RochesterExpat

If your answer is “staying healthy” the correct response is “adding depth” since one is simply a hope and prayer and the other is proactive. There is only so much that can be done to stay healthy. A lot of that is up to luck. We add depth by replacing/retooling the entire bottom six and adding at least one scoring top 6 threat.

I’m glad someone finally said something positive about Amir instead of calling his hire nepotism. Yesterday I could have told you who the video coach for Rochester was. The fact I knew his name is enough for me to be happy with the move. He was well-liked and praised often during Amerks broadcasts as well as by Seth regularly. I think people need to separate their opinions on his promotion from Seth’s—even though I concede they’re definitely linked. He’s a video coordinator. He isn’t going to be drawing up the power play. I don’t see any reason why anyone should be unhappy with this move considering the absolute volumes of praise that can be found publicly for him.

30 silver coins?

For what it’s worth, I think there is some truth to Kulich’s 2-way improvement. From watching the Amerks, it was noticeable Kulich was getting defensive zone faceoffs this season as well as PK time. I will asterisk my own statement by adding that Kulich was not reliably on the ice for the sort of “critical” defensive zone faceoffs late in a close game.

So who is backing up UPL in Buffalo and will that backup get more wins than Levi would?

If this isn’t everyone’s opinion, they’re wrong. Harrington and Lysowski can tweet all they want, but guessing which team(s) even want the pick enough to trade for it is just one part of the problem. Those teams need to have the right assets to send back and assets that don’t have trade protections against Buffalo. I like the Tampa idea. Partly because I wanted Buffalo to offer sheet Cirelli way back in late 2020. But we don’t know if Tampa is interested in the pick or interested in moving Cirelli. I saw someone on Reddit suggest we flip it to Chicago for Philipp Kurashev… as if Chicago would make that trade. I think we also overvalue what the 11th would get us or we live in a make believe land where every player is always available for trade. Hence why the only correct attitude to have is the attitude we should move it for the right piece. Maybe instead of saying “GMKA should trade the pick” we should be rephrasing it to “GMKA should be shopping this pick to 31 teams.” The latter I’m 100% in support of. It just depends on the return.

We should draft Iginla with the 11th OA and then trade Iginla for the signing rights for Nieuwendyk so four years later Nieuwendyk gets a Conn Smythe and our franchise gets its first Stanley Cup. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. I don’t want to kick the dead horse.

If he brings one in, I think it tells us how loud Lindy’s voice really is.

I think Stamkos stays in Tampa. Kane is interesting but it depends on what term he wants. Either of those would be good additions. If we’re talking about Vegas, I think Stephenson is more likely to hit FA and would be a better addition for Buffalo on what should be a reasonable contract. I’m afraid that if Marchessault hits FA, his Conn Smythe drives up the price. Add to it that he’s 3 1/2 years older than Stephenson and I think Stephenson is the better target.

It’s why I added the hypothetical and mentioned the NMC at the start. I really like Monahan but I expect the Jets to extend him since they gave up the first to acquire him. I like Toffoli as well but I also expect him to get a new contract.

I’m sure this will be received well, but in a hypothetical Leafs rebuild where NMCs get freely waived (which is what the Make Believe fan base seems to expect), would you consider trading for Tavares as a 3C? Tavares is overpaid at a cap hit of $11m for one more year. Since few—if any—teams can afford to eat that outright, a 25% retention is probably the starting point. That lowers his hit to $8.25m for the 24-25. Buffalo is able to accommodate that, but that’s probably the starting point for Buffalo to consider and I think it could/should go lower. His last three seasons: 2021-2022: 79 GP, 27G 49A 76P 2022-2023: 80 GP, 36G 44A 80P 2023-2024: 80 GP, 29G 36A 65P He turns 34 at the start of the season and Tavares will essentially be a cap dump by Toronto. His acquisition cost should be minimal. Leafs fans will probably celebrate a bag of pucks going their way because, at least in part, the Toronto media likes to scapegoat him for the Leafs playoff exits. His contract is the problem—not the player. He is still a productive center with 1,109 regular season NHL games under his belt. The big downside to signing him is that he is not a long-term solution. He would be in Buffalo for one season. A younger player with term is ideal, but I don’t know how aggressive Buffalo will be in pursuing such a player. It’s also nigh impossible to really know who is available for trade at reasonable values. History tells us time and time again that players signed in free agency are overpaid. Buffalo has a need for a 3C. Tavares can also be a scoring winger in the Top 6 if we need him to fill that role due to an injury. He is elite at faceoffs and is a still a threat on the power play. He is more physical than Bertuzzi and Domi—all while taking far fewer penalties. He’s got the NHL experience. He has leadership experience. Contrary to what Toronto fans will tell you, there is a lot to like with Tavares. It’s the albatross of an $11m cap hit that makes him difficult to like. Would you be willing to trade a prospect like Rosen and a 4th round pick to Toronto for Tavares at 25% and send a 3rd to Anaheim to retain an additional 25% (lowering his cap hit to $6.25m for one year)? We have the assets and this is one player that I don’t think will cost an arm and a leg to acquire because Toronto media is trying to run him and Marner out of town.

Have you been to Raleigh in the last decade? I can easily see how someone would prefer Raleigh to Buffalo.

