2016-'17 Lineup

[WildCard]

Nice post, True, well done. I would definitely take Goligoski on my blue line; very gifted puck-moving d-man without the slow, defensive liability that is Franson. Quite honestly, I don't really know much about any of the other guys you mentioned, outside of basic hockey knowledge. I'd have to delve much deeper than I'm honestly currently able to do (midterms/work), but I certainly will be if we snag one of them. 

 

Last I heard Barrie was going to be offered a new deal at $6m per, I think they let Duchene/Landeskog go before losing Barrie. Given Landeskog is cheaper (very slightly so in cap hit) and Duchene's apparent chemistry with Girgorenko, I'd bet Landeskog, which is nice for us because as Hoss has detailed, he seems the better fit if we want him on Jack's wing.

 

If Shwartz or Landeskog become available, I pounce. The difference being of course that we'd have to trade for Landeskog, whereas we can just extend an offer sheet to Shwartz. Conversely, if they extend sign Shwartz, I would love to see what Backes is demanding, or pry one of their d-man loose.

 

FWIW, Ott is a UFA this year. He's at $2.6m this year. He's 32, and really at this point only a 3rd line liner with 2-3 years left. 

[Hoss]

I've been of the feeling that the weakest part of our roster RIGHT NOW is offensive forwards.

And the obvious solution is improvement from Sam and Jack, who aren't elite, but should be.

 

But I don't think adding a Lee stempniak or a Jamie McGinn is going to push us over the top now and it is a mistake to add them at Drew Stafford prices.

They are the types of guys we add three years from now to replace Kane when we can't afford him any more.

 

I agree with Webster. We have a window to add an elite guy. I say get one of those instead of two cheaper players.

Well said.

[dudacek]

.

 

If that is your assessment, I don't think we're going to find any common ground here.

 

Also, I am renting out the room I had reserved for you in the Bogo Bunker. I was hoping I could get you to come around, but that doesn't appear to be the case :P

 

 

.

The way I see it we have only four guys who can score at all right now - none of them elite.

Moulson, Ennis and Girgensons might be able to add to that, but we sure haven't seen it this year.

 

We have six legitimate NHL defence men, and three of them are going to get better.

Most of us see Risto as a 2 who should become a 1

Gorges is a very good 4/5 who can kill penalties and hold his own against good forwards.

Franson can help a PP and do OK on the third pair.

McCabe and Pysyk are 4/5s right now and have good feet and vision. They will get better.

We don't see eye to eye on Bogo, but I think in his career he has been a proven second-pairing guy.

 

We need a smooth-skating puck-moving LD who can play on the first pair and help the offence.

He bumps Franson and everyone else just slides into their proper place.

We need to add a very good player, but the overall corps is not in need of a huge fix.

 

We've had pretty good defensive numbers this year with a career backup, a raw rookie and a guy who hasn't played in a year in goal.

I don't think our blue line right now is as bad as you make it out to be.

 

Finally, I look at the team's with some of the deepest blue lines - Calgary, Minny, Nashville - and I'm not sure that bottom heavy is the way to go.

.

 

FWIW, Ott is a UFA this year. He's at $2.6m this year. He's 32, and really at this point only a 3rd line liner with 2-3 years left.

 

Ott was a nice distraction during the tank, but I'm surprised anyone tired of Foligno would be looking at acquiring him at this point in their careers. Marcus is cheaper and better. Edited March 6, 2016 by dudacek

[TrueBlueGED]

The way I see it we have only four guys who can score at all right now - none of them elite.

Moulson, Ennis and Girgensons might be able to add to that, but we sure haven't seen it this year.

 

We have six legitimate NHL defence men, and three of them are going to get better.

Most of us see Risto as a 2 who should become a 1

Gorges is a very good 4/5 who can kill penalties and hold his own against good forwards.

Franson can help a PP and do OK on the third pair.

McCabe and Pysyk are 4/5s right now and have good feet and vision. They will get better.

We don't see eye to eye on Bogo, but I think in his career he has been a proven second-pairing guy.

 

We need a smooth-skating puck-moving LD who can play on the first pair and help the offence.

