Amerks 24/25 - Young Talented Roster

[JoeSchmoe]

51 minutes ago, shrader said:

We're also writing off Östlund in here at the very start of his first year in North America.  Are you really that surprised?

Don't confuse writing off with wishing he was traded. Also don't ignore his mediocre stats going back to before he was drafted. 

[pastajoe]

The ECHL Jacksonville Icemen get a nice trip out west to Lake Tahoe to play in the first ever home game tonight for the new Tahoe Knight Monsters.

[PerreaultForever]

11 hours ago, tom webster said:

Tampa used this model pretty successfully. Drafting for skill, trading for grit has worked for multiple franchises 

It might work. But you have to make the right deals. McLeod for Savoie might be good but I think he needed to make one more like that. In general though grit guys certainly have less value on the market than skill guys. Just don't hold on to those so called skill guys too long where people have time to see flaws in their game.

[LGR4GM]

Good news is we don't have to worry about Östlund being good or bad for a long bit here. Lots of players above him right now so he can sit and develop. 

[PerreaultForever]

8 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

This is wrong. It implies that skilled players can't have character. Ziemer, Benson, Helenius all would prove that suggestion incorrect. Even JJP would prove that wrong, btw he was Helenius' size when drafted. 

Size and "character" get conflated. 

You're comparing a guy who's been in NA his entire career to a guy who's been here for 5 games. I'd probably wait a bit on Östlund. 

As usual you are twisting my words to push your own points. I did not equate size and character. I listed them as TWO things we don't seem to focus on in drafts. 

I also DID NOT say that skill guys cannot have character. Benson most definitely does have character. I like Benson and have said so repeatedly. He fell to us because of his size as you know. Ziemer I also like. I said that after the draft. At the time I said he went against our usual and frequent choices and I was very happy with that pick. I think I said he might be a sleeper steal where he was picked or something like that. Helenius I am undecided on yet. Time will tell. He was not my first round choice. 

You know the discussion we were having was on Östlund and Rosen too. Please don't twist words to make your points. It's not worth the time or effort.

[JoeSchmoe]

1 minute ago, PerreaultForever said:

As usual you are twisting my words to push your own points. I did not equate size and character. I listed them as TWO things we don't seem to focus on in drafts. 

I also DID NOT say that skill guys cannot have character. Benson most definitely does have character. I like Benson and have said so repeatedly. He fell to us because of his size as you know. Ziemer I also like. I said that after the draft. At the time I said he went against our usual and frequent choices and I was very happy with that pick. I think I said he might be a sleeper steal where he was picked or something like that. Helenius I am undecided on yet. Time will tell. He was not my first round choice. 

You know the discussion we were having was on Östlund and Rosen too. Please don't twist words to make your points. It's not worth the time or effort.

This seems about right. Some of the smaller guys we drafted like Benson and Savoie were major point producers and they were good picks despite being small. 

Östlund and Rosen were not especially good as point producers even before the Sabres drafted them. My position is if a guy is undersized AND doesn't produce points at an elite level, don't draft them in the 1st round. If no elite scorers are left, take a guy with size who has upside as an effective 3rd or 4th liner. 

[PerreaultForever]

5 minutes ago, JoeSchmoe said:

This seems about right. Some of the smaller guys we drafted like Benson and Savoie were major point producers and they were good picks despite being small. 

Östlund and Rosen were not especially good as point producers even before the Sabres drafted them. My position is if a guy is undersized AND doesn't produce points at an elite level, don't draft them in the 1st round. If no elite scorers are left, take a guy with size who has upside as an effective 3rd or 4th liner. 

I agree. I think you need a mix and if you've gone heavy on speed and skill in a previous year you need to shift to look for what you don't have as much of in the system. Keep building all types. That's my view anyway. 

This also brings to mind something I remember from years ago. I think it was Rick Dudley who said when it came to these young teenagers he always wanted to meet the fathers to see what these kids would grow into. It's one of those old school things that you need scouts going out there to see. You can use all these fancy computer models and statistical projections but you should also get out there and talk to them and see everything up close for yourself. I'm not sure the Sabres do enough of that stuff. Maybe they do and I'm just not aware of it, but I don't think so. 

[LGR4GM]

35 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

As usual you are twisting my words to push your own points. I did not equate size and character. I listed them as TWO things we don't seem to focus on in drafts. 

I also DID NOT say that skill guys cannot have character. Benson most definitely does have character. I like Benson and have said so repeatedly. He fell to us because of his size as you know. Ziemer I also like. I said that after the draft. At the time I said he went against our usual and frequent choices and I was very happy with that pick. I think I said he might be a sleeper steal where he was picked or something like that. Helenius I am undecided on yet. Time will tell. He was not my first round choice. 

You know the discussion we were having was on Östlund and Rosen too. Please don't twist words to make your points. It's not worth the time or effort.

Didn't twist anything. I directly quoted what you said and made an additional point. It was merely not to conflate the two. We do not usually draft small guys OR guys without character. Analytics accounts for the numbers and then the Sabres dig into the players behind them. It is how they drafted Benson and Ziemer and clearly a product of maybe having some buyers remorse after Rosen and perhaps Östlund although I think the org and league are fairly happy with how Östlund is coming along. 

I have detailed many times how the small thing is overblown and the character is impo not applicable. 

28 minutes ago, JoeSchmoe said:

This seems about right. Some of the smaller guys we drafted like Benson and Savoie were major point producers and they were good picks despite being small. 

