GASabresIUFAN

….but he doesn’t have 100 points this season……

I’m ok with that and they can take Bryson, Gilbert and Clifton with them.

No question. No courageous run for the 8th overall pick this time.

I watched the 1st period and then went out for dinner. So glad I missed the rest of the game. Another blown two goal lead. Go Amerks! Go Bills!

Top 20 (plus 1) prospects at mid-season. Rules: 24 and under with less than 100 NHL games (50 for goalies)[Still waivers exempt] and has spent time in the AHL or lower this season or finished in the AHL or lower last season. Benson graduates with 107 NHL games now under his belt. Quick note; I tend to look at time to the NHL as a tiebreaking factor in the ratings. The closer a player is to contributing at the NHL level the higher their rating all else being equal. 1. Helenius - C - 14th over all 2024 draft - 17 points in 28 AHL games at 18 is impressive. Looked good at the U20s. 2. Levi - G - 212th pick in 2020 - Tearing up the AHL again (15-2-2 with a .918 save % and 2.12 Gaa). Hopefully will translate to NHL soon 3. Kulich - C/W - 28th pick in 2022 - 9 pts in 31 NHL games this season, but was much improved until his recent injury. 4. Rosen - C/W - 14th overall in 2021 - 28 pts in 31 AHL games this season. Likely will earn another callup soon. 5. Wahlberg - C - 39th overall in 2023 - 11 pts in 26 AHL games in first NA season. Was very good at the U20's with 8 pts (4 goals) in 7 games. 6. Östlund - C/W - 16th overall in 2022 - 2 pts in 13 AHL games in first AHL season. Has been injured. 7. Novikov - D - pick 188 in the 2021 draft - Continues to improve in the AHL. 13 pts in 34 games including 4 goals and a +21. I expect a callup this season. 8. Neuchev - LW - 74th in the 2022 draft - Like Novikov, he continues to improve in the A with 19pts in 31 AHL games. 2 way play still needs work 9. R Johnson - D - 31st pick in 2019 - Has played 44 NHL games the last two years. Not showing much pro offense in AHL or NHL. 10. Kozak - C - 193rd pick in 2021 draft - Has earned 2 callups this seasons. 12 pts in 24 AHL games for the grinding forward. Looked solid as a depth NHLer. 11. Poltapov - LW - 33rd in 2021 - 26 pts in 43 KHL games. Scoring has slowed after a hot start. Could be good 3rd line forward if he ever comes to NA. 12. Ziemer - RW - 71st in 2024 - 11 pts in 21 NCAA games for Minn. Strong contribution to the US's Gold medal at the 2025 U20s with 7 pts (3g) in 7 games. 13. Komarov - D - 134th in 2022 - Solid start to 1st AHL reason with 8 pts in 32 games with a +4 for the big defender. 14. Sardarian - RW - 88th in 2021 - Game exploding with move to Mich Tech. 27 pts (9g) in 21 NCAA games. Great to see for a reportedly really good kid. 15. Strbak - D - 45th in 2023 - Improving big physical D with 9 pts in 17 NCAA games and a strong showing at the U20s with 6 pts in 6 games. 16. Miedema - LW - 109th in 2023 - Blossoming big forward has 41 pts (16g) in 38 OHL games. 17. Richard - 170th in 2022 - 13 pts in 14 games for UConn. Had 18 in 36 last year. 18. Kleber - 42nd in 2024 - Another huge defender in the NCAA playing for Minn Duluth. 16 games (1 pt) so far his freshman year. 19. McCarthy - 86th in 2023 - Another solid NCAA defender with size - 5 pts in 18 games. 20. Kisakov - 53rd in 2021 - 3 pts in 6 AHL games. Not sure he has a NHL future at this point 21. Marjala - 159th in 2021 - 33pts in 33 Liiga games. Has improved dramatically over the last 3 seasons in Finland. Are the Sabres still interested? Is he interested in returning to NA? No idea. Other Goalies - (I'm not sure any of these 3 have an NHL future, but who really knows with goalies Leinonen - 41st in 2022 - Seems to have found his game by moving to Sweden. .915 save% and a 2.13 Gaa for Mora in the 2nd level league in Sweden. Ratzlaff - 141st in 2023 - 3.84 gaa and .892 save% for Seattle in the WHL. This is further backsliding. Leenders - 219th in the 2024 draft - posting mediocre numbers in the OHL with a .900 save % and a 3.43 gaa Just a quick insight into the prospect pool. The forwards tend to be 6' or smaller, while the defenders are big to huge. Wahlberg and Miedema are really our only legit forwards prospects over 6'2. On defense Novikov, Komarov, Strbak, Kleber, Osburn and McCarthy are all 6'2 or taller.