He bumps Franson and everyone else just slides into their proper place.

We need to add a very good player, but the overall corps is not in need of a huge fix.

 

We've had pretty good defensive numbers this year with a career backup, a raw rookie and a guy who hasn't played in a year in goal.

I don't think our blue line right now is as bad as you make it out to be.

 

Finally, I look at the team's with some of the deepest blue lines - Calgary, Minny, Nashville - and I'm not sure that bottom heavy is the way to go.

Ott was a nice distraction during the tank, but I'm surprised anyone tired of Foligno would be looking at acquiring him at this point in their careers. Marcus is cheaper and better.

 

Breaking News: The Bogo Bunker has a special guest this morning...Mike Robitaille!!! :D

 

WARNING: The following is really long. I didn't mean it to be, I just sort of started and kept typing. Sorry.

 

I think our fundamental disagreement comes down to three things:

1) Our perspectives on defensemen:defense and forwards:offense are quite far out of alignment.

2) You have a higher opinion of the current level of our defense corps (this is related to #1, I think...maybe it should be 1a)

3) You're more confident projecting, and banking on, the improvement of McCabe and Pysyk, to say nothing of Bogosian.

 

I agree that goal scoring is currently a bigger problem for this team than goal prevention. I vehemently disagree that this is because our blue line as a whole is in better shape than our forward group. The synergy between forwards/defensemen/coaches and how that manifests itself into offense/defense I've been putting a lot of thought into recently. Many of us thought going into the season we'd have a high-flying, fun, offense-driven team that loses games by giving up a bunch of goals. Basically the opposite has happened. Is this because our forwards are that much worse than our defensemen, or did we underappreciate how much the blue line contributes to team-level offense and maybe, just maybe, Bylsma identified the blue line as a mess and is coaching a system designed to insulate a deeply flawed blue line (with the natural consequence of not fully letting the forwards stretch their legs offensively). 

 

I find it interesting you mention Nashville, Minnesota, and Calgary. First, I don't think those teams' failings in the playoffs are necessarily because they're back-heavy--Calgary was overrated, and Minny and Nashville regularly run into Chicago. Maybe it's semantics, but I don't think being back-heavy and forward-short are the same thing, or at the very least, I don't believe the former is a choice that causes the latter. But that's really besides my point--what I'm getting at is the Sabres adding two top-4 Dmen instead of Stamkos would not be making us back-heavy because we already have our forward studs. Unlike Nashville or Minnesota, we're not lacking center talent. I'm infinitely more confident that Jack and Sam are able to take a leap forward offensively than I am McCabe and Pysyk take a leap forward defensively. 

 

Further to your named teams and my point about defense/offense vs defensemen/forwards, Nashville is currently 10th in goal scoring, tied with Tampa, and ahead of teams with unarguably better top-end forwards such as LA, Pittsburgh, and Anaheim. Hell, Ottawa is 5th in the league in scoring but dead last in goals against...is that a team we associate with great forwards and a terrible blue line? Nashville is 12th in goals against...seems pretty balanced for a team that's blue line heavy. Tampa is 6th in goals against, so better defensively than offensively...do we think they have a better blue line than forward group? I sure don't. Calgary is 26th in goals against...is there anyone on the planet who would trade their blue line for Philly's, who is 14th and has allowed 33 fewer goals? Hell, Boston is 3rd in the league in goals for...do we look at the totality of their forward group with envy for the top end? Or are they just really deep across the board and get balanced scoring from different lines?

 

Last fun comparison: Buffalo has scored 3 fewer goals but allowed 34 more than...Anaheim! Our offense this year has produced as much scoring as a trendy Cup pick with the best record in the league for the past few months. And when you look at Anaheim, their blue line blows ours out of the galaxy...but I really don't think that's why their goal suppression is so much better, though it certainly isn't unhelpful. I guess what I'm trying to say is I think it's deeply flawed to look at goals for vs. goals against vs. place in the standings and draw conclusions on the quality of forwards and defensemen--it's not like there's 1 or 2 outliers, but the entire ranking seems to be minimally correlated.

