LGR4GM

Since you've brought it up again, I'll give my answer. I don't care. He can win that and whatever. I don't have to wish hatred and dwell on or in negativity over Jack Eichel. He just doesn't matter much to me anymore.

The pp split was 78 v 37min so are right, unlike other posters such as Nfreeman, I actually admit my mistakes. That split is 78 mins where Olofsson was on the PP but didn't play with Tuch, Dahlin, Tage, and Skinner. What is interesting is there are 9 and 13min of play in which Cozens, Dahlin, and Olofsson were on the PP together. So I think what we are seeing is Dahlin getting double shifts and Cozens not being locked into pp1 but occasionally also moonlighting on pp2. Short version is Olofsson had more PP1 time than you want to give credit for but less than I gave credit for. What I did find interesting though is that in those 78minutes Olofsson was on the ice for 10gf but in the 37min he was on the ice for 6gf. 7 of VO's goals were PP goals. I think VO had 3 empty net goals but my source might be off by 1 (meaning he had 4). So that accounts for 10 of VO's 28 goals. That leaves us with his 18 even strength goals for Mr. Olofsson. He averaged 14:21min a night. Without elite passers, entry/recovery specialists, board battle winners, and otherwise way better hockey players, Olofsson won't be getting the chances he does in Buffalo. It was astonishing watching his goals and realizing how few involve him doing anything other than sitting in areas of the ice, and I mean sitting, and hoping that someone else does something. His shot is great but there isn't any more to give from his end IMPO. I reject your playing a full season with a bum wrist claim even though I see that regurgitated in many places. Olofsson was injured but as this article indicates https://www.expectedbuffalo.com/buffalo-sabres-victor-olofsson-evaluating-pre-and-post-injury-shooting-data/, the season you are claiming was alllll inury doesn't track with the data and I think that 13.8% is actually a really good number considering how many WIDE OPEN nets Victor gets to shoot at because he has elite passers like Dahlin feeding him. Everyone looks at the injury from Nov 2021 and says "well it bothered him all season and that is why we saw a dip" but he only shot 12.2% that season which is within a standard deviation of his average so... maybe it was more like he just shot what he normally does and didn't get enough shots off from good areas. That seems to be more likely as he had the same number of shots as this season. Could the wrist have impacted him? Yes but I think we are overblowing that part a bit. His worst sh% season is the previous year (2020) where he only does 10.1% and that is probably an outlier but it still counts just as his 17.4% is an outlier that counts. Again 13.8 is going to be the norm and as he turns 28, I think a decline is more likely than an increase. Olofsson was lucky to play on the 3rd line where even though he tanks just about every stat for every teammate, he still had a bunch of wide open nets and other quality chances (not everything was wide open cross ice passes but quite a few are). My issue really comes down to how Olofsson scores. He requires a high degree of setup and support from others. Without it, he slumps which is what happened after his 10goals in January. Teams adjusted to his preferred area and stopped those cross ice passes. Greenway may have given them the option to bench him (Greenway needs work too btw) but they should have benched him earlier. I don't think him getting benched at the end was ever in dispute but he still played 75 games so he really didn't get benched much and that was the most games he ever played in an NHL season. What I am saying is he didn't sit out some massive stretch of games which impacted his scoring much. He sat a few games and was already colder than deep space at that stage. In the end I stand by my statement. Victor Olofsson will not be a 30g scorer for Buffalo. I personally think if he were traded to another team it would be highly unlikely he is a 30g scorer there either, unless we use your "but if" scenario to get him playing #1 pp time with Connor McDavid or something. VO is a 22g scorer who needs pp time and exceedingly favorable matchups to succeed.

I disagree with your opinion and "but if" rhetoric on olofsson. It's fairly simply.

The key is to get it done before next season, once the nhl knows the escrow is gonna be paid off and with the Seattle revenue and artificial cap... we might see a 7 mill increase.

You're entitled to your opinion but I think you're wrong. In fact I think olofsson peaked.

No, the Sabres had the 7th worst ga.

I don't think Leonard or Dvorsky will be available at 13.

The flyers were 29th in the league in gf and 10th in ga. Buffalo was 3rd in gf and 7th in ga. I think at the very least we can be assured we will outscore Philly next year.

What in the F is this trade? Good for you Briere but man is it weird.