The problem for Östlund is that he may already be down the center depth chart behind Helenius and Wahlberg. Helenius will likely be on the callup list sometime next season and in the NHL the season after that. The Amerks are actually listing him at LW. That might give him a better shot than center strangely enough, but how many under 6' forwards do we really want or need?

@DarthEbriate Really? Östlund is in his D3 season and had 2 points in 13 AHL games. Helenius in his D1 season, who is also in his 1st NA season and is the same height as Östlund, has 17 pts in 28 games. By the way, Östlund was taken 16th and Helenius 14th. Who do you think will make an impact on the Sabres? The truth is by D3 we should already have a pretty good idea who has an NHL future and who doesn’t. It’s why I really only discussed Adams first 3 drafts. Take Novikov for example. In his D3 season he came to NA and made an immediate positive impact on the Amerks. He showed more offense than expected, was excellent defensively and has continued that this season. IMHO he has a great shot at the NHL next season. Kulich is D3 and is already carving out a role in the NHL. Rosen, who is D4, is stuck in Rochester, isn’t even a point a game player in the AHL despite being in his 3rd AHL season as a 1st rd pick. Does he have an NHL future? Possibly but likely only as a depth forward. Think Joel Armia.

People here are funny. Don’t trade Power because he has potential. Don’t trade Cozen’s because he’s still young and can rebound and we don’t have enough centers. Don’t trade for Pettersson because he’s only had one 100 season. Don’t trade prospects because they have great potential and will help us down the road. My favorite - Don’t ever trade for defensive defensemen. These are all arguments on this board about why not to make a move and you wonder why Adams doesn’t get a major deal done. There are never guarantees. Risks must be taken to try to fix the team. LV took a huge risk in acquiring Eichel and it helped make them Champions. The status quo isn’t working. Sure acquiring Pettersson is a huge risk. Maybe he never scores 100 pts again. So, but what if he recovers to 80 points a year? Doesn’t that make us better? What is we trade Power and use his cap space on two 20 minute a night defensive D. Doesn’t that make us better? To change the narrative here, Adams or his successor needs to be bold. The current plan is t working and never will.

I didn’t miss Benson. I was comparing the first 3 years of Adams reign of destruction. I also mentioned him in the sentence about the last 2 drafts.

What good is any of that doing the Sabres?