 

Moving to point of disagreement #2, I think we have 1 defenseman who has consistently played at a top-4 level this year: Risto. And even he's been struggling really since January. Everyone else, be it through level of play or inconsistency, has performed at a 3rd pair or worse level on the whole. McCabe has come on recently (early last night notwithstanding), but I think he probably belonged in the AHL for much of the season. I like McCabe, I think he has a future in this league, but to pencil him in as an NHL defenseman, let alone a top-4 NHL defenseman on a playoff team, is putting the cart well before the horse. I love Mark Pysyk, but he's had a lot of ups and downs this year, enough to make me less than entirely confortable just assuming he's a top-4 guy on a playoff team next season (without addressing how much Bylsma may or may not like his game). McCabe is 2 years younger with less pro seasoning...are we really so certain McCabe isn't going to have a similarly rough sophomore year? We have a collection of NHL defensemen, but they're mostly 3rd pairing players right now, and I am not comfortable betting the playoffs next year on them becoming top-4 players--and their youth, the source of your optimism, is a significant source of my pessimism. And it's not like either of these guys have a great pedigree either, they've been mostly viewed as 2nd/3rd pairing ceilings for their careers.

 

Moving onto the assessment of current forwards, if you want to argue that Bogo's career has proven him to be a top-4 on a playoff team, then I'm going to argue Ennis has proven to be a top-6 on a playoff team. If you won't give me this, for the sake of this particular argument, then we're going to have to duel! Or something. I dunno. Anyway, let's aim high here for offensive numbers: last season Tampa had the most goals scored in the league, and had 5 players above the 50 point mark. They were Callahan (54), Palat (63), Kucherov (64), Johnson (72), Stamkos (72). This season we're almost certainly going to have two (Jack and ROR, unless ROR doesn't come back) with an outside chance at three (Reinhart/Risto could get hot). Eichel is on pace for 55, O'Reilly (pre-injury) 68, Risto 45, Samson 42, Kane (if healthy...yea yea, he never is for a full year) 43, and Ennis his usual 40 (technically 39, but I rounded up given his career...sue me!). That's 6 guys over 40, and Tampa had...six (Hedman and Killorn almost certainly get there without injury, and Stralman was at 39, to be fair)! 

 

Now on face it may appear that we'd want to add a 60+ forward or two, but I think that's a flawed way to look at it. For one, we are comparing to the best offense in the league last season. Sure it's nice to set your sights high, but it's probably not the most realistic comparison to make. But that aside, just through natural improvement (look at the difference between the start of the season and now, for instance) is it unreasonable to project Eichel to 70+ and Samson to 60+ next year? I honestly don't think it is, and I really believe Eichel is good for 80+ if healthy. Let's go conservative and say Eichel hits 70, O'Reilly and Samson 60, and the Kane/Ennis/Risto trio hit 40, but less than 50. That puts us as missing a 50 point player and a 70 point player versus the Tampa comparison. Again, the temptation is to say "Well there ya go, let's get Stamkos and another good top-6 player and we're gold!"

 

Now I will ask, is it crazy to think O'Reilly's 68 point pace could turn into 70 if Bylsma offloades some of his harsh minutes onto Larsson? Is it utter madness to suggest Kane can hit 50? I think not. In fact, I think that's fairly reasonable. Or maybe O'Reilly stays in the 60s, but Jack really does leap forward to 80-90 (different league, I know, but Stamkos went from 46 as a rookie to 95 his sophomore year). Even if we don't quite match Tampa's individual scoring comparison from last season, again, we're talking about the best offense in the league. What if we set the bar a little lower and go to say, the 10th best offense in the league (Anaheim)? Well, Getzlaf had 70, Perry 55 (on pace for 67 if healthy), Kesler 47...and that's it for 40+ point players. Three (Vatanen would have had 40 if healthy, in all likelihood). What they had was 7 30-point players, with nearly 9 (Palmeiri had 29 in 57 games and Cogliano had 29). Our top end this year, without projecting growth, is already better than a top-10 offensive team from last season...a team that made the conference finals. Our depth, however, isn't even close. We'll have maybe 3 guys in the 30s, the rest in the teens or lower.

