Sabres Sign Defenseman Nikita Novikov to 3 Year ELC

[DarthEbriate]

This is excellent news. I'm excited to see what he can do. He was getting decent minutes for his age in the KHL and did just fine. And the Amerks really needed this.

26 minutes ago, Flashsabre said:

Does anyone know if Glovtov still belongs to Buffalo? He is 25 now and had a couple decent years in the KHL. He was well liked by teammates. He might be the best option as a guy that could play for the Amerks and be a mentor for these Russian kids. Wonder if he was interested in coming back.

Glotov does show up in their system on Eliteprospects, but it seems unlikely.

[Amerks8796]

Novikov, Prow, Metsa and Jandric are the current defensemen signed next year in Rochester. I have a feeling Clague may find his way to waivers and back on the team. Shaping up to be a nice defense after they bring in or re-sign a few more depth guys. 

[French Collection]

Can I call him the Russian Mule?

[Flashsabre]

2 hours ago, Amerks8796 said:

Novikov, Prow, Metsa and Jandric are the current defensemen signed next year in Rochester. I have a feeling Clague may find his way to waivers and back on the team. Shaping up to be a nice defense after they bring in or re-sign a few more depth guys. 

Hopefully Davies and Ciccone back. Love to see Pilut but he may get a chance somewhere else

[steveoath]

Can't wait to see the Russians play tbh. Really excited for Novikov, hope he can be like mule.

[Curt]

8 hours ago, French Collection said:

Can I call him the Russian Mule?

Even better than that, he was born in Moscow and played in Moscow.  He is the Moscow Mule.

[dudacek]

Novikov is the 7th player to sign from the 2021 draft class, which is highly unusual for a Sabre draft.

Poltapov will likely make it 8. Marjala needs to sign by the end of this month or we lose his rights. 2 more years for Von Barnekow and Sardarian. I’d say all three are long shots.

The Sabres have signed 3 from 2018 and 2019 and 2 from 2020.

I count 6 from each of the 2012, 13 and 14 drafts, with 3 or 4 seeming to be more common most years going way back.

1983 was the Mother Lode: 11 of those picks actually played games for the Sabres..

Edited May 20, 2023 by dudacek

[inkman]

10 hours ago, French Collection said:

Can I call him the Russian Mule?

Moscow Mule? 

[Quint]

19 minutes ago, dudacek said:

 

 2 more years for Von Barnekow and Sardarian. I’d say all three are long shots.

 

Still smh about Montour for Sardarian. What was Adams thinking?

[Buffalonill]

10 minutes ago, Quint said:

Still smh about Montour for Sardarian. What was Adams thinking?

Montour sucked in buffalo and was a headache most nights.

Happy he found his game but he wasn't working in buffalo 

[Archie Lee]

31 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Novikov is the 7th player to sign from the 2021 draft class, which is highly unusual for a Sabre draft.

Poltapov will likely make it 8. Marjala needs to sign by the end of this month or we lose his rights. 2 more years for Von Barnekow and Sardarian. I’d say all three are long shots.

The Sabres have signed 3 from 2018 and 2019 and 2 from 2020.

I count 6 from each of the 2012, 13 and 14 drafts, with 3 or 4 seeming to be more common most years going way back.

1983 was the Mother Lode: 11 of those picks actually played games for the Sabres..

I don't know how this works, but CapFriendly has updated the "must sign by" date for Marjala to June 1, 2025.  I suspect it has something to do with him leaving Junior and going back to Finland.  I've never seen him play.  The statistical year he had in Finland moved him into the "intriguing" category. 

[Pimlach]

20 minutes ago, Quint said:

Still smh about Montour for Sardarian. What was Adams thinking?

A hasty deadline trade to get something (draft pick) for an asset (Montour) that did not want to be here.  Krueger era and JBot firing drove away Eichel, Reinhart, Ullmark, Montour, Risto - none of them wanted to stay any longer. 

[dudacek]

1 minute ago, Pimlach said:

A hasty deadline trade to get something (draft pick) for an asset (Montour) that did not want to be here.  Krueger era and JBot firing drove away Eichel, Reinhart, Ullmark, Montour, Risto - none of them wanted to stay any longer. 

Always thought the return in Montour was odd.

Whatever you thought of his play here, he was a top-4 RHD rental at the deadline. That market typically warrants a 2nd.

[Pimlach]

1 minute ago, dudacek said:

Always thought the return in Montour was odd.

Whatever you thought of his play here, he was a top-4 RHD rental at the deadline. That market typically warrants a 2nd.

Similar to the Scandella trade for a fourth.  Hasty trade to get something done. 
 

where do you rank Novikov and Johnson on the depth chart today?  

[Flashsabre]

1 hour ago, Buffalonill said:

Montour sucked in buffalo and was a headache most nights.

Happy he found his game but he wasn't working in buffalo 

Yep and everybody seems to forget that this season is a revelation for Montour. Even last season he was nothing special for Florida. He is having a career year at 29/30 years old. His trade value a couple years ago shouldn’t be based on what he is doing this season.