If true, this is a missed opportunity for Adams. Helge Grans is someone I thought we could add. Oh well, can't get everyone. Putting it here because it could mean something interesting in the what would Hart cost debate.

I said no SERIOUS team. No team that wants to make the playoffs and compete is going to give Olofsson a full season of 2nd line minutes. Olofsson did not play 2nd pp minutes the majority of the season. Come on now, we have to use actual facts. Olofsson got demoted from pp1 for a handful of games during one of his season slumps. Had he not been benched... again you are back to "but if". Olofsson will get benched again because he is a streaky player that isn't good 5v5. His sh% was up to 17.4 this year from his career avg of 13.8. That means if he shoots the same number of shots next year he should get 22 goals. Again, unless he lands in a perfect ideal world where he gets force fed 2nd line minutes and force fed pp1, he isn't get there. He won't have enough shots and he doesn't generate enough 5v5 to compensate for his issues. Olofsson is a 22goal scorer, that's what he is.

A couple of things. 5v5 Olofsson is a major on ice liability. No serious team is giving him 2nd line minutes. Second, sure you can put him on your PP1 but teams will shadow towards him as the trigger man and he lacks the skills necessary to really adjust to much to that. So again, in your ideal but if scenario, where he plays 2nd line minutes and gets pp1 time he might just squeak out 30 but I highly doubt it.

We were talking about prospects. Here is what you said "Long-term the Sabres have 3 D roster spots available and only Johnson in the pipeline to possibly take one." Long term meaning what? next year? That isn't long term that is next year. Idk if Johnson will be an NHL guy by then but probably. Novikov spent 2 years in the KHL and will spend this year in the AHL. He might actually be ready next year but who knows. There is UFA, lesser trades, lots of options to fix the issue between now and next June. I am unsure of what point you think you are making right now. To the bolded, do you think this means something? Owen Power and Rasmus Dahlin are RFA's but in the sense that it isn't July 1 so they can't sign. That makes replacement a hell of lot easier when slots 1-3 are already filled in. The guys we have to replace are what? Lybushkin, Stillman, and Jokiharju potentially... I mean I would hope Adams has the minimal brain power in the next 2 offseasons to accomplish replacing the 4,5,6 defender either within or without. You seem nice. You should be a mod. @SDS This guy is amazing.

But if but if but if but if but if but if but if If Olofsson has the very most perfect season, sure maybe he can hit 30 but if he has anything less he won't. Olofsson is a 22g pp specialist. You can go listen to everything the Sabres have said since drafting Olofsson to now if you want that answer. You should be a big do your own research guy. Yea any prospect you get is going to be a little ways away. That's why they are called prospects. Again, I have no issue with trading Östlund but it would need to be a very specific trade.

I put in bold 3 players who may or not be here when Östlund is NHL ready. Rosen too. Not at #13 it isn't. It is almost exactly the same. Also "significantly"? anyone saying that is flat out wrong and simply looking through their Bedard and Fantilli glasses. Olofsson will never hit 30goals. This is factually inaccurate. They also have Komarov and Novikov and whatever they draft this year as potential options. I am fine with trading a forward prospect for a defender but ppl like you are acting as if Östlund is just some expendable nobody.

Oliver reminds me of the Knox signing. It was based on them being "their guys!" instead of what was best for the team. Both are fine but aren't exactly game breakers on any consistent basis. I think both are overpaid.

Well, there's a guy called Mania so... can we take him?

Different, idk about better. Hard to say.

Exactly. Östlund wasn't in Rochester showing off his shot like Kulich or in the WHL like Savoie with game highlights all over the place. Instead he was in the Alls fighting for promotion against men. It is all about most Sabres fan not seeing what he was doing and assuming since they heard so little it means he can be traded away. He put up 31pts in 49 games against men. That is pretty solid for an 18yr old who didnt hit 19 until March. If he had done that in the AHL we would all be like WOWOWOWOWOW he's so good at the hockeying. Ohgren and Lekkerimaki put up less regular season points than Östlund while both did better in the playoffs. Considering we know that Östlund got hurt that doesn't surprise me. Östlund's biggest obstacle right now is his strength, he needs 20lbs of muscle.