 

I suppose you could say that Anaheim made the conference finals and Tampa made it to the Cup...but they both lost to the same team. Oh, and that Chicago team? They had zero 70 point players (Kane would have been if healthy), three 60 point players (only 2 if Kane were healthy), a 50 point player, and two 40 point players. The same number of 40+, with similar high end, to what we can reasonably expect next season.

 

Executive Summary:

The point I'm trying to make is the top of our offense from forwards is already set, our forward core can match that of top teams--they're already close, production-wise, to top-10 offensive teams of last season and will almost certainly be as good or better than some of those teams next season without a major addition (unless you don't think Jack and Samson will take meaningful steps forward....but then I'd really question why anyone would assert they won't but McCabe/Pysyk will).

 

I think the temptation is to tack on 30-40 with simple arithmetic of adding 1-2 forwards and BOOM we're top-10 instantly and well on our way to a Cup, so what we want to do is fire our major bullets to upgrade the forwards. I'd agree with this if we lacked offensive centerpieces, but we don't, they're already here--what we need are better complementary pieces, depth, and patience. If you would prefer to expend the majority of our assets to upgrade the forwards, what you're really saying to me is that you believe in the foundation of the blue line more than you believe in the foundation of the forwards. I couldn't possibly disagree more with this. I know upgrading the forwards vs. blue line aren't mutually exclusive propositions, but with limited resources (I'm counting both players/picks and cap space here), I do think you can only "afford" to upgrade one in a major way. Expend significant assets to help one part of the team and try to piece together some value propositions to help the other part. The essential question that you need to answer is which core group is more in need of help at the top: O'Reilly/Eichel/Reinhart/Kane or Risto/Bogo/McCabe/Pysyk? For me, it's not even close: the blue line needs help in a big way.

[Samson's Flow]

Holy college thesis batman

 

can we get a tl:dr?

[MattPie]

Holy college thesis batman

 

can we get a tl:dr?

 

You'd think with the PhD he'd know to put the Exec Summary or Abstract at the top! :) :)

[SwampD]

Summary, I do not think it means what you think it means. :lol:

 

I'm still going with forwards. Those four guys you mentioned are still REALLY young, even Bogo. Also, D aren't the only players who play defense. Better forwards will bring better play over the entire ice.

[TrueBlueGED]

I really am sorry for the length. Not concise to say the least :lol:

 

Summary, I do not think it means what you think it means. :lol:

 

I'm still going with forwards. Those four guys you mentioned are still REALLY young, even Bogo. Also, D aren't the only players who play defense. Better forwards will bring better play over the entire ice.

I don't disagree, but my argument is the mirror image of this: forwards aren't the only ones who play offense, and defensemen make the offense better through elevating the offensive play of current forwards.

[WildCard]

Annnnddd that's why I love this place. Awesome post, True. I had to mute the damn t.v. just to read the whole thing though  :lol:

[TrueBlueGED]

You'd think with the PhD he'd know to put the Exec Summary or Abstract at the top! :) :)

Nah that just encourages lazy consumption :p

[WildCard]

So some forward depth, which may be covered by Bailey and Fashing (at least in some part), a top 1-2 d-man, and hope McCabe / Pysyk can improve and do better in reduced roles? Or do we try and snag another 4-6 d-man? 

[Sabres Fan in NS]

tl:dr .........

[Norcal]

Bylsma was saying that he sees the roster as 32 deep. With call ups for injury considered, each of the players not on the current big club roster would ideally be groomed to fill a role should the need arise so callups can be seamless and the team can continue to play their system. 

 

I think it brings up an interesting question. If the prevailing thought is that the Sabres need and or will have 2-4 new F and 1-2 new D to start the season, who makes the big club and who slots in as a role player/callup? Also, how will it break down? 18 F 10 D and 4 G? 

Edited March 9, 2016 by Murray's Rats

[inkman]

I really am sorry for the length.

