Jorcus

The PK seemed odd last night when Norris was on it. At least twice there were two men deep in the opponents zone when they were setting up for the break out. Norris seemed to stay very deep at times. I don't know if it was by design or just not adapting to the system. Have to wait and see what happens next time.

Ullmark made some crazy saves in that game.

I don't have the numbers but I think the dynamic of the 4th line must tilt more positive when Krebs is playing center. I can pick apart a lot of Krebs game but his best asset is the forcheck and when Malenstyn and Lafferty are on the ice with Krebs they seem to be effective. They do need to finish more chances but they often get the puck deep and at least force a save for a line change and a face off. In their own end they are about as bad as everyone else on the team. I think that is more about structure than talent.

I don't think Vegas will move off of Whitecloud. He is cheap and has term. You do have some interesting candidates. There are not many so called proven UFA right handers out there. Cody CeCi being the main one. Not sure how I fell about him. The Oilers kind of ran him off. Evan Bouchard is an RFA for the Oilers but they are not going to let him go without a fight. Then you get into mostly real old guys or very young ones.

Yep, I got mixed up between Pelech and Pulock. So Pulock seems like he would be a target. He is 30 with 5 more years at 6.15 M per year. If Lou wants to get younger he is more likely to deal him than Dobson. But there is a no trade clause and what the return would look like? Still has good NHL edge metrics. Certainly a solid player as far as I can tell.

Instead of discussing the need for a top 4 right handed D man in the abstract it's time to identify who might be available and discussing at what It might cost us. An interesting article in Yardbarker showed up where Lou Lamoriello is talking about a retool and a need to get younger over all. The article goes on to speculate that 3 D men might be available for a trade. The 2 right handers mentioned are Noah Dobson and Adam Pelech. Dobson is 25 and an RFA but is projected to get a huge contract. Projections are an 10 mil by 8 year contract. The only way that would work is if Power goes the other way which would kind of defeat the idea of getting a righty to play beside him in the first place. Adam Pelech checks a lot of boxes. at 30 years old he has 4 years left at 5.75 Mil per year. I can't say I have watched his play over the years but according to NHL edge he still has speed and a hard shot, certainly experienced. He has a limited no trade list but unknown if we are on it or not. The question is what do you give up for a guy like that? To be honest there are not a lot of options out there for this type of player. https://www.yardbarker.com/nhl/articles/islanders_goaltender_semyon_varlamov_is_likely_out_for_the_rest_of_the_season/s1_14825_41877776

Best at what?

I wonder what happens after you take an insulting call like that?

When Cozens was playing well and teamed with Peterka and Quinn they were very effective on the rush. Not much defense with that line. I posted the all of Cozens goals video in another thread a while back and he was an equal contributor back at that time. What is apparent is that he scores most of his goals skating toward the net from above but in between the dots. He has not been too effective scoring from other positions on the ice. A lot have things have fallen off since then. I watched some or the Norris videos and and it does seem like he is effective at scoring from different areas of the ice. That should be a plus.

Cozens has not been on the 1st power play unit for 15 or 20 games and it is not any better now. It's kind of like watching a Space X launch with all the breakaways they give up. So replacing Quinn with Norris might be the answer. He is not known as a playmaker so maybe it's not Quinn that comes off. Zucker coming back would help.

The Sabres still need another solid right winger to replace Quinn. They need at least 2 shut down D men to replace the bottom of the line up. They need to fix that 4th line. They also need another reliable goaltender who can play 40% of the games instead of a guy we just use on back to backs.

The Ottawa GM kept talking about improving 5 on 5 play. Not sure how this trade helps that. Still not sure why Ottawa made this trade other than they found a way to save a little money. He did say something about this trade enabled the Zetterlund acquisition.

According to Cap wages Cozens is on Long Term Injured reserve.

Well they lost Miko and Mitts and a bunch of other stuff. I can't blame them for the moves but it's probably going to come down to how well Blackwood holds up.

Maybe he already knew he was getting traded and made a business decision.