Östlund and Rosen were not especially good as point producers even before the Sabres drafted them. My position is if a guy is undersized AND doesn't produce points at an elite level, don't draft them in the 1st round. If no elite scorers are left, take a guy with size who has upside as an effective 3rd or 4th liner. 

You shouldn't draft anyone who doesn't produce points in the first round. Always a bad idea. 

Edited October 24 by LGR4GM

[LGR4GM]

This was from Östlund's draft profile, and I think it still applies today.

Quote

Where problems arise with Östlund's projection is in the
way that he handles contact. He often struggled to sustain
even the tamest physical play at the SHL level last season,
spending entire games stapled to the perimeter of the
offensive zone. It's kind of hard to score from there.
The absence of a wall game, concerns about his pace, and
the lack of any finishing skill all conspired to keep Östlund
further down our board than many of our peers in the
public sphere, but there's enough there elsewhere that we
can certainly understand their enthusiasm.
Östlund's combination of speed, handling skill, playmaking,
and defensive instincts could augur great things at the next
level, but he'll need to gain a little muscle and a lot of courage
with the puck to take full advantage of his skill set.

 

[shrader]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmoe said:

This seems about right. Some of the smaller guys we drafted like Benson and Savoie were major point producers and they were good picks despite being small. 

Östlund and Rosen were not especially good as point producers even before the Sabres drafted them. My position is if a guy is undersized AND doesn't produce points at an elite level, don't draft them in the 1st round. If no elite scorers are left, take a guy with size who has upside as an effective 3rd or 4th liner. 

They weren’t point producers when they were both children playing in an adult league. How exactly do you gauge that? It’s not exactly apples to apples when comparing them to the CHL guys. 
 

Now maybe there’s more junior number out there that aren’t as easy to find. I don’t know, just going off of hockeydb. 

[JoeSchmoe]

12 minutes ago, shrader said:

They weren’t point producers when they were both children playing in an adult league. How exactly do you gauge that? It’s not exactly apples to apples when comparing them to the CHL guys. 
 

Now maybe there’s more junior number out there that aren’t as easy to find. I don’t know, just going off of hockeydb. 

The Swedish Junior numbers are in Elite Prospects.

EDIT- In his draft year, Östlund was 4th among U18 players in ppg in the Swedish U20 league.

 

Edited October 24 by JoeSchmoe

[shrader]

50 minutes ago, JoeSchmoe said:

The Swedish Junior numbers are in Elite Prospects.

EDIT- In his draft year, Östlund was 4th among U18 players in ppg in the Swedish U20 league.

 

Did you happen to see what happened with the other 3?

[Flashsabre]

https://www.expectedbuffalo.com/key-buffalo-sabres-prospects-have-stood-out-to-start-the-rochester-amerks-season/

[PerreaultForever]

2 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

This was from Östlund's draft profile, and I think it still applies today.

 

Which exactly illustrated what we were saying and you were arguing against. Thanks for posting it. 

[JoeSchmoe]

1 hour ago, shrader said:

Did you happen to see what happened with the other 3?

https://www.eliteprospects.com/league/j20-nationell/stats/2021-2022?age=u18&sort=ppg

I ignored the first guy since he only had 2GP.

Looks like Liam Öhgren was available. Anaheim got him at 19. He is bigger than Östlund and as you can see far outproduced him. That said, he's maybe only a bit ahead development wise.

Carlsson is a December kid and wasn't available until the next draft and went #2.

Lekkerimaki went one pick ahead of Östlund and again looks to be slightly ahead as well.

As I keep saying, if it were me and I saw not a lot of high end "proven" skill left on the board, I'd have gone for more size.

Ivan Miroshnichenko taken at 19 is 6'1 194lb and had 25pt in 47GP in Hershey last year. He could be a solid 2nd or 3rd liner eventually.

Nathan Gaucher taken at 22 is 6'3 over 200lb and put up 25pt in 72GP in the AHL last year with 68 PMs. He's got a solid shot at being a contributing 3rd or 4th liner in the league.

 

 

[LGR4GM]

I really liked Gaucher at the draft and Ohgren over Östlund. I would have taken Filip Bystedt as well there as he is a 6'2" center and was quite good last year in the short time he got AHL games. I don't disagree about taking Östlund versus some others, 

Looking back at my rankings, Östlund ended up 24th for me with guys like Kulich, Yurov, Beck, Trikozov, and Ohgren above him. Actually I was really high on Ohgren and ranked him 8th above Savoie at 9. 

I would have gone: Mintyukov, Ohgren, and Kulich/Trikozov for my draft based on the list I have. It is fine looking back at this actually. Have some really good hits and a bunch of wtf was I thinking. 

[PromoTheRobot]

Amerks take one in a shootout at Cleveland. Hauser stood on his head when it mattered. Jobst got one in the shootout to keep us alive, then Helenius got the winner in rd 6.

[JoeSchmoe]

2 goals for Anton Wahlberg tonight. That's 3G and 2A in 7 games for a young 19yo C. Hopefully he keeps it up.

[Porous Five Hole]

Amerks with a six goal third period and win 8-1. Nice for Sandstrom to get an “easy” win. ROC plays Utica again tomorrow, who is 0-8 to start the year 😳

[JoeSchmoe]

20 minutes ago, Porous Five Hole said:

Amerks with a six goal third period and win 8-1. Nice for Sandstrom to get an “easy” win. ROC plays Utica again tomorrow, who is 0-8 to start the year 😳

Yikes!