It could absolutely happen, but I see at least one big difference between the B’s this year and last. I think last season the team lost their fire when they were up 3-1 (the choice of not switching starting goalies after game 5 aside) because they knew they were a great team and thought they would just win (I say this as the proud owner of a Bergeron jersey who is my all-time favorite non-Sabre hockey player). It was a team that played expecting to win and not wanting to win. Through the first four games this year, every Bruin player is out there playing like he wants to win—and being led by Marchand who is embodying that attitude perfectly. Just look at how well Pat Maroon is playing. It’s the whole lineup. I'm convinced it’s the same issue Toronto is having. The Leafs players just expect to win based on talent, but I don’t see them wanting to win. I could argue it’s Buffalo’s problem during the regular season as well where we have these “young, talented and skilled” hockey players repeatedly being told how talented they are. The problem is they don’t realize they need to play the game until they’re down 2-0 at the first intermission. Or we’re at game 50 of the season. Call it heart. Call it whatever you want. It’s what drives winners. On a different note, if the B’s win the Cup, Marchand has a pretty good chance of winning the Conn Smythe. If he captains a Stanley Cup winning team and wins the Conn Smythe in the process, we might see some heads explode at the very real possibility of a Rat in the HHOF.

Levi saved the game. Also as soon as I posted about blocking shots the Amerks did a great job blocking shots in the last 5.

Östlund just gift wrapped a goal to Kulich and Kulich didn’t bury it. Bummer.

Are the Amerks avoiding blocking shots for a reason? Is it to give Levi a clear view? It’s just odd in playoff hockey to see players shifting out of lanes.

Whoa. Wahlberg really made his first a beauty.

It’s similar in the sense that we’re looking at a second or first line role/production. He is behind everyone listed, although, honestly, when we account for the differences with power play points, his numbers pretty well match with Gaudreau. So I think I would consider it a cliff between Aho and the rest of the group. DeBrincat, Point and Kucherov (add in Robertson if he’d played a full season) make up the next tier. Peterka and Gaudreau are the third tier with the rest of the players having a noticeable separation. Part of it is we’re forced to use a small sample size. A total of 185 forwards drafted 2nd round or later played in at least one NHL game during their age 21 season over the last decade. If we limit to players playing 40 games, we’re down to 44 players. Of those 44, JJ is 7th in points-per-game. If we look at only even strength points, JJ is 6th. There are plenty of other ways to look at it and we can expand from that first/second line impact to look at other players. For example, if we consider TOI, JJ’s numbers are now closest to Jesper Bratt who was playing sheltered minutes and only played 60 games. So the data is cherry picked but it’s not cherry picked because I’m trying to make JJ into a stud player, it’s cherry picked because it’s hard to really quantify since this is such a rare occurrence. His numbers look good because they are good. He’s in good company no matter how we slice it. Gaudreau may be viewed as a less than favorable player by some, but he’s still a 60 point guy. He just gets negative coverage because he signed a massive deal following a pretty clear outlier of a season. With JJ’s numbers looking like Gaudreau and Bratt, I think everyone here should be thrilled. One other weird thing I noticed—and this is kind of off-topic—but the “flash in the pan” seasons virrually all come from 1st rounders. I wonder if that’s because utilization and opportunities are different. They get pushed into the league early instead of really earning a roster spot. Just an observation and a conjecture.

I’ve already told the wife I will buy one of the next generation to replace the riding mower I have currently. I also need to see how the vineyard and orchard are going to affect the size of my mowing area(s), so I figure it’s probably a 3 year buying timeline. All that aside, it isn’t even the gas or changing the oil that bothers me the most—it’s the noise. I switched to a push electric a while back for working minor stuff around raised beds and fence lines. I love it because the noise level makes it more comfortable to work with. How is the decibel level like on your Ryobi? Any operator fatigue from mowing the acre?

Put another way (and to reiterate what @LGR4GM already alluded to at the end of his post): as a second round pick, making the list is even more of a noteworthy accomplishment. He’s one of only six non-first round picks in the last decade with similar performance at age 21 (I’m adding one if you check these numbers because I’m giving Jason Robertson the benefit of the doubt as he hit 45 points in only 58 games). Those players? - Aho - DeBrincat - Point - Kucherov - Gaudreau And the aforementioned Robertson. That’s some pretty good company to be in. Good for JJ.

To the point about the weak power play and JJP having room to grow there, he was tied with Sidney Crosby and Brady Tkachuk for 5-on-5 goals this season—good enough to have only eleven players league-wide with more 5-on-5 goals.

It’s not just first period. It’s readiness in general. I said this in the Oct 17th GDT against Tampa: From the outside looking in, I will say I think Granato made a mistake with his handling/allocating the preseason games. The Sabres gave too many games to rookies and too few games getting the top lines together. The organization is too far along in the rebuild to give this much ice time to evaluating rookies. I don’t see this being an issue under Ruff. I will be shocked if the preseason roster isn’t a much shorter list this season.

+1 future Sabres fan. Mom and baby are healthy and everything went well. Now to hope the kid grows up in an era of a winning hockey team in Buffalo.

$3.3 to $4 million for three years ($10-12 million contract value). That’s market value for young goalies with less than a full season of solid performance. Oettinger, Gustavsson, and Georgiev being comps.