PerreaultForever

The difference is Lohrei was converted from forward. He hasn't been a D man as long but has an impressive learning curve. That's why I see Lohrei as not being near his ceiling yet. Not exactly. It says right now - stress that RIGHT NOW - Lohrei shows signs of being a more complete D man. Power can still be much better than he is though but he's not there yet. He might be in time. Hard to say. Have to see the signs on the ice.

Well let's hope so, but there are so many maybes it's impossible to say. A lot of things have to go right for the Sabres and wrong for several of the other teams in the division. We've been touted as that team before and we always end up "a year away" year after year.

Maybe. Eye test says something different.

Shouldn't Byram be there already if he was going to get there? I think Colorado felt he wasn't going to get there. idk, I haven't seen anything in him defensively that makes me think he will be good. Offensively yes, but not defensively. Power should still get better but it remains to be seen if he will develop the strength and physicality he needs to add to that frame.

First off I did say that Power should be the better player in time. That's a main point. However, Lohrei has experienced playoff intensity, has been better coached and has tremendous exponential growth. How good he ends up being is hard to say but right now there isn't much difference and Lohrei might be the more confident D man who makes less mistakes. Really hard to judge though with the 2 extremely different systems. Power would probably be better right now if he was learning in their system and hadn't started in Granato's do whatever you want and have fun game.

I'm not sure what you mean in the second sentence but Power still has a lot of possible upside. Otherwise, Sabres D has great offensive potential but defensive ability is questionable.

Will Guentzel be as good as Stamkos was on their PP, that would be the question there.

I'd basically agree with that but I'd be comparing Lohrei to Jokiharju and Clifton to Peeke. Lohrei has a huge upside and is getting better every game. Right now he's actually as good or maybe even better than Power. Power should be better eventually but Lohrei is good. Definitely better than Jokiharju in time (if not already). Clifton is a better skater than Peeke but Peeke is a better shot blocker. Peeke makes less mistakes but also little offense. Call it even. Zadorov Samuelsson would be the biggest disagreement but time will tell. How Zadorov does in the Bruins system remains to be seen but he can be the bigger impact player. Definitely agree that forwards being trash defensively was Sabres biggest problem however. We agree on that fully.

PK yes, PP unknown. Marchand and Lindholm are key ingredients and both are either injured or coming off surgery so if and when they both play maybe. PP really hasn't been good since Bergeron and Krejci retired.

In terms of forwards I agree with the assessment, but that D is pretty darn good and (although you will disagree) better than the Sabres.

Good and bad news on your can Sabres pass the Bruins this year news. Good news, Bruins as a team were not very good again. Bad news, Korpisalo was the best Bruin tonight. He was actually impressive. Michkov is just, WOW. He might be better than Bedard.

haha. I'm saying they were already going to be bad and then they had the tragedy hit them and there's not much left. There's some good young talent like Fantilli but I doubt he's ready to lead them. I suspect they give San Jose and Anaheim a run for dead last.

An NHL roster yes, "legit" hmmm, not sure I'd say that.

Ya maybe. I don't know the dynamics of the Buffalo city these days but I suspect there's a contingent of die hard hockey fans out there who find tickets a little too expensive but go to sports bars and watch games with their buddies. Boisterous working class types. I think that likely still exists. If they were even semi organized they could get groups like that in with fan club type things and discounted prices but Pegula doesn't seem to be overly interested in that sort of thing. He'd rather sell one over inflated priced ticket and have an empty seat beside it rather than two half price tickets with seats full.

I would suggest this is hard with a loser franchise. Start winning this year, play exciting and hard and then you have the time to introduce this. I saw part of a Utah preseason game and it looks like they will be trying to follow the Vegas lead and create a spectacle every night. Sabres could do that, but first they have to clean off 13 years of stank.

Jamie Lee Curtis looks better in any outfit.

Better than the Octoberfest gear they wore off the bus. 🙂

Well I don't think you can take much away from this type of game except that (minus Krebs who is 13th forward) is your starting team and your starting pairs and line up. They're fast, they play more aggressive than last year, they go to the net, they look for deflections and screen and if they forecheck the offense will be good. The defense, don't know. Have to wait and see how it holds up to NHL competition. Should be better than last year but hard to say by how much. UPL I can't judge because he's not getting much work so far in the preseason. There is potential for things to finally come together this year. They're not allowed to have a little fun in preseason?

Everybody here will be happy to know the Bruins looked like sh#te tonight and Zadorov was dreadful. Flyers on the other hand, that Michkov is really really good.

Oh no, they are best friends. Really close. They just both want to be starters. Can't really fault that.

Thanks for making it personal. Very nice of you. Carry on. I look forward to your wise and enlightened opinions.

Both goalies said they wanted to be #1 and not do the tandem. Bruins chose Swayman which at the moment seems like a bad decision. One of them had to be traded.

No, but their D has been a strength and has been much better than the Sabres have had. This is why we got Clifton. They paid him minimum like a sub, which is what he was there. They wanted bigger for their 6/7 D.

Well one thing you can say for sure is that Rochester plays with a lot of pace. Ottawa announcers were saying Senators not playing well but I think they were struggling to play at that speed. Ullmark might steal some games for them though. Helenius tries to do a lot of things right. He has the right instincts, but he's a few years away and needs more adjustment and development. I think he could eventually crack the roster though. Nobody else out there that I see as pushing for an NHL spot any time soon. But they are fast. I'd totally forgotten we're trying to refurbish Sandstrom. He had potential at one point but completely fell apart last year so who knows. For Ottawa, Yakemchuk looks like the real deal. Not sure he cracks their line up, but he looks like a future player. The rest of what they dressed was not overly impressive and there were some NHLers in there.

No, it's not "new" but I don't like it. Never have. Personally I think it diminishes their authority/gravitas if and when they speak. So I disagree with Lindy's philosophy on that. He wants more leaders, I'd want real leaders.