Curt

It’s the term, not the dollars. They feel like they gave him a fair salary, but too many years, and an MNTC on top of it. They think if there was going to be so much term, there shouldn’t have been any trade protection, or if they were going to give trade protection, then the term should have been less. Especially for a deal being given out a year early. Comparing Okposo’s one year deal to this 4 year deal doesn’t really fly. Also, in a vacuum, it’s probably an okish deal, but their team is carrying $15 in dead cap space for the next couple seasons, and the fan base is concerned that Guerin is going to keep them perpetually cap hamstrung for the foreseeable future with deals like this. It’s not the worst deal ever but there are definitely reasons not to like it.

Disagree here. Sabres can afford Mitts on a $6-7M contract. If Quinn and/or Peterka have a big breakout of sorts in the next two years and earn a big contract, it could necessitate a difficult decision down the road. But there is no guarantee that either of those guys ends up as good as Mitts; and Thompson, Cozens, Mitts is one heck of a C spine.

Do many people in Buffalo actually like Patrick Kane a lot? Honest question. I mostly see people from the area dragging him because he has publicly represented the area pretty poorly throughout his career.

Ok everyone, I got the image uploaded. Not sure why it wouldn’t work last night. Enjoy.

I have an interest tracking and projecting the Sabres future cap situation. I did this exercise last offseason as well, and I’ve gone through and updated it. The Sabres situation is interesting right now. In some ways they are very locked into their core players, in other ways they have tons of flexibility around the edges. Its interesting just trying to predict how things will develop. Obviously this is no where near how things will go. There will be more free agent role players and fewer prospects who make it. By projecting Mitts, Tuch, Quinn and Levi for largish long term contracts as well as a star breakout, and equivalent contract, for Benson, I tried to demonstrate how the Sabres could accommodate a few additional big salaries in addition to those that we already expect (Skinner, Tage, Cozens, Dahlin, Power) Anyway, this is mostly for fun, so enjoy! Click on the image for a clearer view.

@dudacek Not saying you are wrong or anything, it’s just really weird, and the NHL’s classifications here aren’t really meant to be a guide on a player’s age during a certain season. Case in point, any player born in late September or early October will not play a single at their age for the season. For example, Jack Quinn turned 22 a week and a half ago. Should we really call this his age 21 season? Even though he will be 22 for every single game? Doesn’t make any sense to me. I go by Hockey Reference’s classification, which uses a Jan 31 cut off date.

Not that this invalidates your overarching point, but Devon Levi will be in his age 22 season this season, not his age 21 season.

Sure, but that is a league wide thing, and doesn’t affect Benson in particular relative to the rest of the league.

I mean, he was officially weighed at 170 lbs at the draft combine, but whatever.

Sabres Role Player type forward prospects: Wahlberg, Rousek, Nadeau, Poltapov, Cederqvist, Kozak, Miedema Those are just the guys who seem destined for a career in that type of role. They have plenty of role player prospects. There are also a bunch of guys who are real top-6 hopefuls who could transition to a bottom 6 role. Benson, Savoie, Kulich, Krebs, maybe Östlund, to name a few.

This is interesting but like you, I wonder what metrics were actually being used. I really think that a lot of this is coaching, and I don’t mean that in a negative way. Granato has referenced before that he was at first purposely coaching the team in a way as to focus primarily on generating offense, and that he then was shifting to tighten up the defensive side of their game. The implication was that, with such a young group, it was too much to try to coach them produce offense, play good defense, keep their confidence up, and learn to adjust to the NHL all at the same time. By focusing on offense, they were able to keep confidence up, find their way in the league, and make strides in terms of results. Towards the end of last season, over the last 25 games or so, I think you could see the team put more focus on their defensive play and make some improvements there. This sort of step by step implementation of strategies is sometimes used by coaches when trying to make major changes within a team and build up towards success. I don’t hear it spoken about that much in hockey, but in soccer it’s a pretty common concept and refereed to as “tactical periodization”. Basically implementing layers of tactics one at a time, over a certain period of time. I think that’s what Granato is doing.

That’s fair. I was just sharing info.

I seem to remember he was voted best defensive forward in the WHL in a coaches poll, but I’m not finding it now. He was definitely lauded by multiple scouting sources as one of the best (sometimes straight up the best) defensive forwards in the draft.

Interestingly, the NBA did. In the past they could draft players in their high school graduation year. Now they have changed it to one year after their high school graduation year.

Calls??? Please. DM’s.

What Vegas thinks about some other Sabres players this upcoming season.

Here is what Vegas thinks about Tage Thompson’s upcoming season.

Here is what Vegas thinks about the Sabres 2023-24 season.

Congratulations!

Elite level trollin’

Probably neither. I voted Kulich because he seems more physically developed.

I’ll play if you have an open spot.

I’m not so sure Zegras is a super duper star. He is basically a Cozens level guy. Drafted the same year with similar production. Comparing the two, Zegras has higher level puck skills, and probably a higher offensive ceiling as a result, but he doesn’t have the size, he is supposed to be a C but is horrendous at face offs, and I’m not sure how his defense is. That being said, I would think it would take something like Savoie, plus one of Östlund/Rosen, plus a pick. Something like that.

Are you in the right thread?

Yeah, who knows what may be possible many years from now, if the league expands past 32, or 34, or 36 teams. Things could change. I just don’t think a relegation format it’s likely even then. The owners would have to approve it, which they wouldn’t because it has the potential to dramatically decrease the value of their asset.