Drag0nDan

At age 19 i was 5'7 140 lbs and ate pizza and cheeseburgers every day. I could've eaten til it hurt and it wouldn't have mattered. Get him with a nutritionist - and get him on a workout plan. He'll be fine. Its the hockey part that we should worry about. Yeah. Curtis Lazar would've really put this team over the top.

His father is an assistant coach with the Ontario Reign, and he followed in dad's footsteps at Minnesota. I believe he was drafted by Sioux Falls into the USHL. There's definitely some smoke to the fire here. And it'd be naive to think otherwise.

He's from Irvine though.

Team needs a goalie who can steal more games. And the defense in front needs to be better. They are 2-32-5 when they give up more than 4 goals. 39 of 76 games we've given up 4 or more goals. That is awful. 42 games where the PDO (Shooting% + SV%) was below 100. I feel like 100 shouldn't even be that difficult, that's 3 goals on 30 shots and the same .900 sv%. They can generate some offense but we still stink at shooting. The defense could do more to block shots and generally help the goalies out. And the goaltending this year has been some of the worst in the league. Skater stats: 25th in goals per game, 23rd in shooting%, 18th in PP%, 25th in PK%, #1 in shootout goal percentage. Goalie stats: 25th in GAA, 25th in SV%, 31st in Shootout SV% (leaving points on the table there), tied for last in shutouts.

Worked us on the PP, and they scored their point blank chances. We either shot them into pads or just flat out missed the net.

There's a time and a place.... it is not in the defensive zone, through the middle, at your own blue line.

The drop passes and random passes through center ice out of the d zone are absolutely infuriating.

I'm not even sure we should rely on UPL at this point. Spend some money, draft capital, picks, whatever on this position.

They possibly both already are trade pieces.

I hate my baseball team and I'm fairly certain I'm just done with them. They changed their name to the Guardians - which is terrible. They have gone the route of a rock bottom payroll. The team name even shares 5 letters... i think they saved money on their logo change even. It's just so pathetically cheap and I can't stand it.

These don't need to be lines - i'm all for mixing it up including thompson line - which can be a bit too offense heavy and gives up too many chances Skinner thompson tuch - No one touches skinner, thompsons been our best center, and tuch looks like future captain girgs-asplund-okposo - Girgs might fetch something in a trade but not much, asplund if he can play center would be a good fit here with a better shot than eakin and a willingness to use it krebs - cozens - olof - Krebs needs the offseason as he's sort of in a rut and making a lot of the same mistakes. Cozens needs to continue to work on his 200 foot game and just generally needs to play faster more consistently. Olof can shoot, and even pass sometimes, and is probably a wing on the PP1 JJP - Mitts - Quinn - Hypothetically these are the last 3 in, which would mean no FAs or trades out of the forward group. I'm not sure i love mitts at center, or both rookies starting up with the team right out of the gate. I don't think theres much for either to learn at the same time, and I wouldn't trade either. Trocheck would be a nice get - good on the dot, good defensively. Giroux as well would be an interesting add. But adding either one of those pushes someone like JJP to the minors, or someone like olof or mitts (or both) off the roster entirely. There are a ton of young dudes on this team right now. I like the idea of a Varlamov, and there will be others. Kuemper, Campbell, Husso, Vanacek will all sign places - and those teams will likely have to move goalies as well.

The thing is too - while a ton of this has come with skinner and tuch. Asplund and Olofsson were scoring on his wing this season early on as well, and they went into their slumps when they were taken off of his line.

More aggressive too - and its not all about chasing hits. He's meeting people closer to the blue line instead of continuing to fade back.

I feel like Allen would be a center though. Sort of an angrier lemieux.

Love the turn on this player. When initially acquired a lot of people hated it and viewed it as a throw-in and that we got less for Reinhart than Risto. Now a season later and he's looking like a possible solution in goal at some point. I think this would be an even faster jump than Spencer Knight.

Agreed. Those 3 on the ice was brutal - its like they were trying to play up a hill or something.

John Hayden has played in 52 games for Buffalo this year. Eakin has played in 62. Bjork has played in 51. Murray 19. Jankowski 19. Ethan prow even popped in for 4 games. There's plenty of space in the lineup for your quinns, jjp's, and free agents/trades. In addition to literally like 50 starts at goalie.