[French Collection]

4 minutes ago, Flashsabre said:

Yep and everybody seems to forget that this season is a revelation for Montour. Even last season he was nothing special for Florida. He is having a career year at 29/30 years old. His trade value a couple years ago shouldn’t be based on what he is doing this season.

Weegar being traded to Calgary opened up some key minutes for him.

[LabattBlue]

16 hours ago, Flashsabre said:

Boosh is an NHL dman. I don’t have a name though because not a ton of Russians stick around the AHL. Could the immortal Glovtov be on his way back😛

Glotov via Botts is the reason why Hagel isn’t a Sabre.   What a blunder. 

[Flashsabre]

4 minutes ago, LabattBlue said:

Glotov via Botts is the reason why Hagel isn’t a Sabre.   What a blunder. 

The frustration is Hagel was playing his style in junior. There was projection there. To not even sign him to an elc when Rochester were desperate for bodies was just so dumb.

[Curt]

1 hour ago, Quint said:

Still smh about Montour for Sardarian. What was Adams thinking?

He was probably thinking Montour was about to be a UFA in a couple months, things were not going well for him in Buffalo, he wasn’t going to resign, and the Sabres should get what they could for him before the deadline.

Sardarian may have turned out to be a bad pick but that’s a different issue.

[GASabresIUFAN]

3 hours ago, dudacek said:

Novikov is the 7th player to sign from the 2021 draft class, which is highly unusual for a Sabre draft.

If you include the now traded Bloom.  That draft looked really good on draft day.  Nadeau was a huge bargain in the 4th round and Kozak developed quickly for a 7th round pick.  The biggest head-scratcher was Sardarian in the 3rd.  

2022 holds similar promise into the 6th rd.  Komarov in the 5th and Richard in the 6th are showing real promise.  Neuchev might be the most anticipated non-1st rd pick in a while.  

[B-U-F-F-A-L-O]

On 5/19/2023 at 1:04 PM, Brawndo said:

Does anybody know where he is now?  I thought he went to Rochester but I guess not….

 

[RochesterExpat]

On 5/20/2023 at 11:40 AM, GASabresIUFAN said:

The biggest head-scratcher was Sardarian in the 3rd.  

I agree this was a head-scratcher, but I think he was scouted as a byproduct of playing in Russia and/or from playing on the same team as Poltapov. We know during the 20-21 season the MHL/VHL/KHL were among the only leagues with data available for the stats nerds. Since we know Sam's team has had a lot of input on draft selection  (Kulich is an example of someone they flagged as a quality candidate and justifiably so), it's entirely possible their algorithm liked Sardarian and they chose to flag him for follow up. Conversely, it's also possible that Sam's team flagged Poltapov as a target and Jerry's team decided they liked Sardarian after noticing him while watching tape of Poltapov. Someone somewhere in the organization liked something that they saw in his game.

I will go on record and say that I will not hold GMs accountable for 2021 draft choices. That was a difficult year and draft boards were a mess all over. I believe teams generally have a good idea of who is going to get drafted when. That draft had a lot of media people doing day-of research on players being selected. That being said, I'd say GMKA did a pretty good job all things considered. I think 2022 will prove to be the more impactful draft in the long-term as far as full-time NHL players are concerned.

[Doohicksie]

On 5/20/2023 at 8:59 AM, Pimlach said:

A hasty deadline trade to get something (draft pick) for an asset (Montour) that did not want to be here.  Krueger era and JBot firing drove away Eichel, Reinhart, Ullmark, Montour, Risto - none of them wanted to stay any longer. 

How many of those were "didn't want to be here" vs. "Kevyn was turning over the culture"?  I think Eichel, Reino and Risto were the latter.  Ullmark is really the only one in the first group for sure.  Montour.... probably the same thing and Ullmark... he was going to walk anyway so get what you can.

On 5/20/2023 at 9:03 AM, dudacek said:

Always thought the return in Montour was odd.

Whatever you thought of his play here, he was a top-4 RHD rental at the deadline. That market typically warrants a 2nd.

Could be that the market wasn't there for Montour... either because his value was hurt by the Krueger stank, or because there were other more attractive trade targets.

[LGR4GM]

On 5/20/2023 at 12:40 PM, GASabresIUFAN said:

If you include the now traded Bloom.  That draft looked really good on draft day.  Nadeau was a huge bargain in the 4th round and Kozak developed quickly for a 7th round pick.  The biggest head-scratcher was Sardarian in the 3rd.  

2022 holds similar promise into the 6th rd.  Komarov in the 5th and Richard in the 6th are showing real promise.  Neuchev might be the most anticipated non-1st rd pick in a while.  

Let's say non 1st or 2nd rounder. JJP has been this boards darling for quite some time. 

[LGR4GM]

22 hours ago, B-U-F-F-A-L-O said:

Does anybody know where he is now?  I thought he went to Rochester but I guess not….

Novikov will take a little while to get here. Because of the War on Ukraine, Russians have a more complex path to getting to north America and getting a US work visa. I'd hope we see Novikov at prospects camp but doubt he makes it before then. Good news is that Kisakov showed the Sabres the path so this should go smoother.