The Sabres Prospect Pool 2024 Edition

[Porous Five Hole]

I remember Kevyn being excited about the Russians from 2021. Still only 21 today, but almost all duds in terms of NHL potential.  Poltapov has ten goals in 112 KHL games (although positive plus minus in both years so maybe a potential 4th line guy?), Kisakov is a non factor so far in Rochester, and Sardarian can’t score in college despite being 21 and just finishing his sophomore campaign.  
 

6th round pick Novikov might be the best of the class.  Was pretty steady on there blue line for a rookie in ROC last year.   

[Flashsabre]

Leenders just got traded to the Branford Bulldogs in the OHL for 8 draft picks. I swear the guy that has to keep track of draft picks being moved in the OHL must have a nervous breakdown annually 😄

 

Edited August 30 by Flashsabre

[LGR4GM]

EP loves Leenders and basically called him the steel of the draft. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

2 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

EP loves Leenders and basically called him the steel of the draft. 

It was kind of shocking that he fell so far from his consensus ranking in the 70s. 

[LGR4GM]

Just now, GASabresIUFAN said:

It was kind of shocking that he fell so far from his consensus ranking in the 70s. 

NHL teams don't understand the position in terms of drafting. They look for 6'4" + guys and then use the eye test to draft the "best" one. 

[LGR4GM]

Pronman being this low on Zach Benson has convinced me he's a complete hack. Just does not understand the elite level problem solving Benson brings and why that is going to make him a great hockey player. 

 

 

[dudacek]

Pronman just dropped his pipeline list of the top U23 players in hockey.

Sabres have a lot of names on the list, but not at the top.

Bubble all star/top of lineup

• 19 Owen Power

Top of lineup

• 36 Jack Quinn

Bubble mid/top of lineup

• 57 JJ Peterka
• 58 Konsta Helenius
• 62 Zach Benson

MIddle of the lineup

• 102 Jiri Kulich
• 104 Noah Östlund
• 117 Anton Wahlberg
• 141 Adam Kleber

Of much interest to me: Rutger McGroarty at 147, Matt Savoie at 143.

Goalies were included. Devon Levi did not make the list.

Going to be a lot of fanbases grumbling about where their personal faves are.

Edited September 3 by dudacek

[Doohicksie]

15 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Going to be a lot of fanbases grumbling about where their personal faves are.

How many fan actually read Pronman?  I don't, unless he's mentioned here.

[LGR4GM]

No reason to grumble much. Pronman is a hack who can't evaluate skating for crap and thinks the anyone under 6ft is too small for the NHL and all goalies have to be 6'9" or they are undersized. His size biases are brutal, blatant, and not based on the realities of how NHL hockey is played. 

Read EP or if you have the Athletic, read Wheeler but EP is just worlds better with real insights into a players abilities. It isn't just "they are under 6ft and their straight line speed isn't elite so they skate bad and are too small" which is 50% of Pronman. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

He has Rossi 41 and JJP 57.  Same tier but when you read the blurb you come away asking yourself is he just phoning it in. He says Rossi is a 2nd line winger or 3rd line center while Peterka is a legit top 6 winger. Rossi finally made the NHL last season and put up 40 points, while JJP hit 50 points with 28 goals in year two despite being taken lower in the same draft class.  

Not that it matters in the scheme of things but he needs a better editor.  

The Levi thing is a joke.  He didn’t have Levi on his 2020 draft board at all.  Then in his 2022 re-draft of the 2020 draft, he listed Levi at 28 and said he was a future starting NHL goalie.  Now in 2024 he has him “playing some games” and a future backup.  By the way Corey, Levi has already played 30 NHL games.

What changed? All the guy has done is play at an elite level at every level.  His college and AHL numbers are similar to Hellebuyck and better than Oettinger and Demko.  His first year AHL numbers are very similar to Saros.  His first year NHL numbers were solid behind a poor defense.  Moneypuck even has his save above expected better than UPL.  He will likely outplay UPL this season giving us another Edwards/Sauve duel for a few years until UPL is traded.

Edited September 5 by GASabresIUFAN

[LGR4GM]

17 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

He has Rossi 41 and JJP 57.  Same tier but when you read the blurb you come away asking yourself is he just phoning it in. He says Rossi is a 2nd line winger or 3rd line center while Peterka is a legit top 6 winger. Rossi finally made the NHL last season and put up 40 points, while JJP hit 50 points with 28 goals in year two despite being lower in the same class.  

Not that it matters in the scheme of things but he needs a better editor.  

