peyton Krebs- I would start thinking about trading Krebs LW Victor Olofsson- UFA D Jacob Bryson- 7th defender but I would look for an upgrade D Henri Jokiharju- unless they make him the 5/6 defender they need to look to move on G Eric Comrie- UFA

Reports filtering out that indeed there may have been "something" going on within the org. I'd take this with a grain of salt.

It is a reset year. It was always a reset year after what they did last year to try and win it all. You clear the decks, rebuild the offense and the defense with this draft and the next draft and you are right back at the top in 2025. Diggs was signed for 4 more years, sure it sucks this year but next year that's all gone.