Yes. We thought for a while that Adams and his crew were doing a better job of drafting than the previous administrations. I'm not sure that's true any longer. TM produced 6 NHL players in his 3 drafts (Reinhart, VO, Eichel, Borgen, Hagel & nominally Lemieux). 3 others reached the 100 game threshold (50 for goalies) but never have been full time NHLers (Nylander, Asplund & Johansson). This is poor drafting by most standards especially with 25 picks in 3 years. Jbot has also produced 6 NHL in 18 picks (Mitts, UPL, Bryson, Samuelsson, Dahlin and Cozens). I suspect Portillo will be the 7th. Johnson may only be a AAAA player. Then there is Adams. He has 5 drafts so far. He had 27 picks in his 1st 3 drafts (including 6 1st rd picks and 4 2nd rd picks). So far we have just 3 NHLers (Quinn, JJP and Power). Kulich also looks like an NHLer, but not quite there yet. There are other possibilities like Novikov (6th rd in 2021), Rosen (1st rd in 2021), and maybe Kozak (7th round in 2021). But there are major disappointments like Östlund (1st rd in 2022) and Savoie (1st rd 9th overall in 2022 - traded for McLeod) and the 3 2rd picks from 2021 & 22 (Leinonen, Poltapov, and Kisakov). This doesn't mean others won't emerge from these 3 classes, but I'm not expecting anyone to make a major impact. The most recent two drafts look similar to the 1st 3 but I'm very hopeful on Strbak, Kieber and Helenius as players who can make a significant impact. Obviously Benson is in the NHL with a bright future. I've argued for a long-time that we need 3 full time NHL players a draft to become good. For the 9 years from 2014 to 2022 we have averaged 2 with some, like Borgen & Hagel, developing for other teams.

We have 3 young offensive D. We really only have enough PT for 2 and desperately need playmakers, centers and defensive D to make this roster whole. You trade from strength to fix the roster. Why is this so hard to understand? It also saves $8 mill a year which can be allocated elsewhere. Folks you have to give to get. Not every prospect is going to develop into a star player. Power, while extremely talented, is the worst of our 3 young offensive D, two of which (Byram and Power) are defensive liabilities. Our team has been one of the worst defensive teams for years. This needs to change if we are ever going to be a good team. Waiting another 3 years for Byram and Power to figure it out defensively is not a recipe for success. Someone you have to take a risk. Power doesn't engage physically despite his size and Byram does while producing the same offense. I think he can also be retained for less than Power is being paid.

Lol. This team doesn’t have enough quality centers, playmakers, or defensive D. What we do have is an excess of highly paid, defensively challenged offensive D and not enough PT to spread around to maximize their talent. We are at the bottom of the NHL again, so sure keep the 3 offensive LHD because that’s working so well. I get it let’s wait another 3 years and hope that Byram and Power improve defensively. That makes so much sense after missing the playoffs for 14 straight years. Let’s also sign Byram to a Power type deal so that are 3 “top” D, who don’t play defense very well eat up $27 mill in cap (1/3 of the internal cap). That makes even more sense. I get it, keep the failed status quo, don’t make any substantive changes to the lineup and just keep losing. Or….. maybe change course, move out a highly paid redundant player who has significant trade value and fix other parts of the roster? Nah, it’s so much more fun to just keep losing.

While much of this is true, I’d still make the deal. 100 pt scorers don’t become available very often and a good GM can add the right players around him to limit the issues with his “soft” play. I trade Powers and his $8 for him right now. Our Mr. Softie with a big contract for yours and we are only $3 “worse” off. I also think we are one of the few teams with the ability to add his contract that have shooters that would thrive with him and can skate with him. JJP, Quinn, TNT, and Kulich all have lethal shots. I’d love to see how they’d do getting feeds from an elite playmaker like Petterson. This isn’t happening however since our gelding of a GM would never take the risk.

He didn’t sit on his hands, he put his head in the ground. The fact that he still has a job shows TP’s lack of commitment to winning.

That’s hilarious. They gave up 35 shots on goal, 21 scoring chances and 6 high danger chances. UPL was the difference not the defense and 2 way play of the forwards. They were lousy as usual. Don’t confuse a shutout with good defense.

So what can we get for Power?

The problem is Power or Byram need to anchoring their own pairing. Neither should be paired with each other or Dahlin. So do really want to be paying Power $8 to be a 3rd pairing D? How is that going to help his development? This stupid Adams experiment of 3 scoring D to push offense has already failed because his precious offensive defenders can’t defend and there isn’t enough PP time to go around. This claw was obvious the day Adams acquired Byram and we have been living with the fallout ever since of a lack of centers of offense and terrible D play on defense. Time to end the experiment.

