LGR4GM

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.

Tage Thompson outscored Jack Eichel. Tage, 47g, 47a Jack, 27g, 39a Sam Reinhart was stupid and has been the dumbest trade considering what he does. No one has replaced him although Tuch has at least helped and Quinn has helped more. Levi and Kulich both hitting might make that trade eventually palatable but I still dislike it.

I mean Helenius is all of this but 10lbs short of your goal at only 18, most 18yr old players are not over 200lbs. Wahlberg is 194lbs and turning 19 so he's got a chance to crack that 200lb threshold this season. Ziemer is 196lbs, so he is also close to the 200lb threshold. sigh... not accurate

Rogue One is the last good Star Wars film IMPO. I don't have the hatred of TLJ as some do, but Luke in that does suck. I thought some of it was interesting but the overall plot is weak and it just felt like a rushed film. Again, don't hate it, it isn't whatever the F the final movie was bad.

Lafrienere is the perfect example. Struggled struggled struggles... hit 22 and boom. 23/24 is the Average and that doesn't mean everyone isn't good until 23/24. As Taro notes, some of it is games played IE experience. A bunch of the players listed here are top 3 picks and they can all be excluded because by definition they are outliers. If you feel better using some other metric you can use IN THE 3RD NHL SEASON, as that is usually when things occur and that also corresponds for most players as 23/24. My point is the same though, most players take several NHL seasons (2-3) before they hit their stride. Benson is actually going to be a fun example because everyone writes him on the 3rd line and he seems an after-thought but the guy had almost the same 5v5 scoring as Bedard, I can't imagine what he is at 22 with 4 NHL seasons under his belt. In the end, yes some players are 21 or 22 or 23 or 24 but roughly speaking players enter their prime when they are 23/24 and continue in that until about 29 (again some players go on past that like Joe Pavelski who basically spent 15 years being awesome). Don't take an average and apply it to everyone is the moral here but the OG point stands. We don't have a bunch of young guys entering their primes, yet. It is why I wanted Skinner retained for 1 more season. 21 yr old Kulich, Savoie, Östlund and 22yr old Rosen and 19yr old Helenius are very intriguing, especially if all of them played in the AHL together one more year. Now I think at least 1 if not 2 are forced into the lineup and I am not convinced they are ready. At the very least they are not Stutzle at 22 ready. Remember Jack Quinn put up 37 points in 75 games as a Rookie NHL player, do we really expect Kulich, Savoie, Helenius, Rosen, or Östlund to outdo that? Benson dropped 30. If we plug any of those guys in we should expect 30 but not more.

I don't remember this at all. In fact I remember the opposite. Savoie and Kulich were 19 last year, jjp and Quinn were 21 in their first NHL season. NHL players on average become good around 23/24 so the good news is Quinn and Peterka are there but Savioe, Benson, Kulich, Helenius are several years away still. On good teams that's fine because you have a guy who is 26 and will give you another 7 years of good play. On Buffalo we have to hope Cozens rebounds. It's why everyone complaining about Dickinson confuses me. Dahlin and Power are going to lock down d1 and d2 and pp1 and pp2 for another 8 years at least, you might be able to spend 5 years now developing one of the 7 defenders from the last 2 drafts into a replacement but you have years to do it.

This is true. We're in part 2 of the offseason where teams who got UFA's look to see who they need to move or augment their roster. Trades happen this week and then it all goes dark until September.

Actually with Helenius around I think I prefer Savoie at wing. Really excited to see both in the prospects challenge.

Zach Benson is a winger. Kulich could be a center at the nhl level, idk about this year though. Savoie could make the NHL this year, that's true, he played center last year in Jr's but idk if he's projecting there in the NHL. There's plenty of room in Rochester for Helenius and Kulich to play center.

Zach Benson is a winger.

I think the pp will be key. They need Benson on pp2. I still think they are short a player.

What are the Sabres trying to build?

And if anyone in that top 6 gets injured? There's no depth behind Tage, Tuch, Cozens, Quinn, Peterka, Benson.

Stop. Ralph Krueger was an abomination and that almost entirely explains the offense in 2020. The year after they had more talent.

Maybe they'll get Adam Henrique

I voted no to both. Now what?