I put cohesion. Goaltending has been much better though still pretty inconsistent. Tokarski was having a really good month before chicago (where he was awful), and anderson has cooled off. The team is 23-23-8 in games not started by Dell and Subban. While not a playoff record it's clear even marginal goaltending is a big step up for this group. UPL clearly had some poor luck with 2 wins in 5 good starts - I think this was that stretch where everyone was hurt or sick with miller, bryson, hagg etc. all in and out of the lineup too.

Ah good point! We only had 5 picks in 2020? Apparently traded a 4th to move up for JJP - who looks like he could be good so... i'm pretty good with that. 3rd was traded for skinner. Other 4th they traded for Frolik - yikes JB. In any case - they could have just drafted Levi - but we still got someone in 2020. In any case - we need a goalie today not tomorrow or the day after. We probably should keep giving goalies looks though.

I think with teams being occasionally forced to trade guys - you can acquire your superstar forward in other ways. Who that guy is and how we acquire him? I don't think buffalo's in a position to get one yet unfortunately. Too much bad press around Eichel. If both Dahlin, and Power can become superstar defensemen it makes everyone look better too - and just generally make finding a superstar easier.

You are waiting to start an ELC. For Goalies? It's probably a bit different as the traditional pathway requires about 100 games at a minor league level anyway. Cal Petersen is 27 and signed through 2023. ELC - 2yr 1.85M 2019 - 3yr 2.575M - He'd made 11 NHL starts to this point. 2021 - 3yr 15M So through 2020-2021 season in the same draft - Jarry earned 6.625M with 2 remaining years at 8M total), and he'll be a free agent in 2023. Petersen earned 4.425M and has 3 years remaining at 15M total and will be a free agent in 2024. Development path isn't everything obviously - Petersen started 110 games in college, Jarry 55 games in WHL followed by 78 games in AHL. Jarry played in 62 NHL games through 2020, while peterson played in 19. I don't know which is right - Jarry is the better player, but i don't know that either development path is preferable.

I can't blame Adams for mistakes of previous regimes. His first offseason he acquired Levi. The free agent market was not great - the expansion draft and covid created a really weird market for goalies. There were some good ones available, and we pushed hard to keep Ullmark and it didn't work out. The degree to which we are not a free agent destination can't be overstated. This year i think a trade target is important as well as going heavy into free agency in 2022. JB was here from 2017-2019 drafts and took Portillo and UPL. Remains to be seen on either. Murray drafted Johannsson and traded for Lehner. Before that Regier had taken one in 3 straight years - Petersen, Ullmark, Lieuwen. All after the 4th round though.

Bruins gotta figure out Bergeron this year and pastrnak next year. Penguins got a ton of free agents - Malkin, Letang, Rust are the big 3. Caps are pretty set on who they are and gotta pay their goalies this year. Torontos going to overpay a goalie for sure. Florida and Tampa are just wagons. Deep teams across the board with good goalies. Carolina and the Rangers are both good - but Anderson has a .928% save percentage in 43 games which is signifcantly above his career average. Shesterkins at a .936 in 42 games. Thats quite a few stolen games. At the end of the day, it seems like the way to the playoffs requires a good goalie. 0 Current Eastern conference teams have given up 200 goals this year, and buffalo is at 223. The 171 goals for is also lower than all the playoff teams. Playoff teams don't usually get shut out 6 times by teams like ottawa, detroit and montreal. Or have so many losing streaks where they seem incapable of beating anyone. 5 game losing streak in october/november 4 game losing streak in november (where they gave up 22 goals in 4 games) 7 game losing streak in november/december (30 goals allowed in 7 games) 6 game losing streak in december/January (24 goals in 6 games) 6 game losing streak in February (28 goals in 6 games)

I'd agree if it was after a year of playing with Crosby or something. But asplund and olofsson are 2 big reasons why (outside of injury obviously) i don't see a 1 year wonder. They have not scored anywhere near the same volume since they played with Tage. Plus I selfishly love watching him blast slap shots into the boards on the PP.

At what point do we stop shipping players out for picks? He's probably our 2nd best player behind dahlin right now - and it passes every analytic and eye test i can see. He's also currently dirt cheap, playing a premium position in center, playing in all situations including PP1 and PK. I'm not sure what else this guy needs to do. Scoring goals, one of the best on the team at gaining the offensive zone, gets to good areas.