We can no longer wait until he develops some D skills at 25. We need to win now with the core we built. Byram gives us exactly what Power does. Same upside offensively and the same development needed defensively except he is willing to try defensively which Power isn’t. Time to move on and get other pieces we need for a redundant but value player.

From the Athletic. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6049845/2025/01/09/buffalo-sabres-midseason-report-card-2025/ I think my C- grade is to high.

Power and Byram are both lousy defensively. Power is worse because he flat out refuses to engage physically. Since they both produce about the same offensively, but I'm going to be able to re-sign Byram for less than 8 mill a season, I'm trading Power. It's really that simple. We don't need 3 offensive first LHD. We need one for the top pair (Dahlin) and one for the second pair (Byram). We need some RHD and Tallinder type players to partner with Byram and Dahlin. If I can move Power to help get partners for Byram and Dahlin, I'm making that deal right now.

This isn't the best example for your theory, but we do need more grinders to toughen up this lineup. Have a tough player or two who can play in the top 6 forwards would be nice.

It's actually nearly impossible to build a team solely through the draft even if you are good at talent evaluation. Let's say a rebuilding team averages 9 picks a year and hits on 3 players each draft. Over 7 years the team will develop 21 players. Seems simple, but in reality, those 21 players may not be from the positions of greatest need and by the time the 3 guys from the last draft become productive NHLers, the guys from the first draft could be ten year vets and moved on from their initial team. If you look at most teams that utilize the draft and develop strategy, you may see 10-12 drafted players at most on the roster. The Sabres are currently at 12 drafted players including callups Kulich and Kozak. We also have been using this draft and develop strategy for over 9 years (Jbot and KA) and we haven't developed and kept enough defensive D, playmakers or centers. To make the strategy work, the GM has to find trading partners to move out excess prospects to fill holes in the NHL roster and you have to find the right FAs and that may include taking a big $ risk on a guy or two.

I'm not going to lie and say UPL has been good this season. He hasn't. He has been average and certainly not as good as last season. What I will say is that I don't think it's all his fault. I think he is actually playing his heart out. The problem is the defense. We simply give up way too many high danger chances. We also don't block shots at a high rate. I put UPL in the "core" because we have committed to him and I think with a better defense he is good enough. I also think Levi will figure out the NHL and the team will have good goaltending between the two of them. Call me an optimist. If I was the GM, my Sabres core would be JJP, Benson, TNT, Tuch, and possibly Quinn up front, Dahlin and Byram on defense and the UPL/Levi combo. I'd look to keep Zucker and possibly Greenway. We are also probably stuck with Samuelsson, but as a 3rd pairing guy, he might be salvageable. Everyone else, I'm not interested in keeping. Power and Cozen top my trade list. My add list includes 2 top 4 defensive D. I'm also looking to add two experienced centers with one proven playmaker for the top 6. From a prospect standpoint, I like Kulich, Helenius and Novikov. I think they'll be able to help the team over the next few years. I can see Kozak being a medium term player on the 4th line.

The COVID 2021 draft was very interesting. One thing I remember besides all the Russians were 3 CHL players drafted in the 3rd, 4th and 7th rds who had very similar D+1 seasons. I was very interested to see how each guy developed. They were 3rd rd (pick 95) LW Josh Bloom - 32g 39a for 71 pts in 68 OHL games --- Now in the ECHL (traded to Van for Riley Stillman) 4th rd (pick 97) RW Oliver Nadeau - 35g 43a 78 pts in 65 QMJHL games - Now in the ECHL (plus 4 games in Rochester) 7th rd (pick 193) C/W Tyson Kozak - 32g 37a 69 pts in 66 WHL games - Now called up to the NHL after 2 plus season in the AHL) This just illustrates how hard it is to make the NHL and how much the draft is a crapshoot with the COVID years being an even bigger crapshoot.