Said no one ever

[Weave]

Said no one ever

 

He's assuming it's not long enough.  Probably a conditioned response.

[inkman]

He's assuming it's not long enough. Probably a conditioned response.

:lol:

 

I instantly went to "too much" :ph34r:

Edited March 10, 2016 by inkman

[Thorner]

Excellent post, True. Very good read.

 

You played the role of Spock quite well - that post full of logic and many points very difficult to argue.

 

If I may play the role of Kirk for just a moment, I will say that part of the allure of signing Stamkos would be the entertainment value it would provide. If I am mistaken I apologize, but the way I remember it, it may have been you who during the tank last year referenced the idea that adding a superstar in McEichel was in no small part a great thing purely for the entertainment value it would provide us fans going forward, regardless of whether or not it "guaranteed" us anything in regards to team achievement.

 

Now, obviously we have gotten that superstar by securing Jack. But the allure of giving him a Steven Stamkos to play with is.....formidable.

 

Trade our first this year for Cam Fowler, and play some hockey?

[TrueBlueGED]

Excellent post, True. Very good read.

 

You played the role of Spock quite well - that post full of logic and many points very difficult to argue.

 

If I may play the role of Kirk for just a moment, I will say that part of the allure of signing Stamkos would be the entertainment value it would provide. If I am mistaken I apologize, but the way I remember it, it may have been you who during the tank last year referenced the idea that adding a superstar in McEichel was in no small part a great thing purely for the entertainment value it would provide us fans going forward, regardless of whether or not it "guaranteed" us anything in regards to team achievement.

 

Now, obviously we have gotten that superstar by securing Jack. But the allure of giving him a Steven Stamkos to play with is.....formidable.

 

Trade our first this year for Cam Fowler, and play some hockey?

 

I did make that argument at some point, and there's part of me that still feels similarly. But having secured Eichel and watching him play has tempered that part of me somewhat. We have our stud, we have our entertainment, now let's build to win! So yea, I think I've changed a little in how I balance entertainment and winning since our pursuit transformed into possession. But if people want to take that avenue to argue for getting Stamkos, I get it, it's not crazy. But for me personally, the goalposts have shifted to a degree.

 

Despite my general opposition to doing so, and I'd reiterate my position on the team-building of it all, but if we back up the truck for Stamkos I'm not exactly going to be kicking and screaming about it. Do I think there are better ways to build from here on out? Yes. Do I think giving him huge money dooms us? No, though I think it makes things harder and isn't quite the silver bullet some feel it is. Would it be fun? Yup! I've joked about it before, but watching the Toronto fanbase melt down would be epic levels of hilarious.

[thewookie1]

If we end up with 5th overall, and Colorado has 11th overall and they offer Buffalo 5 & Ennis for Landeskog, 11, and their 3rd would you take it? 

[Hoss]

If we end up with 5th overall, and Colorado has 11th overall and they offer Buffalo 5 & Ennis for Landeskog, 11, and their 3rd would you take it?

This may be the penultimate Wookie trade. Beautifully brutal, my friend.

If you take the 11th overall pick out of that trade I still don't think it happens.

[WildCard]

You think Landeskog is worth more than 5th overall and Ennis?

[Randall Flagg]

You think Landeskog is worth more than 5th overall and Ennis?

I do, Landeskog was a second overall pick who has proven himself to be a very good NHL player. I'd be absolutely thrilled with a pick at 5 that approaches Landeskog, and doubt that we'd get one in this draft. Edited March 10, 2016 by Randall Flagg

[dudacek]

Blue I would like to compliment you for the excellent post and I will some time between now and the draft when I finish reading it.

[Hoss]

You think Landeskog is worth more than 5th overall and Ennis?

Yes. And he's certainly worth a boatload more than moving up six spots in the draft and Ennis.

 

It's also about what Colorado needs or wants to do. They likely don't value the 5th pick much with where they're at and what they're looking for. Trades are so much more than the value of assets.

Edited March 10, 2016 by Hoss

[dudacek]

--------

Seriously, if the debate is Stamkos and Fowler or McGinn, Yandle and Fowler, we should be so lucky either way.