Curt

I think it was neither, but I might have missed it.

He is probably is going to be roughly a Sheary quality player going forward. That’s a decent 3rd liner from my point of view.

Vladimir Sobotka, at 12:57 in the 3rd per of the 3rd game of the season. Bringing the score to 1-4, Buffalo only down by 3. The crowd goes wild. Im kidding.

No, I don’t think so. I think he will be a decent backup/fringe starter. Goalies are strange though, so maybe he can be a good NHL starter. Elite would be highly unlikely, I would think. Seems like a heck of a nice guy though, so I’m rooting for him.

I can imagine Krueger moving to a Pres of Hockey Ops role in a few years if he has some success as HC. Perhaps with one of his assistant coaches taking over as head coach. I have a difficult time imagining a scenario where Botterill is fired because the team is bad, while the head coach of that bad team moves to the role of Pres as opposed to also being fired himself. Also, RaKru is not happening, and nothing can change my mind on that. To quote some mean girl “Stop trying to make RaKru happen.”

Regarding the discussion of Housley vs Kreuger. It’s very likely that they have basically similar strategies for how they would like the team to play. The problem with Housley was never that his system was terrible, it was that (1) he was apparently unable to get players to consistently execute it effectively, (2) he leaned on a few very bad players, and (3) the roster he was given was not that good. Some of those are interrelated. The hope with Krueger is that he will be able to implement his system more effectively and get players to consistently execute it properly, he will utilize the players he is given better, and also that the roster he is given will be better.

It’s not exactly a gushing exclamation of his happiness to be a Sabre. Still seems likely that he at least openly expressed to the GM his dissatisfaction with all the losing, if not request a trade. I think he is a professional though and is going give it his best effort. Never doubted his work ethic. He is definitely a useful player who can be an asset to a team, so if the right return wasn’t out there, I have no problem with Risto being with the team.

Oh, I read that as 31 #1 quality Cs, but that’s not actually what you wrote. That’s my bad. Its just like anything else. There are 31 #1 Cs, but some are better than others. You are basically defining #1 C as someone you can build a playoff team around. For me, I would probably use the term All-Star (or just Star) C, or perhaps Franchise C.

I'm not, lol. I'm just telling you how I define the term and why I don't think any other way makes sense.

To me, there are. If there aren't, then I don't know what #1 C is referring to.

Well, we agree that it makes not sense, so that's good. I just try not to perpetuate things that make no sense. Its just an inaccurate description. Just say "low end #1C" instead, a guy who could probably be a #1C on a team somewhere, but you probably aren't winning a cup with them in that role. This is just my opinion of course, but I think its important that we describe things accurately, especially on the internet where conversations are often short and its easy to misunderstand eachother.

I guess you are entitled to your personal definitions, but it doesn’t make logical sense to me that there are only 21 #1 Cs in a 31 team league. The term #1 C sort of loses its meaning if you twist it like that.

There are 31 #1 Cs in the NHL, 31 #2’s, and so on. I know it’s very debatable where guys rank exactly, but it makes no sense to say there are 19 #1 Cs and 42 #2 Cs, or something like that.

I would say O’Reilly and Couturier both are #1 Cs. Probably in the 20-30 range but still.

Is an elite #2 C someone who is around the 30-40th best C in the NHL? Thats the only definition that makes sense to me and that is guys like Kuznetsov, Duschene, R Johansson, RNH, Horvat, K Hayes, W Karlsson. In that light, I think the answer should clearly be no.

The same RNH who has recently publicly expressed glowing support for Ralph and his tenure with the Oilers? Just saying.

I don’t have any concrete tactical suggestions, but I just wanted to say that I wouldn’t worry much about trying to spread the talent evenly between the two PP units. I would like to see the 1st unit loaded up with talent and out there for 75%+ of the PP time.

Risto for Mantha was something out there suggested as a possibility weeeks ago. Not a rumor, just speculation. I’m not putting any stock in it.

I like it! I hadn’t seen that before! It was of course a joke. I was juxtaposing my lack of caring against the intense opinions you guys were displaying about this thing that happened quite a while ago and doesn’t really matter in any practical way.

I don’t care who won the Conn Smyth whatever year that was, and whether they deserved it or not.

Probably because the aging curve for D are generally a little more stretched out than forwards. Forwards often reach their scoring peaks very early in their careers (year 2-3, age 20-23), while D often take a couple years longer to get to their peak. This is not to say that Dahlin won't set the world on fire in 2019-20, because he absolutely could. He is definitely going to improve. I feel very confident in that. Your projection of 62 points is within the realm of possibility, but a little higher than my projection, maybe by 5ish points. To me, he has already "emerged". He is doing unprecedented things for a teenage D. He is a 1st pair D with more improvement on the way, and at an age that puts him on course to be the best D in the NHL in a few years.

I'm going to say Brent Burns leads the NHL in D scoring again. If not him, I think John Carlson is a good bet. I expect Dahlin to be in the 50-60 point range. I would not be surprised if he was on the back half of the top 10 list.

But they also have Toronto in the top 10 and ahead of Buffalo. I don’t see how the 7th best D unit in the league can have Cody Ceci in the top 4. I guess I’m just saying that I’m not taking this list too seriously. Sabres D looks much improved over last season though, of course.

I think that some combination of Sheary, Rodrigues, Olofsson, Mittelstadt, Johansson, Vesey can make a really good 3rd line to go with the decent Z-Larry-Ok 4th line. The problem is that after you fill out that really good 3rd line, none of the other guys are good enough to be 2nd line players. So I say the top 6 is weak, because that’s what we lack, not enough top 6 forwards.

Agreed. I think the situation is basically the opposite of what the author stated. The bottom 6 is well situated, but the top 6 is definitly lacking quality.