I disagree with this 1000%. The plan was always for Östlund to stay in Europe for 2 years. The only question was if his team would get promoted back to the SHL and if not would he find a good landing spot to play in the SHL. The only reason he would have been in Rochester this year is if there as no SHL landing spot and he was going back into the Allsveskan.

My recommended draft guide: I often say that Elite Prospects (EP) Rinkside is a worthwhile subscription and I stick to that. They rank 136 prospects and then have hundreds more that they have at least scouted in the last year. I like the game reports the best because I like to see if I can find a really good and really bad report to see what the player is like on off nights and how often they happen. Anyways, I will say that for me at #13 it comes down to 2 things, do the Sabres want to add size to an otherwise average prospect group (Kulich, Östlund, Rosen are all average size forwards in terms of height) and the second is do they believe Gabe Perrault can fix his skating? If you think you can fix Perrault's skating and you aren't worried that all your recent forward picks are basically some variation of 5'11" and 6' with the exception of Savoie, then I would take Perrault because the only part of his game I question is his skating. The rest of what he does is brilliant and he is fully aware he isn't strong enough. In April his USDP coach talked about how he stayed late and did extra in the weight room, he's added about 25lbs since last year and still needs to add another 25lbs or more. Perrault is 5'11" 165lb LW. Now if Buffalo looks at their prospect pool and thinks, okay we want the high end skill but we need someone who can actually go into a board battle and win routinely than I would look at Barlow or Wood or Ritchie. Colby Barlow, 6'1" 187lbs LW, concerns me because I do agree with scouts that his game is very mature and I just don't see a lot of runway left. He is like the opposite of Jack Quinn in that he is pretty well developed physically and mentally in his game approach. He reminds me of lesser Alex Tuch in that he has that physical side with soft hands and a stout frame at 6'1" 187lbs. He goes to the dirty areas and has a nice shot (I think it might be his best asset) and he works all over the ice. If you want safe this is your guy, he is all but guaranteed to be a 3rd line winger who can operate on your second pp at worst. At best, 25-30g scorer who might not drive a line but playing with a guy like Cozens would be exceedingly complimentary to him. Matthew Wood, 6'3" 190lbs RW/C, concerns me because woof do I dislike his skating. I am not Corey Pronman here talking that he can't skate in a straight line fast enough so booo, I mean that his agility and first 3 steps (I care most about a players power generation in 3 strides than just straight line speed) are mediocre at best. Now we can all sit here and think, well he is big and in college so that is why but he was at the U18s and he doesn't even look good against his peers in terms of skating. Sure he put up NUMBERS (7g, 7a) at the u18s but my concern is that with all his other skills he won't be able to utilize them when the game picks up speed. His playmaking is nice but again, skating is meh all around. Calum Ritchie, 6'2" 187lbs C/RW, imagine if the two players above had a baby and that baby was Calum Ritchie. His shot is slightly less than Barlow's, his skating is better than Wood, his playmaking is less creative than Wood's but then Ritchie can stickhandle while skating and Wood cannot. I think he has more development room than Barlow and could overtake him because of that. Defensively, he's pretty good. He reminds me a lot of JJP in terms of how he tends to have fewer deceptions in his rush patterns but because he is strong enough and has soft enough hands it tends to work just fine. I think his overall hockey sense is high though and that will allow him to overtake Wood in terms of playmaking if he hasn't quite done it yet. Honestly he is just a solid player who goes 200ft and can win battles, identify the outlet, make that pass, support the play, create space, and otherwise contribute to a teams middle 6. Will he be Alex Tuch or Dylan Cozens? No, I think that is a lofty expectation but he could be a 60pt winger (I think he works better at wing, I am trying to remember him losing a 1v1 on the wall and can't really) that plays on your 2nd pp and your #1 pk. I think he needs another 2 years of juniors though. One last thing, +/- is really only useful when looking at a team because he shows how a teams ES goal differential works. Ritchie was on a bad team. Sure Oshawa made the playoffs but they weren't very good. Out of all the players on his team that played at least 50 games, there's only 1 with a better +/- and if you look at the playoffs, Ritchie is 1 of 2 guys that played in all 5 games to not have a - differential. What does this tell us, he is defensively very solid at Even. I think on a better team his point totals would have reflected his abilities more.

Bryson should not be on the roster. If he is, we have problems.