The Levi thing is a joke.  He didn’t have Levi on his 2020 draft board at all.  Then in his 2022 re-draft of the 2020 draft, he listed Levi at 28 and said he was a future starting NHL goalie.  Now in 2024 he has him “playing some games” and a future backup.  By the way Corey, Levi has already played 30 NHL games.

What changed? All the guy has done is play at an elite level at every level.  His college and AHL numbers are similar to Hellebuyck and better than Oettinger and Demko.  His first year AHL numbers are very similar to Saros.  His first year NHL numbers were solid behind a poor defense.  Moneypuck even has his save above expected better than UPL.  He will likely outplay UPL this season giving us another Edwards/Sauve duel for a few years until UPL is traded.

Levi is short, so Pronman hates him. It's petty simple really. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

11 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

It's petty simple really. 

I'm sure this is a typo, but "petty' works as well.

[#freejame]

Pronman aside, there was an interesting comment in the article:

“Quinn ahead of Peterka should make every Sabres fan laugh…we have seen every game of their careers, this dude has probably seen them 2-3 times.”

 

[dudacek]

11 minutes ago, #freejame said:

Pronman aside, there was an interesting comment in the article:

“Quinn ahead of Peterka should make every Sabres fan laugh…we have seen every game of their careers, this dude has probably seen them 2-3 times.”

 

Noted that too.

I've seen every game of their NHL careers and a fair number of their Amerk and junior games as well.

I wouldn't laugh at someone who disagreed — JJ is a talent — but I have no problem picking Quinn over Peterka.

Edited September 3 by dudacek

[LGR4GM]

Peterka: .51ppg

Quinn: .56ppg

And I'd argue Quinn is better defensively as well. 

[Thorner]

Way too early to know who’ll be the better player between the two. 

their production difference is minuscule thus far, JJ is pacing for 1 more goal, and 5 less assists than Quinn over 82

i know JJ has played more games, but it’s not so much so as to suggest he’s realized more of his potential than Quinn has, his: over the 57 games JJ has played that go beyond Quinn’s 104, JJ’s ppg over 82 improved to the extent he’d be registering 44 points over 82 compared to the 41 he would be averaging extrapolating out the earlier portion of his career. I mean there’s some development there but really both are in the same boat re: hypothetical unlocked potential relative to what they have to give

But if you think Quinn has a greater store of tools to draw on while converting that potential, it makes sense you’d expect him to be the better player 

Edited September 3 by Thorny

[Thorner]

Personally, I think it’s been 2 years now I’ve been saying I’d pick Quinn to end up our best forward. But it’s super early days, and the race is wide open 

Edited September 3 by Thorny

[LGR4GM]

Won't be open after we look back on this season. 

[Thorner]

25 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

Won't be open after we look back on this season. 

Spoiler alert! 

[dudacek]

Interesting (paywall) read on everyone’s favourite 2nd-rounder Topias Leinonen.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5744228/2024/09/04/sabres-ukko-pekka-luukkonen-topias-leinonen/

Basically explained last season’s washout - stress fracture in his foot that wiped out his summer training, pre-season reinjury, broken hand, Liiga team that didn’t trust him enough to use him, poor play in the handful of games he got in. Basically, it was a wasted year of development.

He’s slimmed down considerably this summer and is set to play Swedish 2nd division for a team that lost its starter in a small town with coaching the Sabres trust.

Goalie development coach Kotyk says they saw the skill they liked about him at development camp and a fire to reclaim his career path. Compares him to UPL and the adversity he went through.

It will be interesting to see if he can put himself back on the radar, because last year was about as bad as it could have been.

Edited September 5 by dudacek

[sabremike]

On 9/3/2024 at 11:24 AM, LGR4GM said:

Peterka: .51ppg

Quinn: .56ppg

And I'd argue Quinn is better defensively as well. 

The biggest problem with Quinn is that he appears to be made of glass. 

[Archie Lee]

On 9/3/2024 at 6:43 AM, LGR4GM said:

Pronman being this low on Zach Benson has convinced me he's a complete hack. Just does not understand the elite level problem solving Benson brings and why that is going to make him a great hockey player. 

 

 

Pronman does predict, as I understand the rankings, that Benson will be a 2nd line winger in the NHL. That’s not exactly dumping on Benson. He doesn’t see Benson as the next Brad Marchand, a top 25 NHL talent in his prime, as you do. I’m not sure that Pronman’s view on Benson is the outlier here. 

[Archie Lee]

On 9/3/2024 at 7:10 AM, Doohickie said:

How many fan actually read Pronman?  I don't, unless he's mentioned here.

I enjoy Pronman’s work. I agree and disagree with his opinions and don’t take it personally when his rankings don’t align with my personal views. For instance, I think he tends to rank the most recent draft class too high. He ranks Catton and Sennecke higher than established NHL forwards Lucas Raymond and Seth Jarvis. Catton and Sennecke could both “hit” as prospects, and not be as good as Raymond and Jarvis already are. 

[LGR4GM]

1 hour ago, Archie Lee said:

Pronman does predict, as I understand the rankings, that Benson will be a 2nd line winger in the NHL. That’s not exactly dumping on Benson. He doesn’t see Benson as the next Brad Marchand, a top 25 NHL talent in his prime, as you do. I’m not sure that Pronman’s view on Benson is the outlier here. 

Zach Benson even strength pts per 60mins was 1.9 last season. Bedard's was 2.2 p/60 at even (so 3v3, 4v4, 5v5). 

Bedards 5v5 was 1.9pts/60 and Bensons was 1.8pts/60. What this means is that if I adjust for time on ice and remove all the PP points Bedard got because Benson was given almost no time on a terrible pp, at 5v5, Zach Benson was almost equal to Connor Bedard. I will say that again, at 5v5 Zach Benson posted similar production to Connor Bedard. I am not here to say that Bedard and Benson will forever be this close and Benson is equal to him, but there are elite aspects of Benson's game that have already translated for an 18yr NHL player and he kept pace with a guy many think is the second coming of McDavid. Now I think Benson will have some limits due to his overall speed that Bedard will not. I also think Bedard has an incredible shot but Benson has incredible manipulation and passing abilities. 

Here's a quote from his EP during his draft year:

"This skill (elite hockey sense and passing) is visualized in Brown’s manually tracked data set. Benson’s expected primary assists and slot pass success percentage check in at the 100th percentile, in a sample that includes 700 forwards from this season. In a multi-year data set of over 3000 forwards, his underlying playmaking data is second to only Connor McDavid."

That's right, Zach Benson's playmaking when compared to a dataset of 3000 forwards (Bedard btw is in that set) is 2nd only to Connor McDavid. Btw, Benson is closer to McDavid than the 3rd place guy is to Benson. 

Simply put, Benson is better than Helenius, JJ Peterka, and possibly Jack Quinn although I have a sneaky suspicion that Jack Quinn is about to show us his best. Pronman ranking him 62nd is a process of not understanding what Zach Benson is doing shift in and shift out. Zach Benson at 13th overall is going to look sillier and sillier as time moves IMPO. As early as this season we could see Benson ascend to the level of top end 2nd liner. I understand the tier of "bubble top and middle of the lineup" that Pronman put him in, and I am saying it is at least 1 tier too low and possibly several. 

Edited September 5 by LGR4GM
spelling

[GASabresIUFAN]

29 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

Zach Benson even strength pts per 60mins was 1.9 last season. Bedard's was 2.2 p/60 at even (so 3v3, 4v4, 5v5). 

Bedards 5v5 was 1.9pts/60 and Bensons was 1.8pts/60. What this means is that if I adjust for time on ice and remove all the PP points Bedard got because Benson was given almost no time on a terrible pp, at 5v5, Zach Benson was almost equal to Connor Bedard. I will say that again, at 5v5 Zach Benson posted similar production to Connor Bedard. I am not here to say that Bedard and Benson will forever be this close and Benson is equal to him, but there are elite aspects of Benson's game that have already translated for an 18yr NHL player and he kept pace with a guy many think is the second coming of McDavid. Now I think Benson will have some limits due to his overall speed that Bedard will not. I also think Bedard has an incredible shot but Benson has incredible manipulation and passing abilities. 

Here's a quote from his EP during his draft year:

"This skill (elite hockey sense and passing) is visualized in Brown’s manually tracked data set. Benson’s expected primary assists and slot pass success percentage check in at the 100th percentile, in a sample that includes 700 forwards from this season. In a multi-year data set of over 3000 forwards, his underlying playmaking data is second to only Connor McDavid."

That's right, Zach Benson's playmaking when compared to a dataset of 3000 forwards (Bedard btw is in that set) is 2nd only to Connor McDavid. Btw, Benson is closer to McDavid than the 3rd place guy is to Benson. 

Simply put, Benson is better than Helenius, JJ Peterka, and possibly Jack Quinn although I have a sneaky suspicion that Jack Quinn is about to show us his best. Pronman ranking him 62nd is a process of not understanding what Zach Benson is doing shift in and shift out. Zach Benson at 13th overall is going to look sillier and sillier as time moves IMPO. As early as this season we could see Benson ascend to the level of top end 2nd liner. I understand the tier of "bubble top and middle of the lineup" that Pronman put him in, and I am saying it is at least 1 tier too low and possibly several. 

Well he's already 1st in his draft class in games played and 2nd in points behind Bedard.  😉